Roar Guru
Joined June 2017
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Live in Brisbane, Australia, having previously lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina and London, United Kingdom for 5.5 years. Love Football, Cricket, Rugby and Rock'n'Roll.
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‘El Gráfico’ was a hugely influential Argentinian monthly sports journal with a naturally heavy emphasis on football. In 1928 its editor, Borocoto, published an…
The position of football in Brisbane’s hot, humid, sun-soaked and sepia-tinged sporting landscape is, much like peak Thomas Broich, hard to pin down. The…
Having moved to Buenos Aires six months ago, much of my experience here so far has naturally been framed by football, such is my…
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, when Guinness suppliers cancel all employees’ annual leave, when dreary Saturdays are spent inside warm pubs,…
The forthcoming Copa Libertadores final between River Plate and Boca Juniors is an unprecedented sporting, cultural and social event in Argentina, with one newspaper…
It is apt that the final, enduring image of Sam Warburton's brilliant career was that of himself and Kieran Read, smilingly as the lifted…
An Australian supporting England in most sporting endeavours is akin to high treason – an act so reprehensible, deplorable and unconscionable that the revoking…
Utter the name Ned Hanigan in the company of Australian rugby fans and instantly the mood shifts, with music screeching to a halt, birds…
Stop me if you think you've heard this one before, but French rugby is still ill with under-performing players, disciplinary issues off the field…
Scotland is a land of stunning natural beauty, indecipherable accents, some of the best sporting and live music crowds in the world, out of…
The historical enmity between Wales and England has been shaped by centuries of cultural, political, economic, and most importantly, rugby union-based mistrust and conflict,…
The commencement of the 2018 edition of the Six Nations heralds the return of international rugby, Eddie Jones, centuries-old gripes against the English, fantastic…
The annual Twickenham Test between England and Australia promises to be as tight as Kurtley Beale's budgie smugglers, and Eddie Jones-like blue language is…
This forthcoming Saturday, at 9:47am, six mates and I will board the Greater Western Railway service at London Paddington station with beers, coffees and…
Karmichael Hunt's professional rugby league debut for the Brisbane Broncos, in Round 1 of the 2004 NRL season, was a seminal moment for touch…
The news of Mario Ledesma's impending departure from the Wallabies coaching set-up has sent the Australian scrum enthusiast community (all ten of you) in…
With it being two years since England's early World Cup exit on home soil, and just under two years until Japan 2019 kicks off,…
After the Wallabies vomit-inducing display during the first Bledisloe Cup Test in Sydney, it looked like only one Tom Petty song would sum up…
Grand final week still manages to stir up the passions of the most casual of casual sporting fans – your mum, the bloke at…
Ireland, France and South Africa are currently duking it out to see who will be crowned host of Rugby World Cup 2023, and the…
Will have a keen interest in this conference this year now that I’m living in BA – plan on going along to plenty of Jaguares games so hopefully they provide plenty of entertainment, despite the huge loss of Sanchez!
Unpacking Super Rugby: South African conference
Probably because there has been a ‘How to fix the Wallabies/Australian Rugby’ article basically every week for the past 3-4 years on here, and there’s only so many times people can repeat themselves.
Take me back: How to fix the Wallabies
Hear hear Machooka -great post.
The Lions is possibly my favourite thing in rugby and I have every intention of going to South Africa in two years to soak it up, even if I don’t get a test ticket (mid-week would do as they’re still great spectacles). I suggest re-watching the 2009 tour documentary – I did a couple of months ago and it made me wish the tour was now!
Sliding doors: Wallaby lessons from the 2001 Lions tour
Will never forget walking in to the Gabba with my dad and grandad and we were just blown away by the noise and size of the Lions crowd – basically knew we were stuffed there and then, as absolutely nobody expected to see that many red shirts.
I read the book ‘Behind The Lions: Playing Rugby for the British & Irish Lions (Behind the Jersey)’ at the end of last year and it was striking how joyful the sections on the ’97 tour were, with every player interviewed saying it was the highlight of their careers and how together the squad was, compared to ’01, where as you said it was a proper professional – was it perhaps a bit jarring and disappointing for some players who were on ’97 to not have the same sort of team spirit?
