The only time “Big” and “Four” can be used in the same sentence as Arsenal nowadays is that they are dreaming big by aiming for fourth.

Ultimately there is nothing wrong with any style as long as you have adequate time to implement it. Twice now though, both Men’s and Women’s national teams have had new coaches try to make sweeping changes within a year of a World Cup.

The Men’s went out in straight sets failing to even win a game, though not huge difference from what was expected (to be a maybe get out of the group). The Women’s are a completely different story though. Prior to the change the trajectory was for a semi final berth. Currently we will be lucky to move past the Round of 16.

Bang on.

While our approach under Staj worked against direct open athletic styles of US, Brasil, and Japan;
it had troubles when we had top break down a tight packed defence.

In the case of small Asian country that employed a traditional Park the Bus and hope for something on the counter, we struggled to break them down even with mountains of possession because our players don’t have the passing and technical touch skills in tight that are needed.
While we manage most of the time to break through sure enough every now and then we will lose to the one or two chances on the counter.

Europeans sides are a different beast altogether. They have deep sitting defences that aren’t flooded, just very well organised and drilled. This makes them much more dangerous as they have more players available to them to transition through the midfield. Additionally they have better technical ball control skills. They have been coached to use their bodies to protect the ball and hold up possession.
As we saw the Netherlands and Italy do countless times against Ante’s high-line defence, it allowed them to roll defenders and play balls through or over the line at will. Then we have two tall centre backs with average to poor speed continuously sprinting back. Not really playing to our defences strengths . Even a standard depth defensive line would allow centre backs with a height advantage defuse the majority of direct long balls in the air.

We also beat them 5-0 just before the Asian Cup. Football will always throw up scorelines that go against the grain of rankings. Cherry picking the ones that suit your narrative exposes an agenda.

It is fair to say there are a few sports journo’s that have learnt a lesson in regards to trusting sources from this affair.

I do feel a little sorry for them as the information that was feed to them was given as if they were being briefed prior to the announcement; a practice that is used to ensure a press conference runs smoothly by allowing the main outlets have enough information to ask questions straight away and avoid awkward silence and dead air.

They should have realised pretty quickly that something was wrong though when Gallop refused to comment on leaked slurs by Reid.

I have seen Garby apoligise on air for initially falling for it and remember he was actually pretty quick to change his tune in the weeks after when we continue to receive no transparency on the matter.

“3. Be incorruptible.”

The NewsCorp puppet who abitrially decided which clubs got punished for salary cap breaches and which got away with it.

The guy who sent a message to young kids that the punishment for drink driving is missing two games of footy…..

You are having a laugh.

While I agree that FIFA should be looking outside the current family, they won’t. Europe and South America will band together to try and maintain their dominance by backing Plattini. This will succeed unless the rest of the countries get behind someone else.

The only Australian who would stand a chance of being considered is John Fahey after his stint with WADA, and their pursuit of cleaning up cycling. But like is said before it will never happen.

Some rather amusing quips and obvious bias trolling here.

As for the fine??? $50 K per five minutes huh???

…..hhhmmmmmmmmm…… that’s a grand total of $2.65 million that the NRL should be fined by the clubs on behalf of the fans for the game starting 4 hours and 25 minutes late.

Lachlan, I agree with all the points you made as to why this should be a victory for RL fans every where.

It certainly was the most brutal GF I have seen.

The old saying “When South’s are doing well, Rugby League is doing well” should being ringing true…….

However as a sports nut who watches all codes of football without bias, the changes in the laws of the NRL and AFL over the last 5 years have me bewildered. The move to interpretive laws has change both codes to the point that they are becoming confusing to watch. the NRL and AFL have always had it over Union that they are more attractive to watch as they are easier to understand.

I am telling you right now that Union has gone ahead in massive strides as they have removed a tonne of ruck laws and cleaned up the rest to make them easier to understand, apply and perform. If anyone had told me 5 years ago that Union would be easier and more attractive to watch because of its rules i would assume they were on drugs or a private schoolboy…….. yet here we are.

