I don’t agree-they’re leveraging it, but not enough.

This was the year to start a whole range of things, top to bottom. I’m not saying they’re doing nothing, (but I do think the Uni comp is a misstep) but if a major is already behind something such as a women’s NRC, how can you sit on your hands and let them leave like that?

How will they find it now?

NRC is rep rugby, that’s why it’s such an important step, a step up from the clubs but before super rugby.

We are already seeing the benefit of this-players such as Jake Gordon, Ned Hanigan (there’s many others of course, I’ve payed the most attention to the Tahs the last few years) come to super rugby far better equipped than they may of in a similar circumstance set five years ago.

So your solution is not really a solution to the problem here, Spiro.

No, the issue here is a short-sighted approach to women’s rugby at a domestic level. Even more so when you consider that our women’s 7s team are the most successful team in the country-how can you not look for every opportunity to leverage that?!!

I want to see a side by side NRC XV in the winter, games played back to back. Then a side by side NRC 7s series in the spring/summer.

Going to be pretty hard without any sponsorship. Even harder if none of the players have any confidence in what the ARU is “doing”.

To be fair though, looking to the whole pack to have a bigger impact than their traditional core roles is a development in the modern game spurred on by New Zealand’s all singing all dancing approach.

Selections in Australia may exacerbate/emphasis this, but that’s effect rather than cause.

Make them very boring ?

It’s a reasonable point, but still highlights two glaring management issues.
1. Poor communication skills with players to get the issues fixed/job done
2. Poor leadership with regards to his media interactions

A lot of great points here.

One thing sticks out to me, and explains my exasperation at the way this is playing out. This isn’t the first generation of pro rugby players, it’s the second or third. These kinks should of been ironed out as the second generation came through between 2001 and 2009.
There are so many successful professional sports leagues across the world with so many clear lessons to be learnt, it beggars belief that in 2017 this is where rugby union in the southern hemisphere has managed to place itself.

Digger, on the small screen it looked asthough the turnaround in The Canes-Tahs game was more to do with the Waratahs upping their intensity and accuracy, and changing their game-plan than the Hurricanes phoning it in. Was that your impression at the ground?

Also, and young Tahs impress you? Naiyarovoro looked defenively lost, but there seemed to be bright spots in guys like Gordon, Hannigan, Hegarty?

Nah mate, there’s a layer of problems here.

Firstly NRC is a rep footy, that’s an important step up of learning that’s above club level and before Super level. That’s like saying you won’t support the Waratahs or the Wallabies because one guy from West Harbour made the teams, it sort of misses the point.

Secondly, the culture is different in subbies. Not to say the clubs aren’t great, full of great and passionate volunteers and players, but they don’t run like Shute Shield clubs, they probably would struggle to make up the extra teams, and the dropped club would likely crumble. You need a few layers of professional competition for promotion and relegation to work-not just one or two clubs in the lower division that can pay their players (and they can’t pay them now anyway in Subbies). The struggles of promoted clubs in the English competition shows how difficult it really is.

Thirdly, while promotion/relegation might be nice, you shouldn’t be able to buy in with cash (and a club like Drummoyne was already paid out to leave the Shute Shield-do they now have to pay that money back?) of all the dumb noises that come out of club rugby in Sydney, they actually got it right be making sure there would be teams in the West, regardless of their successfulness.

Fourth, rugby can’t survive if it increase it’s focus on it’s relative strongholds of Brisbane and Sydney.

Lastly, there is a lot of merit to a televised comp. That could and perhaps should still happen, and i believe the Shute Shield is getting televised again this year, but realistically, you need the product first-there aren’t just executives hammering down the door to televise rugby right now, the product needs to make more sense and the hopefully the rest can follow.

Well, there’s some truth there, because the Australian conference is so even at this point in the season. They’re not going to win the comp if they don’t start beating someone other than the Force and Rebels though, so, anytime guys.

This is interesting.
I didn’t see anything except a few highlights from his initial stint at Saracens, but for one of the richest and strongest clubs in the English comp to be chasing his signature, there has to be something there that the majority of commentators (armchair and professional) aren’t seeing.
You’d have to imagine that playing alongside Itoje, Kruis, Vunipola et. al, and in a forward dominated competition, that he will grow exponentially as a player. And he will only be 26 when he returns.

Three full jumping options in mumm, hannigan and Holloway and two half options in hooper and Skelton is helpful?

Good work, as ever Geoff.

A few things, firstly, i think you’re right about a number of things, but a key one that sticks out for me is the idea that SANZAAR needs to let the public have a better access to what’s going on behind closed doors. Stop treating this competition and it’s administration like a boys club and start treating it like a multi-national competition which they expect and need us (the public) to be involved and invested in.

