only 2 issue is who is the ref to call injured v faking. If a forwards is on the ground holding his shoulder is he injured or wasting time. If the prop is cleaning his boots or tighting his laces is it a safety issue or time wasting. The second issue is what causes the scrum. Easy to set a scrum if the two packs are within 10ms of the ball but what happens if its a 50m kick that is dropped by the last man back do we have the ref make them all run 50ms in a set time so they can set up. What if its a 50m kick that goes dead and the kicker just missed out on scoring a try and it goes dead over the end line. If the kicker walks back must he be the required distance behind the scrum or what does the ref do. Easy to say this or that should be done but when teams like NZ and Oz are winning in tight games they are happy to do all the things they give out about. When they play T2 sides they are happy to scrum and lineout all day if it means winning. Last year Ireland v France had the most ball in time of any test game and the teams just took quick lineouts all game, teams can play as fast as they want but players from all teams are happy to take the breaks.

Good Article. I wish that Rugby commentators and media would go and watch days and days of NFL tape and how they fill alot more empty time building up the game. What is the height of the average lineout, is SA throwing their lineout higher than say New Zealand. Imagine if for scrums the TV company showed a view from the TH side, a view from the LH side and an overview shot with the commentator saying look the LH is under pressure he is in trouble. Imagine if every scrum the overhead shot had a red line drawn between the two front rows so we could see the scrum movement, not complain that it is moving. Always showing the scrum half spinning the ball and then putting it in does little to to enhance the scrum and most viewers are men and they want the facts. Imagine a lineout with the ususal behind the hooker and a box of the expected throw hight and then a camera focused on say Eben and Broodie as they get ready to duel it out. rugby is 100s of 1 on 1 battles in a match but all the commentators are trained to say is persons name and what we can call see. Imagine if one of the commentators actually was looking at the back field and told us they had just change something that was out of camera or if we got live ruck stats at every ruck, or at least tell us which team has the better ruck stats or wins the most penalties from rucks. There is so much more they can do than kicking distance and territory and possession. Why is the lineout 9/12 its not always the hooker of even the catcher it could be the opposition have amazing line out players.

Sadly we will never know if the crowd is up on the last time this game was played but more wins will get more fans to come back.

His injury sums up part of the problem with SR being so short. Its played over 17 weeks so his injury of 6+ weeks is over 1/3 of the season. If he is delayed and is not back until the end of the RC do you risk taking him on the EOYT and his season ends like in 2019 when he played two games and then missed the rest of the year to injury. Well done Reds for bouncing back and showing that the league is top teams v bottom teams not NZ teams v Oz teams.

Not a Force fan so don’t care if the Force are cellar dwellers or are winning tittles. What do you call teams in SRP who have more RA top ups than everyone else. If the Tahs weren’t so inept they might be able to buy titles but currently its good money after bad. Imagine if the Force could write off $1m in wages because RA and private backers were covering that part of the deal. Currently SRP is 2 teams who get no share of the competition money (drua and MP), two who get very little Union top up (Force and Landers) and then you have the other 8 who give out how uncompetitive some of those 4 teams are,

Or the Bulls are still coming terms with playing a long season having been use to a short season so are slowly strengthen their squad as players become available (most contracts are 3 years so they couldn’t just sign a stronger squad). The Bulls made a choice that taking a 30 man squad to England with 10 players carrying knocks was not a risk worth taking. If they secure 2nd in the URC they get 2 more home games and avoid Leinster till the final which is provide more money to get a stronger squad. As has been written loads this week many of the SA people see the URC as the be all and end all as they don’t have 30 years experience. Many teams felt the same way in France but over the last 10 years you are seeing more of them fully committed. Bulls are 11pts clear of Lions in 11th but must play 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th and the Sharks so could easily drop out of the top 4 and get no home games.

Who will make the next WC is surely the question that will come into it.

Same was said in soccer but in reality it just sold the European teams to new audiences and 6Ns is still the biggest income generator over a 4 year cycle in rugby. Only way that the World Club Cup becomes bigger is if it is actually viewed as the World Cup version which it clearly is not, why watch it in the Americas or other nations who have no teams. If it was every T1 nation would have the same number of teams. Unless SR can win it and probably win half the games then I think Champions Cup will be established as No1. Having 6 of the 8 Pacific teams knocked out in the first round will do little to make it better than the Champions Cup. What happens in 2032 when neither RA or NZR have a Lions to sell as the second one needs to keep the attention not be an after thought. Also is it Japan or SR that will give up its spot to the MLR following the “massive” success that the US WC in 2031. By 2028 the Nations League will be up and running, would Oz rather have 2-3 teams fly to Europe with alot of WBs and then return back to OZ to play the Nations leagues or will they keep players home so they can do the best they can in their home test games. Not sure that all the best players will travel from the Pacific.