Wow Peter. Not many people come up with theory and then provide the evidence themselves to bury it.

Firstly the spear is the driving action, it has nothing to do with the lifting. Clearly there is no driving action is this tackle.

Secondly, you have provided a youtube link that clearly show that Luke setting, performing a textbook head to the right hip arms around the waist tackle. As $BW’s momentum carries him over Luke’s shoulder hims hands slip down a bit tho the upper thighs. At no time does he change his grip to place an arm between $BW’s legs. What you are seeing is Luke’s right hand gripping $BW’s leg from around the outside of his leg.

As for being a judiciary advocate… no one would have gotten a different verdict. they had their minds made up before he went in.

NRL’s laws and the application of them through the reporting and judicial system over the past 6 years are in such a decline that we are now spirally out of control. When text book around the waste tackles can get you suspended we have reached a crisis point. The NRL needs to reign it in or we will find that the code will become OZTAG before the end of the decade.

Mr Joubert,

The point is that the two instances where the Bulldogs kick were charged down where exactly the same as the Bunnies charge down. Bulldogs didn’t get 6 more tackles, bunnies did.

You can have an opinion either way of whether they weren’t or were not deserving of 6 more tackles, however it needs to be adjudicated consistently to both teams. In the GF it clearly was not, which is one of the biggest grips that fans have with the standard of refereeing in general.

Matt,

Your the first person I have heard complaining about inglis being held down. I didn’t really notice anyhting obvious and it seems neither did the majority. I’ll have a look when I watch it again. I think everyone acknowledges that Finnicune should have ridden he [pine for 10 mins. Giving up a pen to prevent a try or goal has been going on across all codes by all teams for decades. Not sure what more can be done other than the current rules.

As for the refs, the abuse and hassling is a symptom of poor performance and the changing of laws to vague interpretations. Change them back to black and white laws where if you infringe you get pinged and you will find fans and players will feel clearer about what is going on.

The other factor is the bizarre crusade by Rugby League officialdom to make the game even faster. You have players and captains who have no idea what they just got penalised for, being disrespected by continually poor referees when they ask the question.

12 men? are you talking about Finnicune in the first hald???? If so that is a fair point was surprised given the field postion that he didn’t get 10.

there were more tyhan one wrong knock on…… two charge downs where the tackle count didn’t restart ( of course when the shoe was on the other foot Souths got 6 again). The penalty to go 8 clear was for Aiden Tolman being pushed of the mark by the Souths player????

I have no problem with Souths winning as they were the better team on the night, however once again park footy standard officiating robbed us all of what looked to be a great finish.

Just think about it from the Dogs point of view. Captain and hooker out of the game, half back limited on one knee, 5/8 has popped his shoulder, your SOO has had no speed since origin…. it 6-12 with 15 to go that is a massive effort.

It baffles me how no one can see that the banning of the shoulder charge has had a direct correlation to the increase in head clashes between these of hard charging and hard hitting forwards. Because they now have to make sure that at least one arm is wrapped around the player, these front on big tackles place two players square on with the resulting big impact always likely to result in the heads of both players whipping forward. Once again an example of the NRL taking one step forward and two steps back.

Hodkinson and Morris were passengers from injuries. Morris has been since the SOO really. Still a massive effort, couldn’t believe it when they got back to 6 all and thought they were very hard done by with the penalty that took Souths 8 in front and the third try being a bounce ball.

There is a common theme to Channel 9’s commentary – Repetition. That’s what happens when you try to turn a bunch of knuckle dragging ex players into TV presenters. They have a limited vocabulary and no sense of the value of a few well chosen words. Apart from Ray Warren they are all useless.

Mindless agitation.

Issac Luke performed a text book around the waist driving up tackle. Head to one side of the hip…. what followed was $BW having enough momentum to drive through the strength of Luke’s tackle…. unfortunately that momentum took him up over Luke’s shoulder and resulted in $BW going over a vertical. $BW himself realized want was happening and had enough time to brace with his elbow.

