Roar Guru
Joined August 2014
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Retired Prop, Boat-Race Anchor, Eastwood Fan, Bathurst Bulldog.
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Having watched the brutal second Test between the mighty All Blacks of New Zealand and Ireland on the weekend, I suspect the casual Wallabies…
Having reached the final of the Rugby World cup last year, with new coach Michael Cheika taking Coach of the Year honors, it seemed…
With traditions and laws approaching perfection over a 171-year history, even World Rugby, the game’s supercilious governing body seems to appreciate that it’s the…
1987, all told, was a pretty special year. Sega released the Master System, Kylie Minogue hit the charts for the first time, and an…
Just three weeks ago, Michael Cheika was belle of the international coaching ball. Quite literally, as it turns out - World Rugby named him…
12 years, 6 months and 20 days ago, or thereabouts, a young(er) Eddie Jones watched nervously from the coaches' box above Sydney's Telstra Stadium.…
My sister and I don't talk a great deal. Don't get me wrong; we get along well enough. But sometimes circumstances put people on…
On Tuesday afternoon, around 3:00pm, a co-worker and fellow rugby fan asked me if I read the Daily Telegraph's morning article about Richie McCaw…
I will admit it. When the Reds announced they signed James O'Connor for the 2015 Super Rugby season, I was less than impressed. It…
Bloodied, battered and beaten half to death, Stephen Moore and his magnificent Wallabies have emerged from Pool A - the infamous Pool of Death…
On a late night last week, I found myself sitting a dark living room with just the dim glow of a laptop screen and…
The road to Rugby World Cup 2015 saw coaches Warren Gatland, Stuart Lancaster, John McKee and Michael Cheika sitting around a poker table. With…
Once upon a time, Wallaby legend Nick Farr-Jones said: “Rugby touring is a lot like sex – when it's good it's really good, and…
Mario Ledesma, take a bow. You have earned it. Last week I wrote the Wallabies had not fielded a world-class scrum in 12 plus…
Ever since the first Test matches of the early 1900s and probably even before that, as a game, rugby has been all about identity.…
With the last season of Super Rugby as we know it complete, Michael Cheika can now leave the Waratahs behind with his head held…
“The guy's only millimetres away from scoring. It's a swinging arm to the head. It prevents a probable try. It's a yellow card and…
Three Waratahs are suspended, two until after the first match of the finals. SANZAR has also announced that following his citation after last weeks…
When I played schoolboy rugby, every forward (and a quite a few backs) wanted to play openside flanker. I remember a tour where the…
There has seldom been a day more difficult to be a fan of Australian rugby than Sunday morning's Test match against Ireland in Dublin.…
Top article Brett, and refreshingly positive tonality with respect to the Wallaby season. Everyone wants to bag-Cheika, lament the fate of Australian rugby and cry havoc given the overall win/loss record of the Wallabies this year but honestly I think your view is balanced and bang on the money.
International rugby has clearly stepped up a gear, probably through a combination of the maturation of the professional era and a front-running All Blacks creating a new and higher standard for all. England and Ireland have embraced the change as, incidentally, have Scotland and Argentina – all of whom are playing at an elite level for the first time in many years.
Australia started off behind the 8-ball, having spent the past decade trying to tactically outmanoeuvre these advancements rather than embrace them and as a result were always on borrowed time for a top-three spot in the world rankings. Cheiks indulged that mentality for one last year and produced a stunning outcome at the World Cup and has since gone about rebuilding.
Many people forget that just two years ago our scrum was pathetic, a laughing stock. Just at the start of the season we had players who could win lineouts, or play rugby, but not both (we still have some way to go here). We had backs that couldn’t kick, and forwards who routinely lost collisions and somehow Australian ingenuity meant we were still competitive but that was never going to stand up to a team like Joe Schmidt’s Ireland and in practice even a much improved team didn’t.
