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I also would prefer Narawa on the bench instead of Clarke especially since he has a good boot and can play both wing and fullback (given we have no specialist 10 on the bench and so any injury cover will have to come from a re-shuffle). However, it appears he has a back strain and so was not considered for selection.
All Blacks debut for Aussie-raised rookie, Mo'unga back at 10, Springboks rocked by death of captain's dad
Are Coaches now going to recant what “hurtful” comments opposition players said to their players in the heat of the game in their public press conferences? Don’t get me wrong, if Ioane said those things they were dumb but hardly worth crying about. I think rugby has always been a sport that you play hard and physical, and on occasions get in you opposition’s ear, but then when the game is over have a beer together and form great friendships. I’m not a fan of airing what’s said on the field in public press conferences. This is a bad precedent and I fear will come back to haunt Rennie….as I am sure his own team are capable of some colourful on-field chat.
'We respect the haka': Slipper reacts to Rieko Ioane's sledge after Bledisloe I
MDiddy, thank you for all the hard work. Not easy to write an article like that especially given the wide spectrum of opinions on the subject.
Unfortunately I have a somewhat pessimistic view about the immediate future for Rugby, not just in Australia, but throughout the region. The following is just my opinion so please don’t be offended.
(1) I believe Super Rugby is finished as we know it.
(2) These are not times for coming up with grand proposals. This is a time to focus on Survival. Right now Australian rugby does not have a CEO, does not have a media deal, and if SR ends, does not have a premier professional rugby competition. We need to focus on what we can realistically achieve now to keep the sport alive with a plan to grow the game over 5 – 10 years not 1-2 years.
(3) Professional rugby players are going to have a accept lower salaries to stay and play rugby in Australia. This will be the same in NZ. The media revenues simply will not be enough to maintain the same pay structures particularly without SA as part of the media deal.
(4) We should not think we can just create a competition involving other countries (NZ, Japan, PIs). They are in survival mode also. NZ will focus on an all domestic comp. They will accept that the revenues will be much less, and that they will loose players overseas, but back themselves to rebuild. Once their domestic SR comp is up and running they will look to form a champions cup with other domestic comps in Australia/SA/Asia/Pacific.
(5) Japan is setting up a new competition backed by Densu that will move teams away from corporate owners and create regional/tribal clubs under private ownership (similar to the restructuring that happened to football/J-League after the football WC in Japan). Not point trying to get them into some NZ/Australian comp. However, NZ will possibly look to involve them in the future in a champion’s cup.
(6) Australia should focus on getting a new CEO, rationalising costs and head count at ARU, establish a domestic competition involving possibly 6 teams (NSW, QLD, MEL, ACT, WA, + 1) and securing a media deal for this comp. To be honest it doesn’t matter precisely how many teams, the key is to use those already establish teams with support bases. A domestic media deal needs to cover as much of the Australian market as possible and so WA and MEL have to be there with the other main franchises. I know this goes against the “Wallabies playing together more often” argument, but we don’t have the luxury to make those sorts of decisions right now. We need to put together the best media deal we can for a domestic comp and that requires market size.
(7) As noted earlier, whether it happens straight away or some time later, NZ, Australia and Japan could participate in a champions cup with their best two teams. This will have its own media deal and be played at the end on the season.
(8) Only the domestic comp is up and running and financially viable should there be consideration for other concepts such as a Pacific Island based team etc….We simply do not have the resources to do that now.
(9) As for a second tier comp, stick with the NRC for now. The ARU will have enough on its plate just with finding a CEO, setting up the main domestic pro comp, keeping Dave Rennie, putting a media deal together and the Wallabies.
I guess what I am saying is we need to understand the landscape has changed. It’s about survival, not coming up with an even more complicated or elaborate competition than we already have. Top players will leave for overseas – that cannot be avoided. The media dollars to fund the ARU, teams and player salaries will be less, and every country is going to look after itself first. These are facts we need to accept. However, it presents an opportunity to establish the domestic competition the ARU should have implemented 20 years ago but didn’t. Australian audiences want Australia only competitions and this should be the focus of the value proposition for the media deal.
LP
Australian rugby: A blueprint for the future
I thought the video of the incident didn’t look good. However, Kane Douglas looks more distressed when Frank’s hand goes down to his throat/neck as opposed to when his hand was on this face.
What I think may be important here is that when Franks has his hand on Kane’s face (his arm is above Kanes arm/shoulder) and the ref appears to point at Franks and yell something at him like “no not the head”. This results in Franks moving his hand away from the face and putting his arm under Kane’s arm and grabbing him around the neck.
Therefore, I think Franks may of had bad intentions when he initially put his hand on Kanes face but was stopped by the ref before he did something more sinister.
The subsequent neck grab then resulted in Kane complaining, but that is probably a penalty offence not a red card offence. As a result there was no citing by the match commissioner.
SANZAAR right not to cite Franks: Hansen
Patrick, good article, but you really outdid yourself with the headline! Life of Brian is one of my all time favourites!
Hopefully at the post match interview tomorrow Cheika won’t have to say….
“Quade can’t come today because he’s been a very naughty boy!”
Quade's not the Wallabies' Messiah. He's not even a naughty boy
I think when you compare the overseas players brought back for RWC2015 verses the players brought back for last weeks game the key difference was the extra time the coaches had to get the players conditioned and back ready for test-match rugby before and during the RWC verses only a few weeks for Saturday’s game. Two to three weeks is just not enough time. This was further complicated by the fact that a number of them hadn’t played in months questioning why they were brought back at all.
The GL may have a place during a RWC year, but it simply doesn’t work on a fly-in fly-out basis.
Giteau Law must go before it destroys the Wallabies' culture
Also – this world cup, the ABs don’t have time to settle themselves into the competition. They play France first up. For this reason I believe that’s why we are seeing consistent first team selections over these Rugby Championship games. They have to be firing from the start.
Kiwi View: The rare Boks moment that showed Wallabies where the All Blacks are vulnerable