When a text book tackle goes wrong, the last thing the NRL should be doing is punishing players. We have enough morons in the peanut gallery to do that….

GK: Matty Ryan – Agree although Langerak will be an honest danger if Ryan doesn’t perform.

DF: Ivan Franjic, Rhys Williams, Matt Spironovic, Jason Davidson – I think you will find Trent Sainsbury will partner Spironovic when fit. Ange rates him highly and he was a step ahead of the A-League when he went to Holland.

DMF: Mile Jedinak (c), Mark Milligan – Milliganm will struggle to keep Holland out over the next few years even with Milligan being a favourite of Ange

AMF: Matt Leckie, Tom Rogic, Robert Kruse – Obviously Rogic is different when fit, but there is a good chance with Kruse playing right and Leckie on the left that Tommy Oar will take on the CAM as he has moved there with Utrecht

ST: Adam Taggart – Probably the position that I am least convinced about. But I am thinking that we could hopefully see Kwame Yeboah filling this role soon enough, and we have Skapetis developing nicely. I think he recently moved to Stoke City.

Seriously you all need to watch a replay as there was a defender between the two. Stefan De Vrij was between Oar and Leckie on the six yard line meaning he could not play the ball across angled towards goal.

I have seen a camera angle that was from the goal frame that clearly shows Oar’s second touch placed the ball perfectly in front of him.

Every one has opinions but surely the bare minimum for writing about something is to actually watch the incident a number of times

I agree that the pass was not executed well….. as I explained he was trying to disguise it as a shot which is why it was so strong and whipped.

Spot on Ben.

I was actually waiting for an announcement as to why the game started 20 minutes late. Every origin it is getting worse.

– The former reality TV victims of Channel 9 singing….. an who the hell decided boy bands were allowed back???
– The bile inducing man crush comments of players while they are standing with arms crossed in front of them.
– Phil ‘Jabba the Hutt’ strolling under the goals posts as a camera on a segway orbits him, punishing us with a view of every
extra chin while he drones on about how awesome the game we are waiting to watch is……as if we had the wrong channel by accident?

Apart from Jabba the Gould reminding us of the 1 out of 10 predictions from the start of the game he got right, the commentary is not to bad. Ray Warren may annoy is with cross promotions because he has no choice but when you consider the others Gilbert, Smith, and Voss; he is quickly forgiven.

As a commentator Hadley is experienced and is slowly learning the art of less words on TV than radio. As long as he doesn’t bring his know nothing shock jock agitator day job into the commentary box. He will be fine.

@Eliah James The Western Force has had a strong loyal fan base from the word go. Regardless of results they come back each homegame.

The Wallabies vsSouth africa Tri Nations/Rugby Champioship game that is played over there each year has becomea feature game on the calander. Due to the fact its kind of halfway between the east coast of Oz and South Africa it cancels oput the away teams travel disadvantage and has consistently produced some of the best game between the two nations. Always close.

Now the thing is that Rugby fans are not as monosalbic as League fans.They can watch and enjoy more than one code of football, and they don’t have commentators constantly trying to put down the other code.

Perth will work because it already has a core fanbase there.

I agree with all your other comments, but have obvious concerns oer Central QLD which i will get back to.

Should we be supporting the NZRL? Why the hell not. Rugby Leagues biggest problem is the non existence of international rugby league of any significance.

Since 1995 whe Rugby went professional and League went to war with itself, the international peneration of each gam has gone in opposite directions. Rugby has expanded in both hemispheres, has grown the number of teams playing in the RWC, one through the ainful years of blowouts with the minows, and has emerged in the 2011 RWC with tournament where a majority of games were a decent contest, including a few boilovers.

Going into the quarter finals even though the All Blacks were favourites as usual, fact was they had at that stage spent “24 years in a chokey boat”. No one would have been stunned if they did uit again and that would leave 7 other teams where some might have been expected to be favourites but in reality none were.

That is where Rugby is 16 years on.

