It’s a bit early in the season to be writing off the Kiwis. Many of the games so far have been local derbies. Against foreign teams:
Crusaders have beaten the Stormers and Rebels
Chiefs have beaten the Stormers
Highlanders lost to the Force
Blues lost against the Bulls and Lions
Hurricanes lost against the Stormers and Brumbies and won against the Cheetahs

While I am encouraged by the performance of the Aussie teams this year, we honestly haven’t had enough games against foreign teams to give an true indication. All I would say based on the results so far is it is the most even competition I’ve seen in a long time.

Mind you – having an even comp is not good for the job security of coaches.

Being a constant bottom-dweller is nothing to be scoffed at. I have a favourite team in many competitions, and most of the time they are near the bottom of the table. CA Brive in the French Top 14, Griquas in the Currie Cup, Crystal Palace in the EPL, Inverness Caley Thistle (SPL), Pirates in Baseball, Scotland in the 6 Nations, etc.

There are advantages. If you support a Champion team, every year you don’t win the entire competition is a bad year, whereas when you support a bottom dweller – every time you even win a game it’s time for a celebration.

Bring back the old jerseys for a start. They allow for a much better bind.

“egotistical Justin bieber looking scared to get his jersey dirty little metro sexaul selfie taken boys” – Hilarious (just squirted half my morning cup of tea out my nose)

I don’t think I’ve seen JoC summed up more accurately in a long time. I lost all respect for him when he started referring to himself in the 3rd person as a ‘brand’. He should get over himself. If his ego gets any bigger he’ll have Khoder Nasser as his manager. Maybe the backline should spend a bit less time practicing their post try dance routines and more time practicing something constructive like…..I don’t know……..rugby maybe?

to discourage penalty kicks, just don’t allow kickers to stop the game to retrieve a kicking tee. Ban the kicking tee and sand buckets

I’d suggest three areas of the game need improvement – The scrum, the penalty kick, and kicking for territory. These could be fixed fairly easily:

1. The Scrum: Get rid of the “crouch, touch, set” and just allow the players to set the scrum as they see fit, minus the referee interference. This would reduce the power of the “hit”. Also ban the lycra/spandex monstrosities that pass for jerseys these days. Add a single line into the IRB rules (as I posted above) “Jerseys shall be made of a strong, durable material, and shall be loose fitting so as to allow at least 2cm’s of slack around the upper body and torso”. This would allow for a proper bind.

2. The Penalty Kick: Just ban kicking tees and sand buckets. Don’t allow players to stop the game just so they can retrieve a specialist piece of equipment. They’re not allowed to do that at any other part of the game, so why is it allowed at kicking time. No tees means drop goal attempts, which waste less time, are less likely to succeed, and would therefore reduce the amount of long-range penalty attempts and make it much more important to score tries under the posts.

3. Kicking for territory: Bring back the old-style mark, where it is awarded only when the player catches it cleanly while stationary. Then add a further reward by treating it as a penalty kick if it goes into touch – the team awarded the mark is awarded the resulting line out throw and can kick out on the full froom anywhere. This way, players would only kick where there is a clear advantage to be gained and it would reward well placed tactical kicking, while punishing aimless chip kicks, and “get out of jail free” kicks when under pressure.

Another problem with the modern scrum is the ridiculous Tour de France jerseys they wear nowadays that don’t allow for a secure bind.

Simply add one line to the IRB rulebook:
“Jerseys shall be made of a strong, durable material, and shall bit loose fitting so as to allow at least 2cm’s of slack around the upper body and torso”.

There – sorted.

An easier solution would be to simply ban kicking tees and sand buckets. Why do we allow a stoppage so that a player can retrieve a piece of specialist equipment from the sideline. That would reduce the number of attempts, lower the success rates, and reduce the amount of time wasted preparing for kicks.

As an Australian and die hard Brumbies supporter it pains me to say this, but I have to agree with Mania on this one. Whenever two Kiwi teams play each other it’s a spectacle of running rugby, like the old Randwick days of the 80’s – attack attack attack. Whenever two South African teams play each other the physicality level is beyond anything in Australia. However if two Australian teams play each other, it quickly degenerates into an endless procession of chip kicks, box kicks, up-and-unders (that the kicker rarely regathers) and touch finders that don’t actually find touch.

Even Phil Kearns has mentioned the appaling mode of play of the Australian teams nowadays.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the US (married an American), one thing I noticed was the unbelievable support they had for high school football. One high school team near Pittsburgh had 15,000 people attend a game while I was there. I remember playing rugby league in high school and there were two people on the sideline – our coach and their coach.