To that ends Sanzaar let us know what the plan is, it matters to us! Personally, like you i hope that the 18 ream comp is a stepping stone, and one they step forwards from rather than backwards. It makes a lot of sense to get invovled in North America on an expansion to 24 teams-a team in Vancouver, Toronto, Boston, San Diego and another in Argentina would take us to 23 teams (Leaving one to be added elsewhere, Pacific Islands perhaps) and create a nice 6 team America’s conference. Then we could have four fairly logical conferences with the Wolves with Australia and the PI’s with New Zealand.

I’d hope too that lessons have been learned from the moronic way the Sunwolves were introduced to the competition.

Lastly, the huge focus on the height of tackles is well and good. The flagrant inconsistency from match to match is not. It’s a blight that the TMO’s can’t all work off the same sheet and produce a narrow and accurate spread of decisions in real-time.

Seems to me Australia spend that much of the latter period after 2006 (until perhaps Pulver came in, and subsequently Cheika?) with their priorities out of order.
RWC 2003 funds were depleted, bonuses were big, and there was very little strategic thinking (that i can see any evidence of).

It’s only now that we are starting to see these things turn around-a leaner ARU, a strategy (even if some people don’t like it), a top-down focus. These are all things that if our leadership had had more sense, they would of taken a minute to look at NZ’s already successful structure in 2006 and seen, and looked to replicate.

So then the problem that you mention-we don’t have the requisite success at this point to justify five franchises in this structure of Super Rugby, but the two new franchises have built communities and fan-bases and are starting to to produce (in great numbers) local talent at a provincial level. So how can we decide who to cut?

To boot, nobody likes this current Super Rugby format (except maybe the South Africans who it appeases, and obviously the Japanese and the Argentinians must).

My early thought is that I think that we the only way forward is expansion, i think that we need to split the competition into an A and B level (like Champions Cup and Challenge Cup in Europe)-two twelve team round robins.

The local conferences as they are play each other once, as they are now to start the season to get a seeding.
Then Super-Dooper Rugby, top two from each SA conference, top 3 from Australia, and all five NZ teams play in the top tier. Perhaps after the first year, the winners get automatic qualification to the next year’s comp, and NZ reduces to four teams qualifying (rewarding the most successful country)
Second tier comp (Almost-Super Rugby) is comprised of the bottom two teams from Australia, bottom four teams across South African conferences, two more teams from Argentina, two from the USA, two from Canada who play each other in a robin.

Names need work.

George Smith does appear to be singularly ageless, i hope that Australian rugby can truly make use of him as long as he remains in the country playing-i wonder if Liam Gill is kicking himself that he is not at the Reds this year to play and train alongside him.
Do you observe any drop off within Smith’s game (apart from, maybe, a question mark over his ability to last the full 80) or is it just a steadily rising curve?

Secondly, the idea of directive vs consensus coaching is an interesting one. Are any modern teams successful with a truly directive coaching program? Would you say that programs from the amateur-era and early-pro era were more directive?
How/when has the transition happened? I seem to remember (perhaps i inaccurately remember) that it was at the time being reported that Eddie Jones towards the end of his tenure was not the key decision maker as head coach of the Wallabies, rather the players (Gregan, Larkham) were calling the shots.

10s has been around for eons

No i can’t at all.

That’s my point though, given other Lions coaches have typically drawn more heavily on their national teams as the backbones of their squads… Just adds another interesting layer of complexity.

That makes sense. Puts Gatland in an interesting bind given the relative underperformance of Welsh players recently though, you’d think?

It’s certainly going to be interesting.

I know this was defence focused, but attack will be interesting too as it plays out. I would see the flip-side being that the smaller backs will be harder to tackle legally, so for teams like England they could be a great gifter of field position and shots on goal.

The tackle is poised to become the new scrum. Inasmuch as the rulings shall be more subjective and less clear, and more susceptible to manipulation.

Gotta hope they aren’t, best case scenario surely for the NFL: Falcons, Texans, Chiefs, Cowboys.

Even if that’s a stretch…

Interesting piece Nick!

Is this a defensive system that gets used a lot in the Northern Hemisphere or is this one of the first applications of it you’ve seen?

Is it generally particularly effective?

Beale has form for those plays though, he was the one who made the big turnover against Wales to relieve pressure in the RWC.

I watched the extended highlights of a couple of Wasps game and noticed Beale shooting up, didn’t strike me that it was part of a plan, how much of a problem does the gap he leaves in the line become?

They didn’t-that’s when the Union was formed and the first organised competition played.

First game was against QLD in 82

Interesting perspective there Nick.

Do you get the feeling that there has been any benefit on the ground at a SR level to these players moving on?
Perhaps, at least players like Kerevi, Coleman, Dempsey, Holloway etc. might not of gotten to develop to the same degree?

Didn’t realise that Cameron Orr had left *and* has dual qualification… Letting skilled players and leaders go without a SR contract (i haven’t seen him play, but skill and leadership assumed given he was U20s captain) is probably the biggest concern from mine.

You’ve lost the plot

If you’re telling me i should be getting paid for my comments, i’m in!

Buddy, pro’s just a rating based on how many articles you’ve read and how often you comment.

Having said that, i was fairly clearly joking.