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The Roar

JSJ

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Joined September 2018

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In his 5 year reign, the RA and rugby in Australia turned into a shambles. Yet he thinks he gets unfairly blamed by the media.
Lets hope the new chairman and board members can turn a few things things around.

Paul McLean named temporary new Rugby Australia chairman

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5d

He had about a year out with a knee job and then his time playing in Japan seems to have developed his running game and confidence.
DHP also had time in France and then Japan and came back to the Force a better player, which had him soon knocking on the Wallaby door.
I wonder if DHP or his brother Ross and the Cottesloe club & RugbyWA connection, are the reason Wessels picked up Louwrens, because I dont think Wessels and Louwrens times at the Force coincided.

The problems with the Waratahs' spine

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1w

If you read the Ryan Louwrens cv on Wikipedia, he came to Western Australia as a 16 year old with his parents and went to high school in Western Australia and was in the WA rugby academy.
He went back back to SA in 2009 and played U19 for about one year, but got himself banned for 2 years for steroids.
The WA Academy gave him a second chance when his ban was up , which he rejoined in 2011 and made his way through the Force development path and ended playing 19 games for the Force between 2014 and 2016.
I think RugbyWA and the Force had a lot more to do with his rugby development than South Africa.

The problems with the Waratahs' spine

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1w

Hi Nicholas,
Louwrens came to Western Australia as a 16 year old and went to school here and was in the WA Academy in 2008.
He went back to RSA for a while for a year or so, but got himself banned for 2 years for steroids.
Perth gave him a another chance and rejoined the WA Academy in 2011. and ended up playing 19 games for the Force between 2014 and 2016.
So I think WA and the Force had a lot more to do with his rugby development than South Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Louwrens

The problems with the Waratahs' spine

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1w

John Wellborn

A national cup competition is an idea worth exploring

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2w

Maybe, After several years the Tahs are now probably paying the price for not putting their weight behind the NRC and developing and testing their fringe and younger players in a competition at a higher level that club rugby.

National club comp lacking a grassroots perspective

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2w

“”Something far more balanced and practical will emerge in partnership with stakeholders.””

Like lets retain the NRC and keep building it. It working every where, other than Sydney already.

National club comp lacking a grassroots perspective

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2w

Anthony,
Wow. If you as a Shute Shield president dont support the concept, who is actually driving this nonsense of trying to turn 20 amateur cash strapped Sydney and Brisbane clubs into semi-professional clubs and call it a “”National”” club competition. ??

National club comp lacking a grassroots perspective

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2w

Tooly, Leave America out of your wish list, and you pretty much have GRR as it is now. Teams from SA and NZ will play in 2020, thinly disguised as Malaysia and Shangai respectively. In 2021 you are likely to get your Japanese team in possibly the form of the Sunwolves.
Regardind Australia, Newcastle/Hunter are still keen to join GRR. I saw this morning that NSWRU have approved of a friendly game between the Force and Newcastle to be played under GRR rules, and also Eastwood are going to play a friendly against the Force.

Time the NZAAR part of the partnership asked the obvious question of SA

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3w

I agree Ex. Even if there was a total change in RA and Sanzaar thinking and they asked the Force back to Super, it wont happen. It is 2 years too late! Twiggy is not going pull the Force out of GRR and abandon the other 5 teams.
It interesting that both the NZRU and SARU have approved and embraced GRR by the involvement of their two teams. While the RA and NSWRU blocked Western Sydney and presumably also Newcastle/Hunter from joining GRR and would like it to fail and go away.

Ignore the Castle commotion and enjoy the rugby

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3w

I thought Sydney was the the heartland of Australian Rugby? And they cannot fill their stadium for a Bled anymore? Same for Brisbane.
But people are chirping on here about Perth

Perth to host All Blacks and Springboks in 2020 Rugby Championship

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4w

And there are a lot of empty seats at the Sydney and Brisbane games in recent years

Perth to host All Blacks and Springboks in 2020 Rugby Championship

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4w

Have a look at the dominate colour in the crowd at a AB or Bok game in Perth.
It is gold, not black or green.
That is despite a lot of Force fans wearing their blue Force colours in a message to the RA.

Have a look at a Bled game in Sydney or Brisbane, there is an awful lot of black and loud chanting of “Äll Blacks All Blacks”

Perth to host All Blacks and Springboks in 2020 Rugby Championship

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4w

You said “Sign somebody who is remotely likely a walk up Wallaby and we’ll see.”

I thought you were somebody with influence!

Anyway “a walk up Wallaby” should not exist.
Whether he is an Australian playing well in some overseas competition.
Or some high flying NRL convert who we drop straight into the Wallaby team before they have played much Union, like we have done in the past.
Or even a current Wallaby on a 5 year million $ PA ++ contract with the RA.

Rennie's Wallabies need success from Australia's Super Rugby teams

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Jan

You say “Sign somebody who is remotely likely a walk up Wallaby and we’ll see.”

Can I look forward to your support then?

