I can only assume this is satire…..

Stunning decision. Truly crazy.

A “shoulder-led tackle to the head” is always illegal and so should have ruled out mitigation being possible. The attackers deviation is hardly sudden, unexpected or significant. Farrell has far from a clean record here as well.

Farrell has made himself the villain for this world cup. Through his actions on field.

RFU and the judiciary have undermined world rugby’s stance on protecting the head and the integrity/functionality of the bunker review system about to be employed at the world cup.

They have made England the villain on the world stage through their decision to defend Farrell in this manner.

World rugby have a chance to appeal this decision and at least try to maintain a image of fairness. Numerous examples are already shooting back and forth across the internet of players receiving harsh bans for much less obvious foul play. Not least George Moala who just received a 10 week ban for a tip tackle that will see him miss the world cup.

World rugby have a chance to not be the villain, will they take it?

Spare a thought for Taine Basham who may miss the world cup due to the concussion he sustained from this hit.

Spare a thought also for the bunker ref who made the decision only to be completely undermined a few days later. There is no doubt that the court of public opinion sides with the ref here, it was Red. Farrell should be missing weeks.

Thanks for the article, nice job!

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, I have a few slightly different ideas but certainly agree with your direction. My pie in the sky ideas for improving Super Rugby as a comp.

– Agree that the match day experience needs to be improved. The rapid rugby experience in the West was a good example of things that can be done. Live music, more crowd engagement, activities around the ground. My family enjoyed the whole experience, not just the rugby.
– I still use the area names anyway, not even sure why they aren’t used. Though tbh I’m not sure calling them the Waratahs versus the NSW Waratahs lessens the amount I want the Force to beat them!
– I am a fan of introducing a draft as well as competition wide eligibility. There needs to be something to help bring the competition closer together. That said, I do recognise we need to maintain the teams incentive to produce their own talent. I believe this is a balance that can be reached. Perhaps a requirement to have “x” amount of locally produced players in the squad and/or priority picks for local players.
– I don’t hate an 8 team finals series, though I recognise the optics and the desire to move to a 6 or less team finals. To do this the comp would need to be longer or risk fans losing interest as soon as their team is out of realistic contention for a finals spot, which can happen quickly in a short comp.
– We only have 12 teams in the comp, let’s not much around with complex structures, just make it a 22 round full home and away series. Everyone plays everyone twice, once at home, once away. Easy to understand and means you get to see every other team at your home ground each year. It’s also a decent length of season.
– Would love to see Moana play their home games out to Samoa and Tonga, surely this can be made to happen.
– Super Rugby Women’s should be a mirror of the men’s comp, even play as double headers each week, would be awesome!

Just some thoughts. Super Rugby has been committed to for at least the short term, so let’s make it as good as it can be!

I like this method, allows cooler heads to make a call with more complete information while allowing the game to continue. There is no difference in consequence (in theory) as the player is off regardless for at least the 10 mins, but allows the spectacle to continue for fans and potentially allows a better overall decision.

There will always be mistakes or contentious decisions, that’s what happens when people need to use judgement.

The only thing I would change, which may have been already, would be to allow the TMO the option of upgrading to a straight red if warranted. My understanding is they can only upgrade to the 20min red currently. I believe the 20min option should remain, but if the footage shows the act was worthy of a straight red, let that option remain on the table.

BOK had a good game and good season overall. It is so disappointing, if not surprising, to see the abuse he has been getting. No-one deserves that for officiating a match.

The devil is always in the details, true. But Super Rugby is not Test rugby. While it is international, it is only just more international than NRL, or NBA for that matter. I think we need to stop looking at SRP like an extended trial for tests and start making it the best comp it can be. Increasing competitiveness competition wide can only raise the standard of the games and by extension the skills of the players (including future Wallabies) playing in them.

I do agree that an incentive to build local pathways needs to remain. Perhaps each side needs to have “X” number of locally produced players in the squad? Or gets priority rights to players from their local academy. These and others are mechanisms which can allow more player movement to help even up the comp while still keeping regions invested in producing more talent.

20 players debuted for the Force this season, with an average age across the squad of 22. Plenty of potential upside for for the Force. Plenty to do to realise that potential as well, but there is certainly hope!

If you want to create competitiveness, then a draft is a great idea. Far from being a silver bullet, it is a proven method of allowing a competition to keep teams relatively competitive with each other. See examples of NRL, AFL, NBA, NFL, etc. There are still dynasty teams and teams still struggle, but it is easier for a team at the bottom to climb the ladder and in more change-over at the top. It’s not a silver bullet, but provides a solid mechanism for improving competitiveness in a generalised sense.

I don’t see how splitting the comp does anything for increasing competitiveness across the comp as a whole, if we are doing that just abandon SRP and have seperate Aus and NZ comps (which we would be poorer for imo).

The Rebels do need a post-Hodge goal kicker but otherwise look to be building well around a strong pack. If they can use their experience from this year to start closing out those close games they will continue to improve next season.

The Force had the youngest squad (by average age) in SRP, massive player turnover from last year and a brand new coaching team. But still managed to win all but one game at home and missed the finals by one game, same as the year before. Travel and the Front row are concerns for next year, but something good looks to be building out West.

The Reds have a lot of talent as always but it’s always a challenge for a first year coach, especially as they haven’t been confirmed as yet. Probably a rebuilding year for the Reds next year unless the new coach can get some immediate returns.

The Tahs look to have gone backwards this year so not really sure what to expect from them next year. They have good players but seem to be a year to year thing. They could be good, but I don’t currently see them doing much better than this year.