ARU top ups are supposed to be for ‘core’ wallaby representatives. Giteau, Beale and JoC were all Wallabies before they were offered top ups. Tell me, how many wallaby caps does Folau have? And if QLD’s claim is true it’s just adds to my argument of the ARU playing favourites – ie cheating

If the news about Folau is true then it is just one more knife in the back of rugby supporters outside of NSW and QLD. Although I’m born and raised in NSW and support NSW in all other codes, I don’t just refuse to follow the Tah’s, I despise them. I support anyone over the Tah’s. Kiwi teams, South Africans, English, anyone. I’m just sick of the ARU’s attitude that the Tah’s must win – It’s for the good of the code. For rugby to be strong, it must be successful in our largest market – Sydney, etc etc etc. yada yada yada.

To this ends the ARU tops up the salaries of any big star they can draw into the code provided they play for NSW or QLD, preferably NSW. This has nothing to do with topping up the salaries of Wallabies. The ARU would never have come to the table with that amount of cash to keep Quade Cooper if he was with the Brumbies or the Force. Folau has NEVER played for the Wallabies, and at the time of their initial top ups, neither had Sailor, Lote Tuquiri, Rogers or Tahu.

It was bad enough that the ARU – using money in the bank raised in ALL provinces – decided to just hand it all over to the Waratahs over the last 20 years to bail them out of the red whenever they got into financial trouble. It was worse when the ARU decided that the huge financial windfall from the 2003 RWC should be divided up with an enormous share – way out of proportion to population or player numbers – gifted to the Waratahs.

What this amounts to is the ARU deciding to increase the salary cap for the ‘favoured provinces’ via the back door, while limiting the caps on the others. In other words – cheating.

I agree with the general principle, as in discouraging aimless kicks for territory, but how about this as a simple alternative:

Marks are awarded under the ‘old’ rule. You must be stationary when catching a mark.

Once awarded the player can kick for touch as if a penalty has been awarded.

Not many would kick for territory and risk an opposition line-out back near where you kicked it.

Unfortunately Nine could be seen as the lesser of three evils. Nine’s coverage of pretty much everything (except the cricket before the retirement of Richie), is pretty awful. Eddie Mcguire shouldn’t be allowed to host anything besides gameshows. Even his AFL commentary is awful. What are they thinking allowing the President of one of the clubs to commentate? Potential bias anyone?

The only thing Nine has going for it is the fact they aren’t Seven or Ten.

Remember when Ten had the rugby? Remember Buddha’s endless shouts of ‘over’ – pronounced ‘auwvaaaaaah’ for some reason. Or the occasions when they wouldn’t show the Wallabies overseas games live due to the timezone.They’d show them in the mornings. No complaints there, not a bad way to have Sunday breakfast. However they’d insist during every ad break, even in the one between the anthems and the kickoff, of previewing the news headlines for the upcoming midday news – INCLUDING THE FINAL SCORE!!

Or when Seven got the rights to the rugby world cup in Australia, and insisted on showing their ‘rugby club’ farce every single night – instead of actually showing the matches that were on that night. They’d even subject us to ‘Kochie’ jelly-wrestling some has been celebrity, instead of showing even 2 seconds of the Argentina match which was on the same night.

The sooner siphoning laws are scrapped the better. They don’t provide access to sports for all Australians they just provide the big three with another opportunity to hoard their property so no-one else can show it. I sometimes think Nine only bid for the Union so it could prevent a rival code to the league getting decent ccoverage on FTA. Sort of like how in the bad old days the Roosters and a couple of other teams used to sign up the two or three best players in a single key position like 5/8th or halfback just to stop them from playing somewhere else.

Tommy Raudonikis hired as an ‘attitude consultant’. I think that just might work!

All this talk of ‘expansion’? I mean expansion is obviously needed in SA. They have the crowd numbers, the player numbers and the obvious expansion locations (Both the Southern Kings and the Lions in at the same time).

Australia doesn’t have the support or the depth to warrant a 6th team. I’d be more in favour of adding a Japan based team (similar time zone), or a pacific islands combined side (based in the Australian conference and administered by the ARU but playing wherever – even the odd home game in NZ). I’d love to see an Argentinian side but the logistics would be ridiculous (distance, time zone, etc)

I don’t know enough about the situation in NZ to comment on expansion there, but they definitely have the player depth. Any suggestions as to where the new franchise would be based?

Leo/TB,
That’s not always true. Remember most states don’t have NFL teams and some states have three. Pittsburgh for example is a city of 300,000 (2.3 million if you include the surrounding area), and has sold out every home game for the last 40 years. There is also a college team sharing the same stadium, and an ice hockey team (which also sells out most games) as well as a baseball team whose season partly overlaps other codes. Some Friday night high school games get 10-15,000. In other cities there are college teams that sell out 110,000 seat stadiums, and there are 117 teams in Division 1 alone. Yes the US population is 15 times larger, but each weekend the crowd numbers at various football games in the US exceed those in Australia (in all codes) by much more than that.