I am a Wallaby fan as well , so I am not just batting for the Force and their players. I am tired of seeing the Wallabies perform poorly each year. There has been a lot else wrong with Wallaby selection process in the past and I was hoping it would the appointment of Scott Johnson and Dave Rennie would change things.

Rennie's Wallabies need success from Australia's Super Rugby teams

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Jan

You say “” I think the path to the Wallabies is still likely to necessitate moving to one of the Super franchises.””

That my gripe exactly Drew.

So if DHP moved back home to be with his family and their business, he would likely not get another game for the Wallabies.

The Wallabies have picked players coming back from playing in overseas club competitions before they had played a single Super game.
If the Force had signed JOC for example to play GRR this year, would he have been dropped straight into the Wallabies last year as he was?
I doubt it.

Rennie's Wallabies need success from Australia's Super Rugby teams

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Jan

You say “but 5 were new to the setup at the commencement of the NRC. ”

About the same as the Force then.

We are talking about the NRC grand final, so those 5 had played up to 8 NRC games for the Vikings by then.

The Force players looked a lot fitter than the the Vikings and ran over the top of them in the last 15 minutes in their round 4 meeting and the grand final.

Rennie's Wallabies need success from Australia's Super Rugby teams

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Jan

So TWAS how is your Rebel development squad going.?

From memory you had just one U20 squad member against six from WA.

Why cant you develop your own players instead of signing all these ex-Force players.?

Rennie's Wallabies need success from Australia's Super Rugby teams

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Jan

TWAS, the Rebels were very poor in the second half in the trial game against the Brumbies when they put all the reserves on, especially in the forwards.
As you say Deegan wasn’t poor, but it would be hard to shine as a flyhalf, when your forwards were getting smashed.
I did not see their previous trial game against the Reds, but read the report that said they were flogged playing mainly their newer/younger players.

It could be a long hard year for the Rebels if they get a few injuries to the top players.

Rennie's Wallabies need success from Australia's Super Rugby teams

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Jan

Paul, The Vikings were almost all part of the Brumbies squad and trained together all year and played up to 14 Super games before the NRC comp started.

It was only their Brumbies Wallabies at the World Cup that were missing from the Vikings.
The Force had 3 players at the World Cup, who did not play NRC.

Both sides had a few new faces in NRC filling in for injuries.

Rennie's Wallabies need success from Australia's Super Rugby teams

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Jan

Drew, Clearly in 2019 the Western Force team was a rung higher than the other Australian NRC teams. The results and 41-3 final against the Vikings prove that.
The Vikings had recent Wallabies and a load of Brumby Super contracted players in their team.
Most likely some of those players like Tom Banks, Pete Samu ,Joe Powell etc will be feature in the Wallaby training squads. But looks like not a single Force player will get a look in again, because they are not playing so called Super rugby.

Rennie's Wallabies need success from Australia's Super Rugby teams

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Jan

Spiro, I am pleased to see you included a quote from Mark Evans the CEO of Global Rapid Rugby in your story.

Dave Rennie and most pundits seem to totally ignore the Western Force and GRR in there thoughts and discussions. Although I am pleased to hear that since his appointment a year ago, Scott Johnson has visited the Force twice and there is a third visit on the cards.
Twiggy’s philosophy has been to bring back young Australian players from Europe and Japan to bolster the Force.

The Wallaby selectors need to select from right across Australia and not just the four Super teams.
The U20 selectors and coaches seem to be more switched on and selected 12% of their 2020 training squad from WA.
Australian U20 played in their 2019 grand final and only lost by one point. The Wallabies got bundled out in the quarter finals.

Just a reminder here:
https://www.rugby.com.au/videos/2019/10/25/nrc-grand-final-force-vikings
Western Force are crowned 2019 NRC Champions thanks to an impressive 41-3 victory over Canberra Vikings in Perth.

Rennie's Wallabies need success from Australia's Super Rugby teams

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Jan

Morsie, I was surprised when young Carlo Tizzano left the Western Force to go the Tahs with Hooper entrenched there as captain. Maybe now Tizzano will gets lots of game time.

Michael Hooper steps down as Waratahs captain

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Jan

Yes, so in 10 years time, when we look back on what Global Rapid Rugby becomes and the improvements it brought to the game of rugby itself, we will have a handful of very determined ladies in Perth to thank. None of those ladies would have played rugby themselves.

How women’s rugby can help Australia return to the top of the global game

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Dec

Picking up on JN’s comments about South African Breweries discovering how much beer black South African woman were quietly consuming in the back round. I wonder if you did a similar study of actually who are actually the real glued on fans watching elite rugby live and on TV, we might be surprised to find a surprising number high percentage are woman.

Here in Western Australia, when the RA axed the Western Force from Super rugby, I was surprised how many woman stepped out of the shadows and took a passionate and leading role in saving the Force. Twiggy says his wife and daughters pushed him to step forward and do something. Three or four ladies have taking a leadership and high profile role in setting up a Facebook group, which now has thousands of Force fans. These ladies are the glue that are holding the Force fans together as Global Rapid Rugby is launched.

How women’s rugby can help Australia return to the top of the global game

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Dec
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