Also any chance of a 6 Nations preview in the next couple of weeks? I’m counting down the seconds until the first game as it is so damn wide open this year.
Sliding doors: Wallaby lessons from the 2001 Lions tour
Off-topic but what’s with the whole run it straight thing that keeps getting promoted on here? So many worries about concussion these days yet in every single video they promote someone is clearly getting a concussion.
I know people are free to do what they want but I find it highly irresponsible.
Take me back: How to fix the Wallabies
I’m pretty sure the Lions tours already fill in this so-called “lull” between World Cups – I’m already looking forward to the South African tour in 2 years time.
Also the recent CVC investment in the Premiership Rugby means they want that to be the dominant competition so I doubt they’ll entertain thoughts of this.
Making the World Super Rugby Championship a reality
I’m only joking (kind of) with this suggestion, what with it being the twilight zone period of the year between Christmas and New Year where I don’t know what day it is or what planet I’m on, but a dual-registration ‘London Australia’ club ala London Irish, London Welsh and London Scottish would’ve been good craic to set up.
Obviously too late now, and it seems Exeter are the main Aussie bunker in the Premiership, but it would’ve been fascinating. That’s all from me!
Why Bob Dwyer was right about Will Skelton too
One thing I found living in the UK is the culture around rugby there seems so much more fun – you see the Aussie boys over there become so much more relaxed and therefore they start enjoying their rugby and themselves a lot more.
It’s like light and day going from the incessant doom and gloom of Aus rugby in to that UK environment where the banter flows more freely and the players are allowed to express their personalities (just look at all clubs social media profiles and the players always seem to be keen and up for a laugh).
Was just an observation from me – I even though the most relaxed and care-free Beale has looked in his career was when he was tearing it up with Wasps and joking around with Haskell et al, and I noticed Toomua posted how delighted he was to catch up for a beer with his Leicester Tigers teammates after the England test. More to the point of the article, the professionalism over there seems miles ahead of Aus, and its well-known that even cashed up football clubs look at Sarries and Exeter for some cultural inspiration.
Why Rugby Australia should listen to Bob Dwyer and dump the Giteau Law
Hard to gauge how effective Johnson has been with both Scotland and Wales in the past 15 years or so. Most Welsh fans seem to not think of him highly at all, and he appears to have been one of the reasons Ruddock left the Welsh job (obviously Nick Bishop would know the exact reason behind that!).
Some Scottish fans I’ve spoken to seem to think he’s a bit of a bluffer, too eager to take the credit for Scotland’s revival in the past 5 years when most people can see that Vern Cotter was the main architect, although he did appoint Cotter in the first place so maybe he does deserve credit.
I’m going for the optimistic view (might as well, nothing to lose!) that he’ll design something effective for post world cup, and if it increases our chances of nabbing Cotter after 2019 then I’m all in!
So, how will this all work for Australian rugby?
Was hoping that Aussie consortium was going take over at Charlton, if only so there was a sliver of hope that an Aussie coach/manager could give it a crack there, but then again that could also be seen as a Swansea move, where the Americans took over and installed Bob Bradley to much chagrin from the fans.
Let's talk about Australian managers
Pretty similar to my experiences – I wouldn’t say Xenophobia as that is a strong word though, but there certainly is a bubble, especially when it comes to rugby. When Sam Warburton retired this year I was chatting with some rugby mates back home and half of them didn’t even know who he was.
Likewise I’ve found it fascinating how the Springboks and All Blacks have such a strong rivalry and respect for each others rugby history, whereas for some reason Australian rugby fans don’t tend to respect the Boks as much, hence the empty seats every time they play in Aus.
A role for White, but not as Wallabies head coach
‘Oxford Town’ is the one from that album that always lodges in my head.
That’s all I can contribute as every word that can and should be said about the Wallabies this week and this year has been said!
Bring on the Six Nations in 66 days!
Why the answers for Australian rugby are blowin’ in the wind
The story that will not die.
Sam Burgess lays blame over England's 2015 Rugby World Cup failure
Comments closed on NB article?
England loss confirms Wallabies are no closer to RWC success
I like to think it was the rest of the players finally standing up to the darlings of the team and saying enough is enough. If I’d been trying hard to get in the team all year and then saw AAC waltz back in and start breaking team rules instantly I would probably blow my top.
