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There’s been a lot to love about the all-signing, all-dancing “SupeRugby” in 2011, and before everything starts getting very serious very quickly, now seems as good a time as any to run the rule over some cherry-picked items of adulation.
Quade Cooper’s pass
I’ve said before that I could watch Cooper pass the football all day, and nothing’s changed my point of view. Except that I reckon it’s even better than when I first made this observation.
That wide, looping, spiralling pass onto a runner into space is something of beauty, literally a sight to behold. And impossible not to run onto, ask Luke Morahan.
I’d love to see Cooper’s inside pass from the perspective of Digby Ioane. The way I imagine it, when I (in Digby’s body) cut back inside and spot that ball being popped in front of me/him, “we” see blinding aura rays of light and hear the rejoicing of angels as the defenders part like the Red Sea and the proverbial saloon passage to the try line appears on the horizon.
Massive neon freeway billboards proclaim “TRY LINE 50m AHEAD” and applauding elephants and zebras form a guard of honour as I plant the ball under the black dot using Digby’s tattooed arm. And as I launch into the post-try break-dance, Greg Martin starts going off in the Fox Sports box like Bill Lawry after a Merv Hughes hat trick.
OK, so maybe that’s a little fanciful. Where was I…?
Anyway, Spiro has at different times referred to Cooper being both the Panini AND the Picasso of the pass and while that seems a little contradictory (having allowed Google to step in for my appalling lack of art history), it’s actually bang on the money; Cooper’s pass can be both classically beautiful and spectacularly outrageous.
I guess the old adage is true: I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.
Sonny Bill’s offload
Wow, what a debut season. I don’t mind admitting that after Sonny Bill Williams first switched codes I was initially sceptical as to how well he would take to the 15-man game, and especially with the switch from forwards in league to the backs in rugby.
But having now seen him playing regularly, my early scepticism is long gone. Ducks don’t take to water as well as Williams has taken to rugby. The signs were there in the few ITM Cup games last year, and we got a taste of what was to come during the November internationals, but since he’s come into Super Rugby, he’s gone to another level again.
If anything, I’m now convinced that SBW’s grounding in the forwards in League has prepared him perfectly for the second-phase play in rugby.
His ability to stand in the tackle has literally gone from strength to strength in rugby, but what makes it all the more impressive is what his offloads produce. Whereas in league, an offload might produce an extra few metres as the defence squeezed in around behind, in rugby that second phase ball often catches the defenders either side of the ruck out, with the result being runners making bulk metres up through the middle.
Never mind that Sonny Bill’s running game is already enough to give the All Black selectors a nice little second-five headache, his offload is good enough to build an attack around. Maybe even a certain little gold Cup-winning attack.
The Stormers jersey
In this day and age of flash and bling and graphic design, isn’t it great to see a modern rugby strip that actually looks like a proper rugby strip. Now sure, it’s still all figure-hugging and unflattering for the fuller gent, but the Stormers are this year running around in what I think is the best jersey to ever grace a Super Rugby field.
It’s just the simplicity of it. White stripes on navy blue. And, bloody genius, the away strip is navy blue stripes on white!
Where some jerseys over the years have looked, well “interesting” at best, and some recent Australian charity strips have looked more like supreme pizzas or polka dot bikinis, the Stormers look like a proper rugby team.
And what’s more, being based on the Western Province stripes that date at least back to the 1940s (my very limited research found pictures), it gives the contemporary Stormers a grand sense of tradition.
Stripes are the new black. And everything that’s old is new again.
The Rebel Army
If there’s a better group of supporters in Australian rugby, I’ve not seen them yet. The Army has brought AFL parochialism to rugby, and it’s abundantly clear they have no equal around the country. They also have a guy in a wrestling mask.
When the Rebels get on a roll down at “the Stockade” – and wouldn’t AAMI love that moniker gaining traction – the noise emanating from the crowd is quite unbelievable. My couch 650kms away suddenly feels like I’m in row M and it’s quite obviously an outstanding atmosphere to play rugby in. The Army deserve a lot of credit for making this so, and good on them for getting together to share their passion for rugby in a foreign environment.
But just imagine what they’ll be like when their team is winning…
Afternoon rugby
“What’s new?” my South African readers will comment. And it’s true; they’ve been playing in the afternoon for years. The Reds made a good fist of the late-summer heat in Brisbane on sunny afternoons, and now the Brumbies see it as the best way to combat the Canberra winter next year (“top shelf thinking”, if ever there was).
Life doesn’t get much better than a sunny afternoon of rugby, and quality dry-track rugby at that, in a family-friendly timeslot, and with a pie washed down with your beverage(s) of choice.
There’s probably only one loser in this equation: the TV ratings. Mere detail, thankfully.