Unfortunately I have to admit that the the strongest proponents of boring rugby (let’s just kick the ball between the two fullbacks until someone makes a mistake) are Australia. You just have to watch the Super 14 over the past couple of years. Phil Keanrs even pointed out once – if you watch a Kiwi v SA game, it’s exciting, if you watch a SA v SA darby they’re exciting, if you watch any game involving an Australian team it’s boring.

The problem is now that other countries have adopted boring rugby as the standard. Australia still plays boring rugby, we’re just not winning anymore.

I’d like to see rule changes, many other don’t. It’s just an opinion. New Zealand pioneered the introduction of a major rule change in the late 60’s when prior to that players could kick out on the full from anywhere on the field. Bill McLaren – “the voice of rugby’ – once said that he commentated on a 5 nations match that had 116 line-outs, and Wales apparently had 7 different line-out calls, all of which meant “kick for touch”.

However it’s no good just changing the rules if they no longer reward smart tactical kicking.

Unfortunately according to the official rules of Rugby League, the upper bodies of the front row in a scrum will be horizontal, the halfback then feeds the scrum by rolling the ball into the centre of the tunnel formed between the two front rows, and then they are supposed to puch once it’s in.

Wouldn’t changing to rugby league basically involve ignoring any rule of the game not approved by Foxsports?

IRB Council:

One vote for each representative (defined in IRB bye-law 1.1 as any member of the council).
The Chairman is from France, The Vice Chairman is English.
Foundation Unions (England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, France, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia) have 2 delegates each = 16 votes
Argentina, Canada, Italy, and Japan get one vote each = 4 votes
Other bodies (Asia ARFU, Africa CAR, Europe FIRA-AER, Oceania FORU, South America CONSUR, North America NAWIRA) one vote each = 6 votes
Grand total 28 votes
The 6 Nations get 13 votes, SANZAR and Argentina get 7, the rest of the world get 8

Yes the IRB is dominated by the NH. Not opinion, just fact.

If I might make a suggestion – How about if infringements stay the same as pre-ELV’s but just scrap the option of a kick at goal unless a card has been awarded. This would encourage refs to use the card early for deliberate offences, while lessening the amount of penalty kicks overall.

I just can’t stand it when games are determined by penalty goals which resulted from pedantic 50-50 decisions on little technicalities at the breakdown. Especially when the video replays show that the referee often gets it wrong. If you want matches decided by goals you should be watching soccer (and that isn’t intended to be a slight against soccer)

Midfielder – I don’t know how much support the Waratahs have in western Sydney but I gather you are implying that the Waratahs don’t have much. If this is the case then there’s no-one to blame but the NSWRU. As someone who grew up playing rugby on the south coast all I can say to that idea is – “The NSWRU focusing on inner Sydney and ignoring the rest of NSW – NEVER” Spot the subtle bit of sarcasm.

As for Melbourne, shouldn’t we start referring to them as VICTORIA. After all the other Australian franchises don’t exclusively represent Brisbane, Sydney Canberra and Perth (at least in theory).

WORKING CLASS RUGGER – “Rumoured Atlantic conference”. I haven’t heard that rumour, but I like it.

I’d have to say one place where code wars don’t really exist is the US. I’ve spent quite a bit of time over there in Pittsburgh, which is NFL mad even by US standards, yet everyone in the city was also supporter of most of the cities other codes. Penguins in the Hockey, Panthers in College sports, Pirates in Baseball, etc. They even had an unexpected large rugby following.

Personally I think there’s room for all the main codes in Australia. They just have to borrow something from the US – Their codes don’t really compete against each other. They coordinate amongst themselves so in a particular city, you won’t really have to choose between watching one code or another. For example, The Pittsburgh Penguins rarely, if ever, play at the same time as the Steelers. On top of that, the seasons are staggered.

Spiro – You might remember that in the week before the Brumbies match, some other media comments by Lions players (or maybe their ghost writers) garnered some criticism from Lions officials towards a group of players including Matt Dawson and Austin Healy. After Healy scored the final try to equalise the game agasint the Brumbies, Dawson kicked the winning goal and immediately turned towards the grandstand pulling out the chest of his jersey and pointing to the Lions logo. I don’t know if it was just a gesture towards the supporters, the continigent of Fleet Street journalists in the stand, or the Lions officials.

