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The Roar

Gavin Melville

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Joined May 2013

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I love watching all sports (honest - even dressage) especially live. But I do TV, radio and internet commentary too. Don't mind highlights, but struggle with 'delayed live'.

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Alright
I get your point
My bad sort

Wallabies second, but fourth most improved after Rugby World Cup final

No, I don’t think so, Cuw
Ireland went into the tourney with 84.40 WRP
they went up to 85.74 with a victory over France
but lost a whopping 4.58 WRP by getting a paddlin’ from Argentina
Down to 81.17

Double points and a big win at the World Cup can make for big swings

Wallabies second, but fourth most improved after Rugby World Cup final

A 4-try draw will be enough for Scotland to go thru

Scots need win to guarantee quarter-final

Thanks for just saying.
Fiji can get to a maximum 10pts with a 5-0 win over Wales and a 5-0 win over Uruguay.
My assumption is that England get to 11 points with a 5pt win over Uruguay.
So Fiji can’t catch England.
Australia and Wales are on 9pts.
They have to play.
One of them wins (13pts) or they draw (both on 11pts)
So Fiji can’t catch both Australia and Wales.
Fiji are out.

I’ll happily bet anyone, at good odds, that England get a bonus point win over Uruguay

Pool A analysis: Who will survive the group of death?

Wow!

played 150 tests

1500 points notched up

65 years old

and then Dan Carter switches to scrum-half to show hes been the best in the world there all these years.

What a guy!

[VIDEO] Wallabies vs All Blacks: Bledisloe Cup highlights, scores, blog

This is tight.
Pocock the MOTM so far.
NZ need to sort out their plan to cope with the “2 Fetchers” strategy.
Aus need to get the ball thru the hands faster than the NZ Rush gets up to them
Barnes brooks no lip from captains, McCaw handlimg that better.

[VIDEO] Wallabies vs All Blacks: Bledisloe Cup highlights, scores, blog

You do not want to see this game.
Unless you are a salesman for plastic/hybrid pitches.

[VIDEO] Sam Burgess makes big hitting European Cup debut for Bath

You can’t just have a go at everyone.
Scotland came all the way round the world to tour in 2012.
I wouldn’t imagine the logistics of that was easy.
Here’s a report from the opener.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/18324263

Scotland had 3 games in November
v Argentina, Crowd 36764
v NZ, Crowd 67500
v Tonga, Crowd 16026 at Kilmarnock, because the SRU knew that not so many people wouldn’t want to see the game
That’s the reality of it.
Those crowds are pretty big compared to Southern Hemisphere crowds

England will get 80,000 at Twickenham for almost everything.
They will get richer.

Rugby is gradually filtering money into the richer clubs and nations.
England have a massive amount of cash and recently spent £77M on redeveloping Twickers.
Since professionalism, the rich have got richer and the poor poorer.
The talent from the Island nations have to work abroad if they want the contest, cash and kudos rewards that rugby can bring.
Much the same for a lot of other players.
Like the ultra-competitive English Prem at soccer, the French Rugby Top14 League has oodles of cash, big crowds and big talent. Meanwhile the national side festers as frenchmen can’t get a game in the Top14, as they are displaced by foreign talent.
The English are jealous of this and want a higher salary cap for their league. But not all their teams want this, as not all their team have oodles of cash, just the big clubs.
The biggest English clubs run the Youth Academies, so they ones can control the upcoming talent. The smaller clubs suffer this as occasionally they get a bit of the apple. It’s a closed shop.
Internationally, rugby has got so that the bigger players are getting bigger. I’ve seen Scotland & Welsh Rugby go near-bankrupt and dissolve in a fit of club v country conflicts. Ireland have huge tax breaks to try to retain talent.
The islands have been putting up with this sort of thing too.
World Rugby needs to step in to tax the rich and redistribute wealth to the poor.
Otherwise, the bigger nations have all the success, but will be playing on their own.

England can pretty much fill Twickenham with 80,000 people for anything.

Tier 1 nations continue their Pacific neglect

Any team ever picked is “opinion” unless it’s mechanically picked on statistics…
e.g. “we’ll pick the Fly-Half who has the biggest pass percentage”
and even then, it’s opinion as to on which statistics one bases ones criteria.
Well, I suppose you could pick names out of a hat full of all eligible names for randomness…..