Best part is Cheika is doing this largely on his own, with limited structural support at the Super Rugby level and what I believe to be a seriously sub-par strength and conditioning program to contend with…. but don’t get me started on that, I’m saving that for an end-of-season long read.
Thank you for bringing some much needed positivity and perspective to the Roar, keep ’em coming!
The grand slam: Don’t dream, it’s over
To be honest I probably wasn’t watching the breakdown closely enough to make a call on this, I certainly don’t think it was blatantly one-sided but could easily be proven wrong. I think Garces did us a devour by not sending Mumm off entirely but that’s about it…
The Wallabies were beaten by a gutsy Ireland, not by the referee
Look on Genia’s face was priceless! But to be fair to Garces he does need to check things other than the play at the back of a settled ruck and appeared to be having issues with his earpiece at the time…
The Wallabies were beaten by a gutsy Ireland, not by the referee
Thanks Spiro, fantastic article. For what it’s worth, I think Garces effort with the whistle was just fine; with the one exception being missing a blatant knock-down by (I think) the Irish halfback when Genia was fielding the ball at the back of the ruck but minor in the scheme of things.
Agree with the comments about the quality of the rugby, the Australia v Ireland test was of an immense quality and better than any I can remember seeing in a long time.
The Wallabies were beaten by a gutsy Ireland, not by the referee
Thanks Nick. McMahon has come a long way in the jackaling stakes, and I think there were some promising signs in team-wide skills against Ireland as well. Wonder what Cheika will do against England…
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Well done to Ireland, they took the initiative and overcame some very difficult injury-related challenges to earn a well deserved victory. Rory Best was immense, Garry Ringrose marvellous in his run-on debut.
Highlights: Wallabies' Grand Slam dream gone after 24-27 loss to Ireland
Regardless of some reckless play, yes on both sides, and some refereeing decisions that I did not agree with (aren’t both present in almost all rugby games?) the quality of play and physicality from both sides was immense.
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
G’day Harry. Agree that Pocock will have to be epic, but it’s not beyond his capabilities. Scrum should be fine until Slipper comes on, I appreciate he’s decent around the park but the guy just isn’t big/strong enough at the highest level… Robertson should have been reserve loose head.
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Thanks Worlds Biggest. Always good to see you lurking down in the comments mate 🙂 For as long as we play two short back rowers the line out will need extra attention. With Coleman and Arnold a three-target structure is fine, but I don’t think we can consider Lopeti a third target as yet…
Without Coleman we’re playing extra specialists (Mumm and Simmons) to compensate and it’s leading to some odd selection decisions, but it’s worth considering too the importance of the line out to Australia’s attack. Nick Bishop wrote a cracking piece on this a few weeks back that really made me think about why Cheiks favours Mumm and Simmons over some others – worth a read if you haven’t seem it yet. Cheers!
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Bench actually looks powerful this week, I suspect he wants to play a power game when the Irish are getting tired. After two utterly brutal test matches, it’s not silly to think that they’ll be slowing in the final quarter… Should be great to watch it play out!
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Agree with most of that Rob, agree with Hodge at 12 though for some reason (I don’tt really know why) I see him at 13 long-term. Thanks for reading and commenting – enjoy the rugby.
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
The final penalty count is not relative, there is no necessity that the count be balanced and the record of one team compared to the other has literally nothing to do with whether or not refereeing was fair.
Fair refereeing should be measured by whether the decisions made on the pitch reflect the actions the teams, a penalty count of 20 to 0 can be fair; if one team committed 20 penalties and the other committed none. On at least one decision, the lack of a red card for Fekitoa, World Rugby agree and that alone could easily have had an impact on the game. Whether it would or not is up for debate – I think, in tandem with other decisions, it could have. You’re perfectly entitled to think that it did not.
That’s the whole point of sports opinion, to give people the opportunity to debate opinions. You think I write to ‘dredge up controversy’, well I challenge you to write an article that everyone agrees with. Even with a series of short comments, that contain little substance with respect to the teams discussed, a number of commenters have disagreed with you. That would only be amplified if you were willing to put pen to paper to actually write a piece, and particularly if that piece was bold enough to actually take a position which people may not have considered themselves.
