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As much as we punters should say Gordon needs to work on his goal kicking, it shouldn’t be unsaid that a bunch of other Wallaby contenders should be working on their goal kicking. At various times we have had Wallaby goal kickers at fullback, wing and in the centres. There is no law of rugby stopping anyone from stepping up to the mark. Why aren’t there more backline players in this goal kicking conversation? (And forwards could give it a go too – we can all remember at least one who did.)
Five things we learned: One area Gordon must fix to convince Wallabies boss, ABs bruiser should be on notice
Just a heads-up Christy: this didn’t start with the late hit on Lolesio in Round 2.
Rivez Reihana of the Crusaders. Round 1. Smashed by Finau and missed a month of rugby as a result.
He’d just got a touch from his left hand on a high pass thrown past him so was technically ‘in possession’ although everyone including Finau knew the football wasn’t in the same postcode when Reihana was hit with a very hard outside-in tackle just below the shoulder line. It was just after 50 minutes into the game when the Crusader had started to look better and then their young #10 was off the park and stayed off for a month.
The same style of tackle (late, very hard and just below the shoulder line) then happened to Lolesio in Round 2 and Tom Lynagh in Round 3. The Chiefs Round 4 match was against the Drua and I didn’t see Finau try it then.
Virtually every other player I have seen in the tournament will slow their roll and start pulling out of the contact when they know they are “a bit late” to the tackle whether the opponent is a prop or a halfback. Finau in these instances has very clearly been looking to rattle or damage the opposition #10. The line between ‘rattle’ and ‘damage’ is the line between legitimate old-school rugby and something that needs to disappear fast from a professional tournament with pretensions to being as good as any in the world.
Five things we learned: One area Gordon must fix to convince Wallabies boss, ABs bruiser should be on notice
Rex certainly had his moments in the commentary booth.
Moose was a Wallaby before he was a Kangaroo. (There aren’t many places that sentence would make sense to readers 😂 )
'Hung in there': Aussie men and women set up Hong Kong Sevens semi-finals against New Zealand
They might be doing that very deliberately since “paki” is regarded as an ethnic slur in the UK. Yes, it’s their name but you can understand why broadcasters might be squeamish. In the 1970’s my primary school had a Vietnamese refugee kid turn up whose name was Phuc. The teachers sure did struggle with that 😂 although the Vietnamese pronunciation doesn’t really rhyme with duck.
'Hung in there': Aussie men and women set up Hong Kong Sevens semi-finals against New Zealand
The Brumbies kicking game is pretty good. The Reds’ kicking game has been generally effective this season but it was noticeably less effective against the Brumbies, which was a credit to Tom Wright and Noah Lolesio. Another factor in the effectiveness of the Brumbies kicking game is how quickly Toole can run his teammates onside. I don’t think any team in the competition is going to get much pay out of kicking duels with the Brumbies.
Brumbies make it 12 straight against Tahs as Bell hobbles off in worrying sign for Wallabies
I think elysiusr. was pointing to a slippage in some important aspects of performance at the Brumbies, OldSchool. Your note about the Tahs ruck and maul stats suggests he might be onto something, although they did turn up in those areas for their game against the Reds, so it might have been more about playing to the conditions and knowing that the Tahs wouldn’t make much of their possession while minimizing kickable penalties. As to the Brumbies tackling, at least in the backline, the defence is generally better organized when Ikitau is on the park, so perhaps his return will lift that aspect a bit. (I haven’t looked up stats to see if the Brumbies missed tackles are more in the forwards or backs or evenly spread.)
Brumbies make it 12 straight against Tahs as Bell hobbles off in worrying sign for Wallabies
Isn’t it good to have another guy in Schmidt’s coaching set-up who doesn’t sprout meaningless platitudes or corporate drivel, but rather speaks for himself with the confidence of knowing he is the equal of anyone in the world at the job he has been asked to do?
How Schmidt landed All Blacks icon at Wallabies - and why '80 per cent of coaching is selection'
Thanks for the read, Harry. The question; the big question; the ultimate question of life, the universe and rugby in Australia? Surely the answer is 42 (101010 in binary) or something like that.
I have but one quibble with your writing. The phrase “… Super Rugby Pacific is struggling to fill stadia” is plainly wrong. That should have been “… Super Rugby Pacific is struggling to half-fill stadia.”
'Curse the money all you want' but RA must work out what it wants from Super Rugby - otherwise the game is doomed
I want him at peak fitness when he plays against the All Blacks and Boks in August and September. There’s four months to go before then. And the fourth month has two test against Wales and one with Georgia. Let’s see how he looks then.
'He'd been flogged to death': Rebels GM's scathing Tupou claim as Wallaby battles to reignite his fire
Thanks Don. I don’t think it is really worth your time and effort. The haters will continue to hate on Thor because it makes them feel better. It’s about their feelings, not the facts.
'It can be something great': Schmidt turns to 'scrum doctor' as next step in Wallabies rebuild
Before his string of injuries, Tupou regularly played 70-80 minutes each match for the Reds. That’s what Stiles is talking about. What work rate do you expect from a THP at SR level if they know they have to stay on the field until the last three minutes because the junior player on the bench isn’t really ready for SR (Nonggorr when he was 19/20 – he has just turned 23) but the team has no-one else? That’s where the Reds were at. And when Tupou wasn’t there, they rarely won.
But for all the haters, keep hating him if it makes you feel better.