Meantime
here’s who I have completed 100m games during the 2014 November Internationals
(best of luck lining this table up)
Pos T/A Pts K/P/R MR CB DB OL TO Tack LO Pen Y/R
FB Folau 0/0 0 1/11/14 110 0 5 3 1 0/0 0/0 0 0/0 Aus v Eng
C Ashley-Cooper 0/0 0 0/3/15 164 3 4 0 1 3/1 0/0 0 0/0 Aus v Eng
FB Hogg 1/0 5 2/7/7 136 3 3 2 0 4/0 0/0 1 0/0 Scotland v Tonga
FB Masi 0/0 0 9/7/14 113 0 2 0 1 4/0 0/0 1 0/0 Italy v Argentin
W Piutau 0/0 0 1/4/13 100 1 2 1 0 1/1 0/0 0 0/0 NZ v Scotlan
FB Folau 2/0 10 2/8/12 146 2 3 2 0 1/0 0/0 0 0/0 Aus v Wales

Three Wallabies in BBC's Spring Tour Team

Get on the pies, mate, and down the gym.
Sign up for some extra coaching for your set-piece, even if you’re just watching youtube scrums.
Bulk up and wise up.

Recent events have shown that there isn’t a surfeit of Wallaby scrummaging talent in place.
Plenty opportunities for an ambitious young man.

Weeks wants Wallaby action

Always the case, Rob.
The Backs get the glory and all the attention.
The Forwards grow big beards and eat pies.
It’s really tricky to figure out what’s going on at the scrum for the viewer, the coaches and the officials.
Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out what’s going on when your in a scrum yourself.
(When I was coaching, though, I was astounded how much I could see when “referreeing” in friendlies – bang up next to the packs.)
Australia clearly drill these sexy back-moves to death.
More time spent drilling the skipper as to what to say to the refs in “pat” situations (e.g. “their Tight-Head is boring-in, sir”)
so that they are game-whinge ready might be an idea.

Support your local forwards, they need you

Sounds like Mark Hammett is expecting a “Mauling” in more ways than one.
Is he just trying to pre-influence the ref?
(That’s all the rage these days. There’s a school of thought that Gareth Jenkins was “complained out” of the scrums during the recent 6N. “Sir, sir – #1’s not playing properly, sir!”)

Refs are pretty hot on the warnings for the maul stopping moving, if the defence can get it to pause.

Anyway, Hammett could always adopt this tactic from the recent Cardiff v Ulster game.
Here’s Cardiff’s maul going so fast it looks like they’ve tripped over their own feet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/26812298
Although the ref did give a pen.

Bulls rolling maul illegal: 'Canes coach

Ta.
Should be an easy ‘loosener’.
France were woeful during the 6N.
Even when they beat England in the opener.
They rolled their Double 6 against Ireland and decided to play for that one, though.
Probably the most talented group of 15 rugby players not to make a team.

Waratahs coach dumps Test prop Robinson

Why not have the players wear funny hats?
Or maybe have a “joker” player who wears a jester costume and can only be tackled if the tackler holds his nose?
What about a giant pink rabbit that runs across the pitch and if it touches the ball-carrier then there has to be a 6-man scrum?

The 6N is a hugely successful competition.
It doesn’t need any help from commercialism to liven it up.

Georgia and Romania may be improving but they’re way down the skill list.
The glory days of Romanian rugby are in the past. When the Soviet-Bloc Army-Sports system allowed fulltime training.
They’re hardly setting the Amlin Cup alight.

Why not invite them into the Rugby Championship to make that up to 6 sides?

Six Nations: The good, the bad and the ugly

Yeah, I agree that this is the traditional role of the box-kick.

Some teams use it these days to try to keep their team on the front-foot, especially when confronted with a large opposition pack.
More often than not down the 5/15 channel.
Short boxxy over the top, get your squad chasing and the other lot’s lardy-chaps turning.
Such a scenario relies on the box-kicker’s winger and (usually) 12 to bear down on the poor winger/FB catching the ball.
The plan is that the catching team either
– drops it under pressure, for an advantage
– misses it for your chasers to catch
– catches it and gets caught, allowing your front-foot chasers to burrow in for a jackal
– catch & flip the ball out the line to be caught by your front-foot loose-forward/centre chasers to bang in for the tackle & jackal
– catch & flip the ball out the line to be kicked back to your back-3 (#15,#10 and other winger) to spark off another counter-attack
Note that “catch & flip the ball out the line” plays into the hands of your mobile loosies and away from their fat-lads in the pack.

