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Joined April 2011
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in a round about way that shows how many ‘NFL quality’ athletes there must be running around in the NRL and Super rugby. NZ’s population is over 20% polynesian, thats near 1 million. Even here there must be a bigger Samoan/Tongan population than 65,000.
France's alleged quota system unravels
The worst rugby I’ve ever seen was the period 2008 and 2009 when rugby at times looked like bastardised AFL. I remember a test against South Africa in Sydney which was like a game of force em backs. The extreme level of kicking in that period was a direct result of the IRB tweaking the rules to favor defensive teams at the breakdown, exactly what u seem to be advocating. Why struggle to get over the advantage line runing the ball when its 50-50 at the breakdown if you can pick up 40 meters hoofing it downfield. So exactly what is your point?
Report says worldwide rugby on the rise
33 million watched the 2007 final because England were playing and the majority of viewers were English. If the 2011 final is say S Africa v NZ or Aus v NZ that number might be cut in half. Going by Kovana’s logic that will mean Rugby has had a massive reduction in popularity. Maybe the IRB will have to rig it so France or England make a final every time. I actually think the IRB does more to get in the way of increasing rugby’s popularity. The game hasn’t made any real in-roads in new countries since it went professional, maybe sevens in Kenya but the rise of sevens is part in parcel of the failure to popularize 15’s.
IRB Report 2010: CONSUR - South America: Part III
I remember Alan Lewis from the last All Blacks – Wales test (watching as a neutral). That was the most biased display I’ve seen in test matches, he was trying really hard to keep Wales in it. A ref can be excused for making bad calls but favouring one team is in-excusable.
Why isn't Dickinson refereeing at the World Cup?
Here is my suggestion re scrums. I reckon <5% of rugby fans and about 0.1% of casual sports fans in Aus and NZ tuning into a rugby match actually want to sit through this reset rubbish. The ARU and NZRU should do two things 1) instruct refs you cant reset more than twice or your out of a job and 2) instruct captains they cant choose to pack another scrum following a scrum penalty. That means after 2 resets there has to be a penalty which cant be followed by another scrum. If a team obviously collapses use a yellow card along with the penalty, that’s a big enough deterrent. I reckon a lot of casual viewers would have simply switched the channel during those resets, they are potential fans Australian rugby cant afford to loose.
Perfect 10 for Reds and Cooper's somersault
In that case why doesn’t Super rugby just morph into a 10 team Australasian comp. Dont mean to offend our Kiwi friends but I think financially the best structure would actually be 6 Aussie teams and 4 Kiwi. NZ really has a population base for 4 teams, 2 from Auckland, Wellington plus Christchurch. The teams could still cover the whole country, like the Christchurch based team being called ‘south island’ as an example and playing some games in Dunedin/Invercargill. Aus could surely add a west Sydney team. Player wise the Aus teams would obviously need to sign a lot more Kiwi and PI players. If you think its unbalanced look at the NRL, NZ provides what 30% of playing talent but only has one team. It would require NZ officials to be pragmatic about the large and growing economic gap between the two countries, the potential for growth really is in Aus.
Time for national pathways overhaul
that passion comes from most of the crowd being expats living with saturation AFL coverage in Perth and Melbourne, so their Super rugby teams provide a bit of an outlet. Adelaide no way.
this is a good move for Aus rugby, year in year out NSW has the strongest playing roster and for what. The tahs barely get 20,000 crowds for 9 home games in a city of 4 million. The lack of passion and connection with the team in NSW partly comes from the sense of entitlement that the tah’s should win because they’re the center of the rugby universe in Aus.
Western force are a worry though, the ARU should really look to strengthen their roster. They play in a good stadium on a nice dry / hard field, perfect conditions for exciting outside backs. The only two impact runners they’ve had (Ioane and Mitchell) both left for QLD/NSW.
Kurtley Beale to sign for Melbourne Rebels
The new emphasis on the scrum hit is a strange direction rugby has gone in considering the game has tried to improve its player safety image. Its happened at the same time as authorities getting rid of rucking and becoming increasingly pedantic on potentially dangeorus aspects of tackling such as lifting and shoulder charging. I find it stange because for people from non rugby backgrounds or countries that watch a game of rugby, the hit and collapsing in scrums is the feature that stands out as being the most dangerous and frankly just unappealing aspect of the game. There is nothing glorious about the scrum hit and the collapses, non-contest and ridiculous penalties that result, its turns a lot more people off the game than the so called traditionalists it pleases.
Referees killing game with scrum penalties
Is it just me or does Kearney make some weird selections. Some guy called Duffie is in the squad as a winger while Krisnan Inu, Steve Matai and Alex Glenn miss out.
Long term I think it will go back to floggings as long as origin provides a bigger pay day. The kiwi’s have a bit of a golden generation at present.
Why I'm an un-Australian supporter