It will make no difference to how Tupou plays.
I think Nick Stiles might know a bit more about managing THP’s in modern pro rugby than 100% of the commenters here, so I’m happy to take him at his word.
'He'd been flogged to death': Rebels GM's scathing Tupou claim as Wallaby battles to reignite his fire
That makes sense.
Super Rugby teams week six: Foketi back after horror injury, Suli benched, Sam Carter set for debut, DMac rested
JD, that is classic whataboutism. Just because Chieka got Kepu to put late hits on Carter 9 years ago, does that make it OK for McMillan to use Finau to do the same now? Maybe neither was/is in the best interests of rugby.
Super Rugby teams week six: Foketi back after horror injury, Suli benched, Sam Carter set for debut, DMac rested
Like his tackles on Lolesio and Lynagh, it was a bit late and very forceful despite him knowing the guy no longer had hands on the ball. My current profile pic shows the hit on Reihana and Lolesio. The ball was passed high right to left across Reihana’s path and he just got his left hand to it to put him technically in possession, so not a tackle off the ball by the book, but it certainly was de facto.
Super Rugby teams week six: Foketi back after horror injury, Suli benched, Sam Carter set for debut, DMac rested
I don’t disagree. In the decision on Franks the words ‘no mitigating circumstances’ and ‘reckless’ were used but somehow they started at mid-level which made it 4 weeks. Fa’agase got the rough end of the pineapple when comparing his situation to other, more ‘notable’ players.
Super Rugby teams week six: Foketi back after horror injury, Suli benched, Sam Carter set for debut, DMac rested
Found else-web: Franks’s 4 week starting point for suspension was cut to 2 weeks with an early ‘guilty plea’ and then reduced down to just 1 week thanks to attending ‘head contact process – coaching intervention’ training.
How does a professional player of Franks’s age and experience (or really any professional player of any age) get credit for doing a training session on the hows and whys of not hitting opponents in the head? Why isn’t completion of these sorts of training sessions a requirement before being allowed on the park at this level? These guys are paid to play the game. Knowledge of current rules, interpretations and protocols shouldn’t be an optional extra.
Super Rugby teams week six: Foketi back after horror injury, Suli benched, Sam Carter set for debut, DMac rested
Any news on why Owen Franks is listed as a reserve for the Crusaders when he is meant to still suspended this round?
Super Rugby teams week six: Foketi back after horror injury, Suli benched, Sam Carter set for debut, DMac rested
McKenzie picked up some sort of leg injury/niggle in Round 1 and has been wearing quite a bit of tape since. Not surprising to see him get some rest against ‘cellar dwellers’.
Nice to see young Reihana back in the Crusaders line-up after he got smashed by Finau in Round 1.
Super Rugby teams week six: Foketi back after horror injury, Suli benched, Sam Carter set for debut, DMac rested
I wonder if we will see Rodda back given the timing and speed of getting Sam Carter into the line-up.
Super Rugby teams week six: Foketi back after horror injury, Suli benched, Sam Carter set for debut, DMac rested
Grealy and/or Petaia will have to shuffle around if there is an injury in centres or fb. (I really hope we don’t have to see that!)
Super Rugby teams week six: Foketi back after horror injury, Suli benched, Sam Carter set for debut, DMac rested
A solution to getting a striking contest back into scrums, and getting rid of crooked feeds and greatly reducing resets, is to get rid of feeds altogether. How? Place the ball on the mark for the scrum and have the hooker from the team in possession place their foot on top of the ball, then form up the scrum with the ball already in the middle of it. The ref can still manage the process with (i) crouch (ii) bind (iii) set, but with the ball already in, as soon as ‘set’ is called the scrum is live, so there is no such thing as an early shove. The hooker with a foot on top of the ball can rake it back after the ‘set’ call. Note that if the hooker has their foot on top of the ball, they won’t be able to get as low as is usual now, and opponents will also be setting higher so their hooker can have a strike at it on the ‘set’ call. This should produce fewer collapsed scrums and if a scrum does collapse but the ball can be extracted, play on. All the nonsense about instability before the feed just goes away while still having a scrum contest, and perhaps a better scrum contest with some hookers actually earning tight-heads by a quick strike instead of just pushing power.
WR's mooted law changes are great - but show there's a hell of a lot wrong with rugby in 2024, and that sucks
The problem with reducing the relative value of penalties is that that encourages professional (cynical) sportspeople to infringe more often, unless the reduction in penalty value is accompanied by more expansive use of yellow cards.
WR's mooted law changes are great - but show there's a hell of a lot wrong with rugby in 2024, and that sucks
For a long time it has been the case that when you post, you own post will appear as a blob. If you then hit your browser’s refresh button, the formatting turns up and all is right with the world.
WR's mooted law changes are great - but show there's a hell of a lot wrong with rugby in 2024, and that sucks
One might quibble about how much quality education those NRL scholarships provide when the boys and schools focus so much more on their footy performance than academic attainments. It’s a system with problems on many levels.
More 'Scary Schmidt' than 'Sleepy Joe': Ireland tales that show the new Wallabies coach could be a polarising figure
Alex Hodgman (eligible through his dad being born in Melbourne – and not having played for AB’s last few years) might play himself into contention. He should be back on the park for the Reds in the next few weeks.
'Needs to be considered': Bell out of Super Rugby season as ex-Wallaby suggests left-field positional switch