😂 😂
Perfect!
Eddie ‘Costa Concordia’ Jones !

I’d go further, the ship wasn’t sinking. Sure it needed some maintenance at the dock and it’s not a state of the art ship compared to some of the others, but the year before it had sailed with some of the best and was only narrowly beaten across the line.
Eddie jumped on board. He threw some of the most reliable crew to the sharks. He grabbed a cannon and pointed it at his own hull. Before firing, he made a mayday call to get himself onto another boat. He is a pirate with the scruples from the darkest waters, drunk and looney from drinking his own pirate juice.
Haha I started out Sydney to Hobart and ended full blown Jack Sparrow. 😂

Firstly congrats to South Africa, they refuse to lay down. What a grinding win.

One rule or parity I’ve thought for a while is the ‘deliberate knock on’. Kolbis yellow, for example. That is an instant yellow card and so often a reflex or incidental, then something like when is Eben lumbering back onside from offside position that knocks down an all black pass when all blacks are 15m out with an overlap, just a penalty?
Seems an absurd parity to me.

The Paekakariki Express!

Great yogurt country too…. Haha

Nah, maybe out of jealousy and clutching at straws did the global fan base label ABs as chokers.
I’d say the majority of the global fan base would say the ABs have been the most dominant, feared and best national side in the history of the game. Maybe only the South Africans can argue that, but on the inside they’d have their doubts 😉

Haha the All Blacks “dark period”.

Your dark period was like night time during summer in Iceland.

Wallabies ‘dark period’ is like a coal mine in a blackout in comparison.

I agree. I thought the Whitelock penalty before the Irish maul/penalty try was a harsh interpretation.
However, my point, I like it wasn’t Solely won. Solely, only, based on that aspect of the game, which can be so controversial ne bad for the game. I’ve seen more games where these calls dominate the game, impact the result. This one for me stayed, just on right side of that line.
There was enough other ‘rugby’ played to have chance to overcome any dubious calls/yellows. Just. Just enough, For the outcome to feel like the better team on the day won, and the result is a fair one.

Agree!
Although NZ muscled up at the ruck well enough today!
But I’d agree that I really like, that in this modern epic, it wasn’t won solely by a focus on ruck dominance and the refs interpretation of it. Particularly when it’s the later, modern rugby can come under some fair criticism.

We all know Rugby rankings don’t mean diddly squat when it comes to the top sides. I don’t know why there is such a weight given to them and hung on so tightly in the rugby journalist narrative and punters.
Richie Mo’unga said it true, they may be number 1 in the rankings, but you need to be number 1 on game day.
There is a group of top teams, any of them can win against the other on any given day given their execution.
All Blacks won. Ireland didn’t choke. Ireland just didn’t win an epic game.
To choke would suggest they had it in the bag no questions and then lost. None of the top sides, currently Ire, Fra, SA and NZ have it in the bag.
To be in that group of top teams, capable of winning on any given day, and be in that group consistently, is success in Rugby. If you are there long enough, you will taste success. Ireland are new to being there consistently in World Cup terms. If they keep up their standard, they will win one in the future.
This competitive place at the top shared by several teams is where the Wallabies need to focus to be. It’s not about winning one, in a smash and grab, that’s just nonsense talk. To have a national rugby team consistently competitive is success.

I loved seeing Richie turn on the jets!

Jordie was great. They all were.
But BB has been copping it lately. Hence the special shout out for standing up in the heat.

Congratulations to All Blacks!
They were the better team and deserved to win. This is the all blacks, so many counting them out. It’s the all blacks!
Special mention to Beauden Barrett. Under so much heat for so long by so many, played admirably. Sam Cane the same, wow. Ardie, always wow.

An immense game. Two amazing sides.

Congrats on an amazing career to Sexton. Ireland a fantastic team. But didn’t win on the day, and they didn’t play poorly, they played the Irish game and gave it all.

I thought Ireland played for the refs whistle. They played all that way all game, and talked a lot, so much focus on the ref. Which has been my only criticism of their amazing run over the last few years.

Let’s Go All Blacks!! 🥊 🥊 🥊

Off topic…. Anyone watching France Italy?

The Italian disallowed try makes me
want to stop watching Rugby.

My main comment suggests 2 or 3 Australian teams only, not 5, play NZ and international club teams.

But only after a domestic expanded super competition.

Wallabies v Australia A v Tom Jones XV

Home and away Series.

Starts Next week. Live on Stan, 730pm Friday and Saturday nights.

So we have nearly 3 teams of capable international rugby players, but not world best individual rugby players.
Doesn’t this tell us the (missing) importance of ‘the Team’, the coaching, the cohesion, the strategy, the culture!
To be able to rise above the sum of the parts.

Geeze, especially under a different set of coaches, going head to head, you’ve got to say that squad is in with a chance to beat the wallabies. Same goes for Australia A!