Sadly the fact is you currently have 33% chance of guessing the match up of any international rugby league game of any relevance. Being a young lad who would stay up to the wee hours of the morning to watch as many games of the Kangaroo tours as were shown back then, it really heartbraking to see how far those in chage of Rugby League have let the international game flounder.

While supporting the NZRL is not a direct focus on the international game, anything that helps strengthen the game and moves them to a path of growth and self sufficency is good for the game. For NZ they should be looking at a second club and a Origin type series to run con currently with the State of Origin.Once that is done, the game of Rugby League eeds to focus on rebuilding the structures of the international calander. World up every 4 years with as many countries as possible, kangaroo tours and so on.

M concerns over Central QLD is that the supporter base is so spreadout. Where would it be based? Would it have a couple of home grounds? Will the suppoters travel soi far for each home game? Would they keep it up over the long haul?

I think the expansion realiy is that 20 clubs would be the limit, and maybe another two say 5 years later on to make up a all teams play each other once schedule.

20 clubs would mean that we have 5 options to fit into 4 franchises. One would have to wait… tough choice but to be honest, these days it will not come down to who deserves it; it will be decided on hich club can capture the biggest development market and expand TV revenue. Based on tha assumption Central QLD would lose out.

Adelaide is a non-starter. It is a AFL and soccer town, always have been. League and /or Union just won’t find a market there. The game is to tough for the Adelaide sensibility.

If you have ever met someone who grew up there you would understand what i’m talking about.

Union are already talking about where next to expand as NZ and SA can provide more teams but we can’t. They would have more success expanding into Argentina.

Perth would work as it has the blue collar population, another queensland team and a central coast Bears.

As for moving clubs, I feel the St George Illawarra Dragons is not working as the areas are split. Maybe we can ship them to Tasmania…..

While i agreed with your thinking, the central coast is not really sydney and is a huge growth area. They have a decent rectagular stadium already in place with only a summer tenant.

A Central Coast Bears taps into that market, restores the Bears to the topgrade which will be great for PR for old timers who have been disgruntled by the modernisation, and i’m prretty sure Singo will fund the whole thing.

There are a few other good options in Queensland and Perth, Adelaide is a non-starter. It is a AFL and soccer town, always have been. League and /or Union just won’t find a market there. The game is to tough for the Adelaide sensibility.

Maybe a secod NZ team. I was over the north island during the 2011 RWC and was constantly surprised how many people wanted to talk about the warriors and other NRL teams with me. I watched the second half of the Manly wariors grand final in an old style small town pub with rows of drinking tables. They were all glued to the league while there were two important RWC pool games on. I can see a Wellington side based at the Caketin being a decent option.

“From the evidence presented, it would seem that nearly everyone involved in the game would rather this issue just go away and we learn from this episode (greater scruitiny of the supplements programs and the ASADA regs).”

What a weak statement.

The game will only learn from this episode if the full truth and extent of it is revealed. I would understand the wish that it had never happened. However, depsite the predictable whinning of the usual suspects of league protanginists that this is all a beat up, clearly there are issues that need to be answered. What is becomig more apparent is this is just the start.

The NRL community needs to muzzle the self important over opinionated broadcasters who have been trying to deflect the issue from the NRL onto conspiracies theories of the political domain. The ACC and ASADA have a repsonsibility to investigate and report on any activity that falls under their domain. Anything less would be negligent to the Australian public.

The only thing being blown out of proportion, is this spin of know-nothing shock -jocks on talkback radio, trying to turn this into another political issue to stir up the fake outrage that keeps their ratings high.

HECS for atheletes sounds fair as long as it is limited to income earnt from sport.

As for all this “un-australian” Macarthyism, if you don’t like what goes on in this country, move on. If it happens in this country then it is Australian whether you like it or not.

All those are examples in cricket which I addressed as a reason why other codes had been lax.

The belief that Indian bookmakers targeted cricket because it is the most popular sport in their country.

These bookmakers fixing sport are criminals. Criminals like money not sport and don’t care where they get it from.