Devil in statistics for our Bledisloe woe

Jerry, If we lived in a perfect world we might go back to the following scenario. 2012 - Australia tour NZ; SA tour Argentina. 2013 - NZ tour SA; Argentina tour Australia. 2014 - Australia tour SA; NZ tour Argentina. 2015 - Mini round of 4N (3 matches each); Rugby World Cup. 2016 - NZ tour Australia; Argentina tour SA. 2017 - SA tour NZ; Australia tour Argentina. 2018 - SA tour Australia; Argentina tour NZ. 2019 - Mini round of 4N (3 matches); Rugby World Cup. And so on..... It's just another variation, trying to combine the best from the old amateur days with the best from the current professional days. Which would make practical common sense, wouldn't it..... ?

you are right jerry it wont happen

I'd like the TN to be a four yearly tournament spaced 2 years between WC's, or at the very most a two yearly tournament. It'll never happen, but it'd allow for meaningful tours in the off years.

The problem when the game became professional is that money now overrides practicalities. When pay-TV first appeared, it was desperate to get any sport into its programming. As it raked in enormous money & gained power from that, it began to dictate to sports to come up with more meaningless matches to help pay-TV's scheduling programs. What we see today is driven purely to satisfy pay-TV primarily. It's not good enough to have separate football & cricket seasons, there has to be football 24/7/52 & cricket 24/7/52. The impracticality in rugby is that we still have a contest for the Bledisloe Cup & Mandela Challenge Plate within the Tri-Nations. Simple answer, let's just have more test matches. But now the quality is being diluted, & fans aren't as motivated to watch wall-to-wall test matches, no matter how much we might love our sport. When Argentina joins in 2012(?) we might see some sanity return. Each of the 4 countries play each other twice for 6 games each - 3 home, 3 away. If it means Wallas & ABs playing each other twice only (each year), then so be it. The 3-4N takes precedence over the BC. The alternative is to can the 3-4N, & return to 3 test match tours every couple of years. Since the 3N is here to say, I would much prefer the likely format from 2012 onwards. Another question is why we need to have 4 tests in the northern hemisphere EVERY year (bar WC years). Again, it's driven by pay-TV. I would suggest a calender schedule of only 2 x incoming tests, 6 x 4N tests & 2 x outgoing tests. That's a maximum of 10 tests in non-WC years. In WC years, I would reduce the 4N to just 3 tests each, plus the incoming tests, plus the WC matches (4-7), which would mean 9-12 tests in a WC year. It should be remembered if the Wallabies hosted 2 incoming tests, & toured 2 outgoing tests in each of 3 non-WC years, they would end up playing northern hemisphere 6N countries twice during this period - once at home, once away. WC appearances against various nations would be in addition to this. Having less (tests) is actually more. It will heighten, rather than dilute, the anticipation of sports fans.

Fog, In which year are we being too hard on the Wallabies - 2003? 2004? 2005? 2006? 2007? 2008? 2009? 2010??? Or maybe the tiny, oblique hint that the problems lie elsewhere, apart from the coach & players..... ?

Now THERE'S something I will bet on :-)

So the AB's must have a loss to Ireland and Scotland just round the corner then one would assume - since neither has EVER beaten the AB's :-) Hmmm.... won't be putting my hard-earned on that I'm affraid!

Wait till NZ start winning at league consistently instead of the current once in a blue moon ... if you have a look at it their record in the last 6 years in league is worse than it was in the previous period so I don't see what your getting at. But anyway, who cares about international league?

This is the final year that we'll have the four match format. From next year, there will only be two Tri-Nations matches between New Zealand and Australia. Both O'Neill and Tew have stated that they'd like to reduce the number of Tests being played, but the $ will win out in the end and there may be a third Bledisloe Test from time to time.

If we had one BC test or ten we wouldn't win the B cup with the set-up we have at the moment. The players are not quite there and nor are the coaches. I for one was right behind Deans when he was first appointed but sadly his record speaks for itself. I would suggest that after the WC we get back to basics and install an Aussie coach (maybe the likes of McQ as chief advisor) with a new coaching team and put the broom through the side to clear out all the dead wood and start afresh. At least that way we will not have any excuses. They say you have to hit bottom to start to rise, I don't think we have hit bottom yet, that will probably be when we don't make the quarters in the WC.

Brisbane and Hong Kong in 2008 were missed opportunities for the Wallabies, I think, as well as Eden Park and Sydney last year. Brisbane was probably the worst as I geniunely believe it's had a long term effect on how this whole thing has played out.

in the current 4 game format, it is unlikely in the near future australia have a good enough team to trump the ABs in three tests in one year. Also, given that NZ will win more often then not on neutral venues, and almost never loses at home, it would require AUS to win 2 times at home, and least once on the road which is something they havent done in nearly ten years against the blacks. So its feasible, that australia are further away from recovering the bledisloe because of the way it is structured. is that the point u were trying to make BAY35? i would agree with that logic.

I think you are being too hard on the Wallabies. At the ground on the day it felt more like the Blacks played well. Who was going to stop Nonu that far from the line and with a head of steam up for what I think was the final try? Being ruthless in the assessment of your team doesn't mean having unreachable expectations for their performance. You will inevitably be frustrated. A case in point is the damaging myth of "Australia's brilliant backline". Frankly, we haven't seen a lot of that this century in the Trans-Tasman clashes. If you keep stepping on to the field with a "brilliant backline" and a game plan based on that myth, you will be doomed to disappointment. While they have many good or excellent players the Wallabies dont currently have a hard core of reliable excellence in any part of the 22 at the moment. That core is your backbone when things get tough. None of the basic units of the team (or even sub-units) are there yet. If all of your first choice front row is available that unit would qualify, but it would be the only one. Even setting aside injuries and suspensions, the backline selections change far too frequently for any effective unit to develop.

OJ - Certainly not in Wellington! which is the worst, most gutless rugby test I have seen by any Australian rugby team in the last 25 years. We have had our chances but they seemed to mostly have come after the Bledisloe has been secured or after a big win and the AB's were a bit complacent.

I used to have the reverse logic for lottery tickets. It doesn't work.

The more times the ABs win, the nearer they are to loosing!

Personally, I thought the extra Bledisloe Test would've been way more exciting had it been a one-off for the Cup. The NZRU would've never agreed to it, but that's what I would've liked to have seen. I agree that it's next to impossible to win the Bledisloe back in a four Test format, but if you look back on this nine Test losing streak there were missed opportunities for the Wallabies during 2008 and 2009.