Roar Rookie
Joined December 2019
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Armchair Halfback is the musings of a long time rugby tragic - a devotee and thinker about all things pertaining to the running game.
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Another year of Test rugby has come to an end. 2021 started with a Six Nations tournament bereft of crowds, thanks to Covid-19. While…
With almost a decade of Test rugby now under his belt, it’s easy to forget just how meteoric Conor Murray’s rise to Test rugby…
For the rugby romantic the Queensland Reds are the most beguiling team in Australian rugby. You might first think of brilliant sides of the…
It’s been a tough couple of years for the NSW Waratahs. The team performed poorly under coach Darryl Gibson, who left in 2019 after…
Jonathan Sexton. No name has been more synonymous with Irish rugby over the last ten years. There have been incredible milestones. Sexton has played…
The West Country is one of the prettiest parts of England. Devon - with its rolling green hills, the beauty of Dartmoor and Exmoor,…
Most Irish rugby legends are Munster legends. The great characters like the marauding Moss Keane or the mercurial Tom Kiernan. Most famously, Munster became…
A world team of the year? I’ve been engaging in this sort of international rugby star gazing for longer than I’d care to admit.…
This is my wrap of all the recent European rugby union action. France 36, Italy 5 An experimental France team scored a comfortable win…
With much of Europe still under restrictions due to COVID-19 and COVID-19 disrupting the southern hemisphere season, no spring tours have been undertaken by…
The Six Nations still has a little bit of rugby romance – its history, the noisy and colourful supporters, weekends in Rome, the packed…
While the new-world Rugby Championship may boast eight World Cup titles between its four participating teams, the Six Nations carries the old-world romance. All…
Eddie Jones is one of the great coaches and greatest rugby strategists of the last 20 years. Obsessive, ultra focussed, driven and demanding, Jones…
Thanks Nick, happy New Year! It’s chastening just how often the Wallabies snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 2022. Maybe if those narrow losses to the AB’s in Melbourne and losses to France, Ireland and Italy were reversed, the narrative would be very different. Ironically some of the qualities so lauded in Eddie are similar to those loathed in Michael Cheika.
ANALYSIS: Why Eddie will bring back essence of Aussie sport to Wallabies - and the four tight-five forwards he needs
Thanks MZ, happy new year. Certainly Eddie will give more controversy & copy than Dave Rennie. Rennie can consider himself somewhat unfortunate. I would have preferred if the Wallabies utilised Jones the same way South Africa did at 2007 RWC, but perhaps that would have been difficult for Rennie. Amazing that two difficult characters as Jack White & Eddie Jones clicked.
OPINION: Four reasons Eddie's long-term deal is a bad idea for Australian rugby - and two why it makes perfect sense
I agree with Harry that Eddie had the team Stuart Lancaster built, hence I said… since 2019
OPINION: Four reasons Eddie's long-term deal is a bad idea for Australian rugby - and two why it makes perfect sense
Most uneddiefying.. 😂 To be serious for a moment, I’m not sure it’s a great move. Since 2019, Jones with all the money, all the resources and the largest player pool around yet couldn’t make England into a winning team, with odd selections & ignoring in-form players..
OPINION: Four reasons Eddie's long-term deal is a bad idea for Australian rugby - and two why it makes perfect sense
Papalii.. 😁
Team of the Autumn Series: Eight from the north, seven from the south and two Wallabies make the XV
Interesting selections Harry. Add more Frenchmen, no to Hooper and Faletau.
Team of the Autumn Series: Eight from the north, seven from the south and two Wallabies make the XV
Yes David Fitter, great Sydney Uni stalwart. Andrew Heath – forgotten about him, must be getting old.. 😛
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
All Melbourne born back row tonight- go Wallabies!!
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Thanks for sharing BF. 😊
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Jack Pollard’s wonderful Australian Rugby: The Game & The Players is a wonderful resource on rugby prior to professionalism. Certainly there was growth in rugby in Melbourne in the 1930’s but gains were never sustained post WW2. Meadows ended up playing for Queensland, as you do. Pollard says he was a junior second row before becoming prop. ????
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Mate I live in Melbourne I’m not dissing the local comp. Just pointing out how hard it is to sell rugby in AFL country. Prior to Johanssen the only Melbourne born Wallabies were Weary Dunlop and Ewen McKenzie. Go Rams!
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Yeah but John Meadows was English born and migrated as a teenager. Didn’t grow up barracking for Collingwood..
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
AFL body shape is 195cm and 90kgs.. 😛
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Also I put a comment “Go the Rams” further down – alas no one on the Roar spotted the Rams (Moorabbin Rams) who are the team with the most local Dewar Shield Premierships….
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Sure, but living there is different from visiting. 😁 Also Wallabies often play during AFL finals series, simply no airtime for anything else.
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Go the Rams!
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Colvin – something tells me you’re not from Melbourne? 😂 Melburnians don’t really understand rugby, you’re doing well to find someone knows the difference between the Rebels and the Storm.
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Probably thinking more recent history. Like Elsom, To’omua went to school in Brisbane. McKenzie was a bit of an anomaly – went to Scotch College in Melbourne. I’ve no idea when (or even why) he began to play rugby. Most local Melbourne players are from NZ or Pasifika origin.
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Sure, but he went Nudgee and played for Randwick – don’t think he ever played in Melbourne
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
And that’s something! Remember when the only Melbourne born player was Lloyd Johanssen…
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Thanks Geoff. Interesting times for the Rebels. Will be interesting to see how the Rebels junior pathways develop in such an AFL saturated market. The AFL model (through Auskick) is to sell the game to the parents, who then bring kids to training, games and then AFL matches. It’s a difficult stranglehold to break. At least in Brisbane and Sydney, Perth & Canberra there are long existing pathways and some romance about wanting to “one day play for the Wallabies”.
The Wrap: How the Rebels are trying to bridge the chasm between club and Super rugby
Nice work Harry – got your own version of the Boks bomb squad, though yours seems to be more about photo bombing…. 😂 😂
When Harry met Aussie: What The Roar's Saffa in excelsis really thought about his first trip Down Under
Don’t mention the bad old days – rugby was defenceless against ARL/NRL chequebooks – and fair enough, young men needed and deserved a livelihood. Glad O’Connor (like Trevor Allan and others) were able to make a career of it in B&B and much blame is with the old farts of rugby administration. Picking this one is like highlighting “great moments in Nambian rugby against the Boks..”
Is Michael O'Connor the greatest dual international?
Yes Scotland should have won, but beating NZ and France would have given them more kudos.
ANALYSIS: Why Eddie will bring back essence of Aussie sport to Wallabies - and the four tight-five forwards he needs