I think we could look at getting tips from the US as to how they do it, but I also think a lot of it comes from the fact that all the ‘competing’ codes over there have sat down and worked out ways to make sure they don’t actually ‘compete’. Almost every Pittsburgh Steelers fan is also a Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL) and Pittsburgh Pirates (baseball) fan and most are also Pitt Panthers fans. The way they do it is they work out schedules that allow people to follow multiple sports. High school games are Friday nights, college is on Saturday, NFL is on Sunday, and other sports adjust their schedules accordingly. It’s something we couldn’t really do in Australia because our codes are such bitter rivals.

If a new coach turns the Waratahs around so fast that they win the title next year, people won’t be talking about what award to give him, they’ll be talking about what to name the new religion he’s just founded.

Very true and you make a point that I didn’t even go to – quality of selections. I’d grant you that is an area of justified criticism. Deans may have been slightly protected at the Crusaders due to the amount of quality back ups to their back ups to their back ups that Canterbury seems to always have.

However my concern is the lack of a quality pool of talented players to select FROM. Who exactly would you select differently – keeping in mind injuries at the time (no Beale etc)? Deans can only do so much with the players available.

I’d agree with you on the wingers and possibly the open half, maybe not on the hooker or scrum half (controversial I know)
My main point is that I’d probably pick more more wallabies now than when Deans took over – so we have improved – but the number of Australians picked would still be no where near the number of Kiwis. We just don’t have the depth of talent, or the serious player numbers.

I’m all for constructive criticism of a coach when it’s warranted. However we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that a coach can only do so much with the material he has to work with.

Look at last year’s RWC match – Australia v New Zealand
If you were to go through the squads, number by number, how many Australians would you honestly choose over their NZ counterparts?

15 Adam Ashley Cooper v Israel Dagg
14 James O’Connor v Cory Jane
13 Anthony Fainga’a v Conrad Smith
12 Pat McCabe v Ma’a Nonu
11 Digby Ioane v Richard Kahui
10 Quade Cooper v Aaron Cruden
9 Will Genia v Piri Weepu

8 Radike Samo v Kieran Reed
7 David Pocock v Richie McCaw (capt)
6 Rocky Elsom v Jerome Kaino
5 James Horwill (capt) v Brad Thorn
4 Dan Vickerman v Sam Whitelock
3 Ben Alexander v Owen Franks
2 Stephen Moore v Keven Mealamu
1 Sekope Kepu v Tony Woodcock

Honestly, even with my Aussie bias, I can’t envisage many green and gold socks in an ANZAC combined side. Even Cooper would only get in because Dan Carter was injured.
The situation hasn’t changed since Deans took over. We had the great George Smith in Deans’ first year at the helm, but Smith was near the end of his career and up against McCaw in his prime. In that first year I can’t realistically think of any Australians I’d pick over their opposite number.

All it takes is for one supporter to convince one player, to convince one coach to have a word to one ARU executive, to pass it on to one IRB council representative, who could mention it at the next IRB meeting.

Stranger things have happened

My thought is – one in, all in. If the rules force a return to the old jersey, then both teams will be wearing them. Both would be on a level playing field. Also I believe it is already illegal for a player to be tackled by the collar.

Maybe the Australian teams could all agree to wear old-style jerseys in the home derbies?

I just feel that if teams only had the option of an attempted drop goal instead of a penalty, they might be less keen to go for the points. Especially when the penalty is at exteme range for a place kick.

Several years ago I wrote a proposal for a reworking of the rugby calendar, and suggested it to Mr Zavos. Part of the proposal ended up as a roar article.

Essentially I was arguing for not only a unified international schedule, but for a 4 year cycle based around the RWC. I argued that club v country was a real problem in European schedules, and the surrounding the RWC game played just before the tournament were meaningless trial matches, and the year after everyone has had enough international matches to last them for a while. Also having the same competitions every year was devalueing those competitions, particularly the tri-nations. The full proposal was 10 pages long (quiet night shifts with little to do) but in summary:

Year one – RWC year – Most internationals in a RWC year have little or no meaning as they are just trial matches for the ‘real thing’ so the number of internationals should be reduced. European Club competitions as normal. Super rugby as normal. European clubs get to retain their players for longer.

Year two – Focus on club competition, with more club games and an expanded competition combining the Heiniken Cup with the Super Rugby tournament. Few internationals played. Clubs get full use of their players and increased revenue from an extended season.

Year three – Tour year. club matches reduced (in return for increased club revenue in years one and two), and a focus on internationals, with major traditional extended international tours including the Lions.

Year four – Standard year. Tri-nations, and 6 nations

OK – so I’m a bit of a dreamer