The Lions tour of 2001 was fantastic both for the matches and the touring Lions fans. I went to the 3rd test, the Waratahs game and the Brumbies game, while watching most of the other matches from O’Malleys Irish pub in Kings Cross, which was normally full of expat British and Irish. At the end of the Year I followed the Wallabies tour up north. Lions supporters I had met in Australia actually bought me a ticket to the Twickenham match, gave me a Lions jersey, invited me to pre and post game parties in the Western lawn behind the ground, and made sure I had a good time in most cities I went to. I was introduced to Barry John in Wales, who I ended up spending many lunches with in Cardiff. I was given a tour of Arms Park, and inside the Cardiff Rugby Club’s private rugby museum. An Irish supporter I met at one match became a close friend and I was groomsman at his wedding seven years later.

I don’t think there are many sporting events in the world that promote that sort of camaraderie between opposing supporters.

In answer to various comments – The percentages are just my humble opinion of what I think is ‘likely’. They aren’t where I’d most like to see the teams based. I just hoped my article would spark some debate and fully expected be proven wrong in some areas (B McKay – thanks for the correcting my errors of fact). I never really considered Hong Kong but SHOCKS makes some very good points in their favour.

One suggestion I would make for future comments. Please differentiate between where you think teams SHOULD be based and where you expect teams WILL be based. Personally I’d LIKE to see Tokyo in the S15, and Beunos Aires, PIR and Vancouver in the S18 – But I know it’s not going to happen that way.

Andy S – I believe the division of TV revenue won’t be determined until the broadcast rights are re-negotiated and by that time any new team would already be chosen. Gate takings are the responsibility of the hosting team as they are responsible for the hosting expenses (renting the stadium, providing security, etc).

Maybe the way forward would be for the Brumbies to buy into the Raiders. It has been done before. Look at Leeds Tykes (union) and Leeds Rhinos (league). More recently the London Broncos (league) were purchased by the London Harlequins (union) and are now playing in the English Super League as Harlequins RL. It has been successful too, with increased crowds for both Harlequin teams and the Rhinos winning the Super League.

It’s a given that sporting teams in Canberra will always struggle to get a crowd. Remember that when the Brumbies have a sellout crowd of almost 30,000 (it hasn’t happened for a few years) it represents about 1 in 13 Canberrans going to the game – remembering that many Canberrans leave the capital on weekends and return to their ‘home’ states. Can you imagine the Waratahs getting the equivalent percentage of Sydneysiders (450,000) to a game?

One other problem is facilities. The Raiders have a very good training facility at Bruce less than 1km from the stadium. The Brumbies have a decent gym but are essentially using an old suburban bowling club as their training facility. They even run drills and beep tests on what used to be bowling greens. If the two teams were merged or one was purchased by the other they could share facilities, medical staff, cross-promote, share advertising costs, and even share players (that’s how Wendell Sailor got his first run in rugby when contracted to play league at Leeds).

It’s not something that will happen anytime soon. I asked the Brumbies CEO a couple of years ago about it and they had no plans in that regard whatsoever. But tougher economic realities and shrinking returns might put the subject back on the table.

The biggest problem with the Footy Show is – too much Show, not enough Footy. Over the years it’s turned into a poor reproduction of Hey Hey it’s Saturday, minus Ozzie Ostrich.

I agree that Australia can’t field a competitive fifth side in the Super ’15’. Our only option would be to host an Islander team. However that raises the spectre of Australia becoming just another country trying to destroy Islander rugby to fill the raks of our national team. Unless there is a provision in the rules meaning that Islanders playing in Melbourne won’t have their time here counting towards residency – for the purposes of Wallaby selection only – then an Islander side would be yet another nail in the coffin on the Fijian, Samoan and Tongan national sides.

Personally I’d prefer to see the fifteenth side based in Tokyo or Buenos Aires.