You say my comments ” serve no purpose other than to dredge up the controversy once again”, as far as I’m concerned there is no controversy. New Zealand won, the history is written, they are still the best in the world. What my comments were designed to do was to compliment the Irish on an excellent effort, convey the scale of the challenge Australia faces and compare some on-field tactics of ours to those of the best team in the world.
If you think you can do better, then put pen to paper. I’ll read it, and comment, as I do with most writers on the Roar in the hope that we get a better debate and more nuanced perspective. And I genuinely hope your knowledge is as excellent as your willingness to criticise others would suggest, because if it is we could all learn something.
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Interesting… I don’t think I could bring myself to bench Hooper (even though I wrote an article on exactly that topic) though I must be honest – Hooper with fresh legs running against oppositions with tired legs is appealing too….
Having thought about it a little. my team would look like this:
1. Scott Sio
2. Stephen Moore (C)
3. Sekope Kepu
4. Rory Arnold
5. Rob Simmons (Need one line-out caller…)
6. David Pocock (VC)
7. Michael Hooper
8. Lopeti Timani
9. Will Genia
10. Bernard Foley
11. Sefa Naivalu
12: Reece Hodge
13. Tevita Kuridrani
14. Israel Folau
15. Dayne Haylett-Petty
16. Tolu Latu
17. Tom Robertson
18. Alan Alaalatoa
19. Kane Douglas
20. Dean Mumm
21. Nick Phipps
22. Kyle Godwin
Agree with Pocock as the lineal captain, but hard to pick him as such when he’s going on sabbatical next year. I would keep Moore until post-2017 at which point the better of Coleman and Pocock takes over for the RWC. 6-2 bench is risk, on-field coverage across positions is pretty good though…
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
It’s a really tough one, to have a player of Hooper’s quality who leaves such a massive gap in the team. If I could only pick Hooper or Pocock, I would pick the latter. If I had the option of playing both, even having been critical of Cheika for doing it, I would probably play both…
That said I change my mind on this once a week. Enjoy the rugby Dave S
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Jacko, you make a fair point.
Having not read any of my other articles, you’re clearly well positioned to assess my anti-New Zealand bias. Of course, when a writer questions anything, at any time, about the mighty All Blacks they must be petty and biased, it couldn’t possible be conversational or in any way valid.
Perhaps you should read the article I wrote at the end of the World Cup last year, ‘An open letter to Dan Carter and Ritchie McCaw’ or any of the other pieces where I have lauded NZ players and teams as the very best in the world, the gold standard and the essence of the game of rugby. But then again that would take actually thinking your ideas through, probably easier just to assume I’m out to smear the All Blacks and go-off-like a cannon without a second thought.
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Thanks FF! Interesting to see how and if Cheika will react to this – if he doesn’t I suspect next year will be a long and sour one for Wallaby fans!
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Fair comment. My comments were based on the game I saw, I would never expect to write an opinion such as that and have everyone agree or think that it’s right – just my observations of a very, very high-quality test match.
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Definitely heavy on the line-out. And presumably possession, I worry about the lack of ball-running forwards.
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
G’day Peter. From curiosity, if you had the selectors hat on what would you have done different (or anyone else for that matter)?
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
I don’t think it’s disrespectful that, after those two tests, the Irish will be mentally and physically taxed, any team (including the All Blacks) would be the same. It will definitely be a factor, and the bench is well equipped to take advantage of that. My only concern is that having Slipper on the bench leaves our scrum rather exposed against a tough Irish pack.
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Cheers Digger, you going to make it to the Christmas party?
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Sounds like a riveting article. From there perhaps you could close it out with “but the Irish are probably tired and Australia have won three in a row so they should have a good shot. The End”. Look forward to reading it!
Ireland test a battle of secondary skills
Thanks Peter, appreciate it!
The grand slam: Don’t dream, it’s over