The Brumbies have the best baseline of any Aus team and seem to have added the attacking nous we all wanted to see to the set piece solidity they have had for a while. Will hopefully only get better in their second year under Larkham.

The interesting thing is, that if Max turns into the fullback the Tahs hope he will, then they are back to having three 10’s for one spot.

Pugh looks really good, will be fascinating to watch him battle with Williams, Anstee and Wells for the 5, 6 and 8 positions respectively. Could be the perfect bench player to cover all three.

This is true, our record against the Rebels is not as healthy as I’d like it to be and there is always a lot of feeling in the clash. It might be my Western bias, but I feel we should have the drop on them this season. We’ll know on Saturday right!

I feel like everyone tipping the Rebels is reading too much into the preseason matches and one injury. The Rebels aren’t flush in the second row either. Force to show the trip West won’t be as easy as many are thinking.

It hurts to see two of my favourite Force players (Pocock and Isa) playing for someone else, but I am glad it is my second team the Brums!

It is getting very real now that the Force is out.

Fair enough. My count was quick and from memory. There is still a substantial proportion of the squad drawn from the local comp. Just as with the other teams.

The conversations I was referring to should have occurred well before the ARU went to SANZAAR with the offer to cut a team. Of course when the decision is made there is a timeline, just as there is a timeline on the ARU becoming insolvent. My contention is that the ARU delayed sharing this information until after the decision had been made, effectively negating the opportunity for stakeholders to find an alternative.

A quick head count says that only 10 of the Spirit squad are not locally produced players. So about 2/3rds of the squad are locally produced, most straight out of club rugby. I don’t think this would be too dissimilar to the other NRC teams actually.

Not trying to avoid bankruptcy per se, but the manner in which it was done? Yes.

To an outside observer, it appears that removing the Force was the only option ever seriously considered by the ARU to avoid bankruptcy. That other options were available is inherent as there is barely ever only one way to achieve a goal. If the ARU had sat down with all stakeholders as soon as they realised the extent of the issue and opened up discussions regarding ways in which to solve the crisis we could have come to a completely differant solution.

You say that his facts are correct. I see three presented “facts” in this article (relating to the WF decision).

1. Rugby is not thriving in WA.
This is a presupposed premise which is contentious, as shown by the various arguments thrown out on both sides of this premise.

2. Average crowds have dropped from 28000 to under 10000 (paraphrased).
This is true, however disengenuously presented to support the presupposition of the article.

3. The Force win rate is 32%.
I have not checked for myself but am prepared to accept this.

So out of three presented facts, there is still a lot of assumption and bias to be seen.

I agree that the main issue with the article is the conclusions drawn and also do not rate the authors writing on rugby (I cannot judge his writing on other sports as I haven’t read them). The article has been correctly called out in the comments for misrepresentation and drawing spurious conclusions.

But it is getting a lot of comments and reads so I am sure the author and The Roar are happy…

He will form the backbone of any team he is in on current form

Paul, NSW would still have a pathway to international football, it would just be through one of the other states Super teams. Just like those in WA and Vic were told was sufficient for them before they finally got a Super team. 🙂

The comment was a bit tongue in cheek. Still…

There is a weird logic to this that I have been thinking about for a while. Arguably, NSW are the state which is least reliant on their Super side and so would suffer least by losing them. I don’t have the figures, but I would wager that they get the lowest attendances versus their playing population of any of the 5 franchises (mainly due to their larger playing numbers). They have the strongest local club comp in the country and many repeatedly state they prefer going to the local games than the Waratahs games anyway. The impression that I get is that NSW rugby would remain strong without the Waratahs. Sydney would obviously still get their share of Wallabies matches. So is cutting the Waratahs actually the best option right now for Australian rugby overall right now? Maybe…

It is a sustainability thing, certainly. The danger as always is expanding beyond the ability to support itself. However there is also a risk that staying with the current teams and length will mean the comp is eventually seen as an irrelevance. A short distraction before the real rugby kicks off again.

I agree I would eventually like to see a longer NRC and a shorter SR. If we lost a Super team but ended up with a proper national comp I would almost be able to accept the ends justifying the means. Almost.

The ARU could potentially have avoided some of the ire they have caused by laying out a plan like this in the first instance. It will never appease everyone, but would at least have shown a reasoned strategy that could then be debated more openly and honestly without the guess work and mud slinging that is occurring currently.

I am forever an optomist that there will be a good outcome at the end of all this, but it is hard!

Apart from your assumption that the Force will be cut I agree with this! 😉

If we are expanding the NRC in this way we should certainly be looking at expanding it as soon as it is feasible/viable to do so. Longer comp and more teams are required to generate interest. Get a team into Adelaide too, with that structure they would be able to become competitive fairly quickly.

That is very true, I do think we are developing enough players at the moment, we can certainly still improve and will need to if we want to get better. The main issue I see is retaining those players which is where I think the NRC will become more and more vital in the future.

The main problem is the vested interests that still want the NRC to go away so the clubs can be that semi professional layer below Super. This cannot and has not previously worked. I will give Pulver his due, the NRC is the way forward.

We all remember the good or bad games more vividly. The world cup defense was immense but the defense over the last three games was poor.

A better measure would be to look at the points conceded per game year on year of teams he has coached vs the previous coaches of that team or other equivalent teams. Even then context is required as the Aussies playing the All Blacks would be expected to concede more points than Scotland playing England (for example.)

It is very hard to make an Apples for Apples comparison, but you can get a fair idea of the defensive efficacy and whether it is improving or declining year on year.