I’m a bit late to post a comment but I’d say that an intersting hypothetical would be to list the best grounds for individual sports. History is great but I for one much prefer rugby union/league games at virtually any rectangular venue to the SCG or MCG. My personal best grounds for each sport would be:
Test Cricket: SCG
One Day Cricket: MCG
20/20: Docklands
AFL: MCG
Rugby: Millenium Stadium, Cardiff (I haven’t been to Twickenham since the redevelopment)
Rugby League: Suncorp
Soccer: Wembley
Best ground for a crowd of less than 20,000: The Stoop – Twickenham (Gold Coast the best in Australia)
Basketball: Boston
Boxing: Madison Square Garden
NFL: Mile High Stadium Denver
Baseball: PNC Park, Pittsburgh
College Football: LA Colosseum
Horse Racing: Flemington

The sooner the NRL gets rid of Gallop the sooner they can actually have some measure of credibility. Here’s Gallop, standing in front of a microphone giving his usual “Rah-Rah’s under the bed” speech, whilst knowing full well that the NRL has always and will always continue to target rugby juniors for professional NRL contracts.

This is the same gallop who only a year ago stood in front of the same microphones in response to the SBW affair and lectured the world about how contracts were an unbreakable holy writ, sacrosanct in perpetuity, set in stone and written in the blood of the martyrs. The same gallop who just over 10 years ago threw wads of News Ltd cash at ARL-contracted players to get them to tear up their contracts and join the Super League.

I’m just puzzled how he can look himself in the mirror without crying or laughing.

I’m just getting a little sick of the NRL’s constant whining about having players stolen by union. There are still NRL scouts wandering around junior union games looking for kids to sign, and they’ve been signing players from union since Daly Messenger in 1908. They treat their supporters as an expedable commodity (The Super League War) and after all that, Gallop still has the cheek to stand in front of a camera with a straight face and try to claim he’s a poor victim.

Sorry Gallop, I was born in a league area (Illawarra), grew up with league and saw the ‘loyalty’ that rugby league showed to the Illawarra. It wasn’t a merger it was a hostile takeover. The only league I watch nowadays is the English competition. I watch AFL, Soccer, NFL, Ice Hockey, Gaelic football, Hurling, basically everything but the NRL.

Union has a record of cooperation with their ‘competing’ codes that league doesn’t have. Remember the Rugby World Cup in 2003? The ARU coordinated with their rival codes to minimise disruptions due to ground conflicts and even used the event in a way that mutually supported different codes. The Australia v Ireland rugby game was deliberately scheduled in Melbourne the night after the Australia v Ireland International Rules game, and in the Melbourne Cup Week. The International Rules game had it’s largest ever Australian crowd, and many supporters watched both games.

All the NRL seems to do is wander around with a big stick threatening other codes, stealing players where they can and placing their spokes-muppet Gallop in front of a camera everytime someone steals one of theirs. They make me sick.

Sydney has two problems:

1 Pathetic stadiums. Surely when they were building Stadim Australia for the olympics someone should have pointed out that they were building a stadium for athletics – not a rugby/soccer/AFL/cricket/morris dancing/Iron Chef stadium. An OBLONG stadium to be used for rectangle-pitch and oval-pitch sports. Bad for all sports good for none. The stadium was built for asthetics alone. The stadium is to be viewed, it is not designed for spectators to view sports. NSW cut your losses, bulldoze the thing before it turns into an even bigger white elephant.

Sydney just doesn’t have a stadium even close to the best purpose-built stadiums in the world, such as the Millenium Stadium Cardiff, Melbourne Tennis Centre, Madison Square garden, PNC Park Pittsburgh, The MCG, or even the Gold Caost Titans (when the intended crowd size is considered). As for the SFS, I’ll never understand how someone could build a stadium so large and yet have such a small capacity.

2 Lack of infrastructure to get to and from sporting events at the pathethic stadiums. As anyone who has ever visited Sydney, let alone tried living there will understand, this point needs no explanation.

I prefer the following – IRB take note:

1. Half Cauliflower
2. No-Neck
3. Full Cauliflower
4. Afrikaaner
5. Ex-Afrikaaner
6. Tall Mongrel
7. Short Mongrel
8. Pacific Islander
9. Claytons Forward
10. Poster Boy
11. Ex-League-ee
12. Physio’s pay-packet
13. Physios future pay-packet
14. Ex-League-ee who can’t kick
15. Social outcast

I think the debate about the ELV’s is focusing on the wrong question – ELV’s v No ELV’s? This has turned the debate into a north v south issue. What the debate should focus on is – Which ELV’s?
Some of the ELV’s are a good idea but bad in practice – hands in the ruck, collapsing mauls, etc. Others are a good idea in practice – no pass back into the 22, lineout changes. But if the idea of the short arm is simply to reduce the game’s reliance on penalty goals, why not simply bring in this rule:

Penalties are awarded as they are now (pre ELV) but the option of a kick at goal shall only be available if the penalty also resulted in a red or yellow card.