Beale and Ashley-Cooper stood down after breaching team protocol
Even if it was as completely innocent and normal as everyone has come out and said, it just feeds in to the image of a bad culture and general chaos that seems to constantly surround the Wallabies, and that’s very hard to stop.
Can’t believe he brought back AAC for his leadership, experience etc whatever waffle he justified it with and then literally his first test back he breaks the rules. Young blokes in the team must be thinking what is this bloke all about.
Beale and Ashley-Cooper stood down after breaching team protocol
Have just finished in quick succession the excellent ‘Behind the Jersey’ books on the history of Irish, New Zealand and Scottish rugby as told by the players and coaches, and one thing that caught me at the end of the Irish and Scottish books was just how much those countries unlocked the next level under Schmidt and Cotter respectively.
The attention to detail forensic, the planning perfect, the demeanours calm – it sounds exactly like what Australia needs after this passion and bluster era. If Schmidt goes home to NZ I don’t see why Cotter shouldn’t be asked to come down here.
You also get a sense as to how shambolic they treated the move to professionalism in ’96, and how it took them nearly 20 years to properly understand it, hence why next years World Cup is starting to look like an open classic on paper.
The biter bit: Ireland wrong-foot the All Blacks in Dublin
Hands down the best test of the year, and the best since the Lions tour last year.
They’ll be talking about this one for years, it was brutal, beautiful and fun, and that was by far one of the best crowds I’ve ever seen – sensational evening all round! Still buzzing the next day!
Coming for the cup? Irish knock off New Zealand 16-9
Apologies for being so off-topic on this thread, but seeing pure click-bait like the haka article from yesterday winds me up as there is so much rugby going on in the world at the moment which I’d rather read and debate about.
Wallabies selector wanted. How hard can it be?
Weird that there is no preview of Ireland vs New Zealand on the site – you’d think the biggest test of the year between the two clear-cut best teams in the world would warrant something? This feeds in to a point I made on Geoff Parke’s article the other day that Australia just doesn’t seem to engage with the rest of the rugby world they way everyone else does. We have 300 articles of navel-gazing about the woes of the Wallabies/RA/Rugby in general whereas the rest of the rugby world is excited and pumped up about the test in Dublin.
Anyway sorry for that, rant over. I think the losses of Murray and O’Brien will be too much for Ireland, although it’ll be damn close and hard fought as there is still lingering bad-blood from that brutal 2016 clash in Dublin.
Wallabies selector wanted. How hard can it be?
Having lived overseas for 5 years now I am always saying to people back home that Rugby is going great in the rest of the world, it’s just Australia where the sky appears to be falling in. One just has to be in Britain/Europe during the 6 Nations to see how popular and passionate Rugby still is.
The Wrap: Cheika and Jones both losers, but heading down very different paths
Are you denying Wales player base was lower-skilled when Gatland took over? If you read my whole comment literally the next point is “which is what Wales were 10 years ago”.
They obviously came on in leaps and bounds after Gatland became coach.
Seven talking points from Wallabies v Wales
Schmidt would be brilliant, but I feel like the AB’s job will be a shootout between him and Robertson, and Schmidt’s international experience will get him the nod.
Seven talking points from Wallabies v Wales
Mentioned it in the other article about the game, but I think we should go hard for Gatland as coach after the WC.
After the 2007 World Cup Wales were a mess, having missed the QF’s after a loss to Fiji. Gatland came in, realised he didn’t have the most skilled player base and implemented a game plan that nullified that disadvantage. 2 Grand Slams and another 6 Nations title followed.
Obviously a different kettle of fish to playing the AB’s and South Africa several times a year, but I think NZ will go for Schmidt after Hansen steps down, and I can understand if Kiwi coaches are wary of the Wallabies gig after the way Deans tenure ended in such rancour.
Wallabies frustration continues with loss to Wales
I highly recommend everyone read the brilliant article on The Guardian Rugby section about Irish rugby, and how everyone works for the national team without diluting the fierce rivalries of the provinces. Made me think it could be their year. It’s a top read.
Is 2019 the Wallabies' year?