Works in theory. Especially if your #9 can ‘feather’ his boxxies to not try to kick too far.

The art of the box kick

When’s the next Wallaby fixture? Is it the 4N?

Waratahs coach dumps Test prop Robinson

Don’t worry too much about knowing what’s going on in the front-row.
No one else knows either.
You’re as well giving out awards to the bloke who gets up from the scrum smiling – that’s as good an indication as any.

When I was playing front-row, and a pen was given for something on the other side of the scrum, I’d have no idea whether it was right or wrong.
When I was coaching, I’d have the binoculars out trying to figure it out. Mostly to no avail.
When I was refereeing, I was astonished how much I could see going on at the scrum, until it occurred to me I’d no visibility at all of the other side.
Watching on the TV, sometimes I see things, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes pundit-people point stuff out which looks so obvious, I’m astonished when I miss it.
The only time I ‘get it’ is when somebody has looked at the scrum 10 times from 20 different angles including the spider-cam and in super slo-mo.

What chance has a referee got?

Australian Super Rugby team of the week roundup

That’s what I thought too, WNM, when I saw that picture.
Pretend to pass it back but hold onto it and allow the prop to take it on the crash.
Either he takes it up to the 22 or one of those slow-returning ABs will tackle him from an offside position.

It’s a doddle watching it on the telly and even easier 6 months later looking at a still-photo of the game.
Move over Stu Lancaster, me & Melon are moving in!

The art of the box kick

If the player is bound onto the ruck, then he’s considered part of the ruck.
He’s not part of a screen and isn’t obstructing.
He’s part of the ruck.

It’s easy to be hanging onto the outside of the ruck and co-incidentally getting in the way of onrushing defenders,
The real pros are very adept at just coming out of the ruck and accidentally turning round & moving into the path of said onrushing defenders.

Check your Beginners Guide to All Black Rugby, page 1.
These blokes are brilliant at it.

The art of the box kick

As at

Solving the knock-on puzzle


I think I’ve heard that there’s a General Instruction out to refs to try to get a decision made on the field rather than go to the TMO.
The TMO is deemed to be taking too long on a lot of occasions.
And seems to be tossing a coin on some of them anyway…..

Six Nations: The good, the bad and the ugly

Well, at least the ref spotted the incident to refer it to the TMO.
During the France 20-22 Ireland game on Saturday, the preening self-important cross-Tasman whistler Steve Walsh didn’t refer the blatant knock-on upstairs for France’s try at the base of the post. Even baby-faced flanker Szarzewski looked surprised that the bearded official had awarded it.
I think there’s a “make a decision on the pitch” uber-instruction on the go.
And there’s a RWC due up next year, so there’s restricted opportunities left to get the name in the frame for reffing the final.

Note, too, that everybody writes to the IRB Ref Committee, when they’re beaten:
Graham Rowntree & Stuart Lancaster wrote in about Walsh after Wales humped England 30-3 at the 6N last year,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/21853814
Scott Johnson asked for ‘clarification’about the number of penalties against Scotland this 6N
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/26550785
and Richard Cockerill has a stack of IRB forms in his top drawer to complain about anything & everything when Leicester don’t win.
Even if they do win, he still has a grump.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/25538477
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/23140518
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/24552105

Solving the knock-on puzzle

For Inter-conference, SA teams are 5-0 in Africa but are 0-5 overseas.

Super Rugby: The first term report card

Do you reckon they’ll get 20,000 there?
Surely the Perth public will fancy that the Force have score all their tries for the season already

Confident Force ready for Chiefs battle

Hmmmn.
The reds have no form in SA. The Lions are a very patient side and I expect that’ll frustrate the Reds, who like it open.
The Tans have the class but have they got the temperament? Cheika looks like he’s not so good at the old ‘Poker Face’ himself.

I with Dru,though – plenty of time to go

Confident Force ready for Chiefs battle

when’s the judgement due on McCalman?

Confident Force ready for Chiefs battle

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