Onside,

Hird had the height and coordination to be a goalkeeper but I don’t think he had speed and ability to change direction to make it anywhere else. But I could be wrong.

But as an example of growing codes without impacting other codes. Look at England (I know it’s painful to admit England does something to do with sports better than us). After their world cup win their under 12 rugby program grew to over a third of a million kids, but it didn’t effect junior enrolments in the FA’s junior programs one bit. Mind you the FA’s junior programs still make the RFU look like a CWA lamington drive in slow motion.

Katipo,
“Devil is in the detail” is exactly right. I remember the first ever night rugby test match in Australia. Australia v South Africa. Instead of having some half-successful rock star screaching out a crap Whitney Houston version of Advance Australia Fair, there was a military band which just played the tune. The entire crowd sang the anthem and it sounded as loud as the crowd singing Flower of Scotland at Murrayfield. And no holding up the game in order to plug John Williamson’s lastest CD with a cringe-inducing Waltzing Matilda. John Eales summed up the player’s feelings about the ‘tradition’ of playing Waltzing Matilda when he said it had an intimidation value of zero and an entertainment value of even less. From my experience, the vast majority of the crowd agreed with him.

There are some areas where going for showbiz definitely detracts form the game. But managed well, it works.

I agree with many of the points raised in the interview. I also follow NFL (having married a girl from Pittsburgh). But I would like to point out a counter-argument to those that are worried about appealing to spectators with ‘entertainment’. The idea of favouring entertainment over sport is always going to be controversial, and those voicing their concerns have a very valid argument, but just look at Stade Francais in the French Top 14. Last time I watched one of their games they had a Parisian brass band in one corner for the entire game, and rock concert before kick off, medieval falconry and actual jousting at half-time, and the instead of cheerleaders they had the girls from the Moulin Rouge doing the can-can down the sideline during the match.

Trashy entertainment maybe.

Crass commercialism maybe.

Over-involvement by a media-mogel owner maybe.

BUT LOOK AT THE RESULTS: Top 14 finals almost every year, world class players, a recent major growth in TV ratings in a country dominated by soocer, and a sell out crowd at one of the largest stadiums in Europe every single week. – ARU take note!

Onside,
I agree that it is the kids that are the future of any code. However I also believe that there are two things that make it possible for the codes to survive alongside each other.

Firstly the next generation will not have the same level of entrenched bias against ‘foreign’ codes. When I was a kid in NSW, playing soccer was accepted – barely, but idolising any senior players who weren’t league or union was unheard of to the point of heresy, and even talking about Aussie Rules could lead to your peers considering you abnormal. Later when I lived in Melbourne I got the impression that a reciprocal attitude existed in Victoria. Nowadays kids grow up exposed to all codes to varying degrees. They are therefore able to sample a variety before settling on the one that suits them.

Secondly the different codes lend themselves, at least in part, to different skill sets and body shapes. Union’s George Smith or League’s Willie Mason, if they had played soccer their entire lives would not be playing soccer at first class level. Wayne Rooney probably wouldn’t be able to out-mark James Hird in AFL, and so on.

There will always be competition between codes for the lion’s share of players and supporters. I’m just saying that no code is facing a real possibility of fading away in the near future.