There hasn’t been much PE in soccer just private owners just like there has been in Rugby for years and years. There is a reason that the two football codes have very little footprint outside of the South Pacific which is why they are so big. If League had a competitor league in the Super League (Super league has a tiny wage cap) then it would face the same problems eventually. In Europe you have 44 teams that are professional which means a bigger net to get the best players and more fans watching. If and its a big if (RA and NZR would need partners not subjects) there was a Pacific competition and run by something akin to the EPCR you could build a bi-polar world but that does not seem to be happening any time soon.

When Dolly burst on the scene at Tigers he was really good and fully deserved his England call up. Great signing for the Force if he can get back to that form. Fully understand why he picked England and it was the only reason he was in that position and shows yet again that Oz has plenty rugby players to fill 5 teams there just needs to be better chances for kids from outside the few private schools. I know Connacht do open trials to fill their academy spots (or they did) which is how players like Ultan Dillane got into an academy after being overlooked by Munster.

Does the Brumbies not get a larger % of the people living within 50km of their stadium then the Brumbies or Reds.

Oz crowd hates losing and If you like lots of running or high scores then you have AFL and NRL that can also do it. SR in the early years was brute force as much as skill and that is what brings people in. The more running rugby Oz does the less people engage. The team of the 90s did the dirty work before the ball went wide.

What % of those who follow Rugby could tell you what SR team each of the WBs play for. Most of the people who watch the WBs only want to see stars on the field and don’t worry about where they play the other 6 months.

You are going to end up with a team that is like the Black Caps where they go around the world getting games because RA and NZ are not going to be able to rises in income for all 160 players each union needs to fund for SR so that wage bill has to come down.

SA has 60m so 8% is only about 5m about the same size as those interested in Rugby in OZ.

how much longer with the sabbaticals work though as you are putting players with rich club owners. T14 clubs have a $17m wage cap which is three times the SR wage so every player earns more OS and that is the issue.

The number of SA players getting URC and Champions Cup rugby with the 4 URC teams is more than SR ever was. Jake and others have said that their squad is two small to be able to compete but for the Bulls they are building slowly. They also have to rest players for 2 months over the season so if a player gets injured they can’t use the player on the 2 months rest. The fact that a Boks heavy Stormers didn’t make it past the last 16 shows the standard of the competition. The Jags did great in SR but Argentina were not good at all during those 4 years. Now they are all back in Europe they have better again and their young players will grow faster when the Jags join SR as they will not have many if any test players so they will show how good Oz teams could be.

The current model is they are spending half the wages on the test squad and the rest of the SR squads are not good enough to improve the test players. I haven’t looked at all the figures but at the WC there were 317 players at the WC involved in The Champions or Challenge Cup with alot of the T1 nations outside of Oz and NZ plus half the players of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, and Georgia. The big problem is that European u20s are training with the professional teams for 10 months and at 21 you are getting 5+ games a year. In SR you only get in the squad if they think you are a finished product so having young players in SR will speed up development not slow it down.

Bulls were in that position because they refuse to send A team to away games in Europe. the top teams get home games in the knockouts because they don’t throw away games. Bordeaux topped their group because they got a LBP like Bulls but got 4 TBPs. Bulls didn’t pick up LBPs v Sarries at home because Sarries sent a full team and full didn’t get one v Lyon because they sent a B side. If they had sent an A side they would have topped the pool and had a home quarter. While Toulouse and Leinster look to be favourites I am not sure anyone who have picked the two other teams in the Semis. Atleast there are two teams and as the SA sides are finding out it normally takes 2-3 years for players to get use to the Champions Cup as if you lose one group game you have to beat one of the favourites away from home in the Semi.

Look at that Toulouse pack and frontrow and replacements. Having a stable frontrow required them all to be good.

And a Test side pack at that.

Oz don’t need another Italy type loss where the back up players lose and the slide carries on.

So what you are saying is that Oz just doesn’t have the players any more to be a better team as you don’t think OS players will make a difference. If that is the story then RA is about to lose their cashcow in the WBs.

Bring in 23 OS players and 23 home based players and play them against each other. Then we can compare apples and oranges. SA are able to use the players they pick while Oz have not seems to. Players return to SR improved having been in Europe so why do you think they aren’t showing the same at test level. With JS if he picks Skelton expect big improvements in his performance and also JS style to look alot more like NH rugby than SR. Rennie played more like SR which is why people like Skelton struggled as he isn’t going to run 20ms on the wing but he will hit every ruck within 5m of him and secure the ball for this team.

Look at Hansen. Was not good enough to nail down a SR spot so went OS. If he had been a starter he may have stayed and then might not be as good as he is now. All the players that are staying but not getting test rugby are missing out on game time and so are not progressing as fast as they would if playing 20 games over 9 months with a much more varied style of play.