WHO WANTS TO SEE Wallabies vs Australia A.

So many reasons to do it! So so many reasons!

If the Wallabies go home next week, they will have the time.

ARU make it happen!

See my comment above, doing away with these teams is not what is needed, that shrinks the game. Reposition where these teams sit. But I agree with you, we Can’t compete in the current Super Rugby tournament structure with the current 5 teams.
.
Repositioning!
Reposition the focus to where we can compete and win! Without cutting, but expanding! Expanding backwards domestically and expanding forwards internationally 👍 👍

Tony, thanks for the article, I think it’s great so many fans that care about rugby in Australia are passionately putting forward ideas. I like your idea based on ‘mergers’. I’ve been thinking on similar lines of consolidation, but how without shrinking the game, we must create more played rugby, opportunity, pathways and competitiveness.
.
My possible way forward is based on the following and is inspired by a few key principles , and introduces key FOCUS areas.
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1. Winning is everything.
Not even with the most loyal of fans, can the game flourish by our teams perennially losing. Decade or more of Wallabies on the wrong side of flowers most games and look at the state of rugby in Australia with the average casual fan base. Fans capable of being more than casual, they can’t deal with Super rugby teams being belted by New Zealand sides week after week, year after year.
.
2. Wallabies are everything. Rugby is international!
This by no means don’t focus all the way down to grass roots. But if the wallabies aren’t competitive at the end of the day, the sport dies. The international level is the main aim, the pinnacle of rugby!, that inspires all of what comes below it.
.
3. History is everything.
Whatever we do, we cannot do away with the history of the game in Australia, the fact that the Wallabies have a proud and dominant legacy at the top of this sport, we can get back there! We need to be careful with idealistic new competitions and new teams, trying to create new history – we may not be in a strong enough place – radical changes that throw out what we do have, and then the new changes don’t take off – Houston we have a problem.
.
The HOW:
Currently;
Club/Super Rugby/international :
At each level we are losing. Winning is everything remember!
The gap between each in standard of play is too great for smooth transitions, pathways and competitiveness. We need to focus at the gap!
.
Proposed;
Current Club/Focus X/current Super Rugby/Focus Y/Current International/Focus Z:
.
The current super rugby teams do not get dispensed or cut down, but shift focus domestically, shift down toward the roots, potentially they could grow in teams with the success of FOCUS area X. Super teams currently have players 3 deep in a position that get little rugby to improve, and look for overseas or any greater opportunity.
This new focus for Super Rugby is Potentially a home and away condensed tournament. A tournament worthy of watching on TV. This level should aim to compete with NRL. This is where our current super teams would live, plus plans for expansion, corporate sponsorship, tv.
From the then domestic focused Super rugby teams, Elite Super teams are born!. The FOCUS area Y.
2 or 3 teams drafted from the domestic super teams, that replace the current international focus of the super rugby fixtures, which take on the NZ teams, Super pacific teams, and more traditionally SA, Argentinian and Japanese based clubs. They could play each other in a series – the pinnacle of rugby league is state of origin remember! These teams roll onto Wallaby and broader Australia A.
Focus X- is the step between club and Super rugby, semi pro to pro, (for another day- consolidation/mergers, condensed competition and pathways – look at March madness and elite 8 US college basketball ), Tony’s got some good ideas in his article!
Focus Z- we are already doing it, but keep building, it’s one bright spot from this shocking year. It’s Australia A. Australia cannot afford to be picking circa 44-50 player pools, with most only training for 23 to play for an international season that feels like waiting to paint to dry between games. All those players need to be playing regularly.
Money makers and Lawyers, do your thing now. And I don’t want to hear can’t or won’t 😂
More rugby, more Winning!, more Wallabies!, more History!

As an aussie wallabies supporter with NZ family, I’m invoking my NZ citizenship and barracking for the All Blacks for the rest of the World Cup.
Them and Fiji.

More rugby!, developing more opportunities for competitive games and new competitions to be played, is one answer to allow fewer clubs have deeper teams that utilize a whole squad that actually gets game time and development, and players then know they will get chances to play and be seen and not buried away.

The idea of taking 33 players just so the remainder can train and not play a game of rugby is limiting for players 23-33.

The concept of Australia A is also a good step in that regard at national level. Australia A should be playing all the rank 10-16 teams as many games an international season as the Wallabies play RC and spring tour.

More Rugby!

Even if Jones didn’t speak in any way shape or form to Japan. He should be treated as if he did for his evasive and divisive game playing with his non direct response to initial questions. The mind games would have the same effect on the team and supporters whether he did or didn’t. And those gas lighting mind games have been a constant theme from Eddie’s stream of incoherent babble from day one!
Give yourself an uppercut Eddie!

There is one thing that makes me angrier than Eddie’s selections.
It’s Eddie himself.
His transparent, self serving, gas lighting and hubris is so clearly not leadership worthy of OUR great Wallabies.