Rami,
Yes I am originally from the Illawarra. I played soccer in the under 7’s then league both in school and for the local team, then Union at Port Kembla (my school didn’t have a union team). As an adult I played rugby at uni (didn’t study, just played rugby) and while in the armed forces played rugby, soccer, league and Aussie rules – but mainly rugby. I used to follow the Illawarra steelers so when I visited the US I naturally followed the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So now I support the ACT Brumbies, St Kilda, Arsenal (ex gunner), Ajax (used to know a Dutch girl), Harlequins (Union and League), Cardiff, Stade Francais, Ulster, Mitsubishi Juko Sagamihara Dynaboars (Japan rugby), Pittsburgh Steelers, Penguins NHL, Pirates NFL, Pitt Panthers, Taranaki, Blue Bulls, Inverness Caley Thistle, County Down in Gaelic football and County Fermanagh in hurling. So regardless of where I am in the world, I’m rarely short of something to support. I’ll wait until Illawarra is re-admitted or hell freezes over before I follow anything in the NRL – whichever comes first. And I haven’t selected a team in the A-League yet, I may have to hold off for a few decades to give them time to bring back the Wollongong Wolves.

And one other thing on the subject of POMMIE-BASHING.

I’ve been guilty of the odd anti-northern comment in my day, but I have to admit that through the year of 2001 with the many Lions tour matches watched at stadiums and pubs with visiting supporters, followed by a visit to the home-nations for a Wallabies tour the same year, I’ve never had a better year. I benefitted from an enormous amount of hospitality shown to me in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and yes – even England. Some Lancastrian supporters even organised a free England v Australia ticket for me, as well as before and after tailgate parties in the Twickenham Western Carpark, followed by pub crawl and a traditional post-lager curry at an Indian restaurant. All at a time when the Australian dollar was worth 36p. I wish my countrymen could show half the amount of hospitality to visiters here as I was shown up north.

So to all readers up north, our occasional criticisms of Northern rugby (ok more than ‘occasional’) should be taken as hopefully constructive criticism, not a personal attack. I love to see Australia win, but I’m not annoyed when we lose to clearly world-class opposition, as opposed to losing because our own team is playing slightly more woefully than the other team.

I really believe that the Northern Hemisphere is ‘a sleeping giant’. By that I mean he’s just gone to bed an hour ago, he’s just beginning REM, and will probably sleep-in till afternoon because it’s a Sunday and he had a late night.

If you look at player numbers, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and to a lesser extent Wales should be struggling every year but they are often able to field competent teams. Wales is boosted by the fact that rugby is a high profile game in most of the country. However they are all helped by their centralised contract system. France and England don’t have the same luxury.

Our Super 14 is nicely placed at the start of the season and is followed by a few northern hemisphere touring teams, the Tri-nations and then the November tours up north. Some French clubs play 40+ games in a year, while the 6-nations happens during their club season. Also the influx of foreign superstars is damaging their home grown players. Occasionally you’ll see French players selected for the national squad who aren’t always selected in the 1st XV at their home club. If you go off player numbers alone, England has more players registered with their under 12’s than Australia and NZ have players registered in all age groups. Add to that the enormous amount of money in the French and English club competitions and you’re left with a scenario which, on paper, should see France and England dominating world rugby (look at cricket in India over the last 5 years).

The reality however is that France and England don’t dominate, in fact at times they struggle to compete. This will never change until their club v country issue is solved. If those problems are solved then we in the south will be the ones struggling to keep up. The real tragedy is a great servant of the game like Martin Johnson is probably going to be the next sacrificial lamb blamed for England’s problems when no coach in the world can work miracles. You can’t carve a marble masterpiece out of a lump of concrete.

Dave – Draggin out the “this is the world game – we have more supporters” line everytime someone makes a valid criticism doesn’t win your argument. Most people follow the sports they grew up with, otherwise every country and every state would follow exactly the same sports. And personal insults don’t win arguments either. Calling me an “upperclass twit” because you don’t agree with me just proves my point. Class has nothing to do with it (I’m from a steelworker family). Your excuse for the difference in behaviour between soccer and rugby/AFL crowds is that other crowds are all the upper class is just rubbish. You’ve just accused working class football supporters of being the reason soccer crowds are violent – just who exactly is taking the “holiest of thou” than thou line? I’ve been a member of soccer, AFL, league and union teams and I’ve been to soccer, league and union internationals long before the A-league was invented. My observations on the way opposing supporters treat each other and opposing players treat each other in different codes is based on my own personal experience. If you don’t agree fine but keep the personal insults to yourself.

Like I said I’d really like to get into soccer but comments like yours aren’t helping.

Any New Zealander who thinks that the referee did a good and impartial job last night obviously thinks the same way about the refereeing in the 2007 World Cup quaterfinal against France.