Buk:The hedgehog reference was to the Russian proverb that I quoted last week in an article, “The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

The point of the proverb is that someone who is very good at one essential aspect of a job/sport is generally more successful in his pursuit of victory than the fox who spreads his talents across a diversity of tasks and skills.

My point was that he played much as John Eales did in RWC 1991 when he was played at number 8 against Argentina, as a type of third lock (in the NZ use of the term “lock,” the position Australians call “the second row.”

Hope this clear up the confusion.

I believe that the old IRB once gave an official designation of the positions on the field, abolishing the “five-eighths” and “second row” positions, for “fly half” and “inside centre” and “lock” and “flankers”.

My apologies to Wayne Smith. He is correct. It was Brett Harris in The Australian who made the connection between having two teams in the Super Rugby final and the Springboks winning the RWC 2007 tournament after an all-South African Super Rugby final.

I said that the column was interesting. That remains true, as his explanation of what was in it suggests.

The test will be when attacking mauling sides are given yellow cards for several infractions, the way defending sides are.

Rugby, after the RWC tournament, needs to revisit the ELVs on pulling down mauls to ensure that there is a fair contest when a side mauls forward.

I watched the U20 tournament and I didn’t notice the attacking side being penalised, despite obvious infringements.

John, thanks for this. I would say, though, that despite the fact that I am an ancient, in the mode of the Ancient Mariner, I only know of the Battle of Waterloo through reading about it, and not being there.

Kaks, on 29 June 2010 in The Roar months before FIFA made its decision I wrote an article headed: Qatar will Host The 2022 Football World Cup.

Check the article out. It goes into the politics of the hosting bid and links Sepp Blatter’s expectations for another term as FIFA’s President with the intriques around the bid.

I explained the reasons why Qatar would get get the hosting rights. And I noted: “It’s hard to see where Australia hopes to get votes for its bid.”

As I say, this was months before the vote on the hosting rights. If I was so informed about all this writing from my home in Bondi Junction, how could those travelling the world in pursuit of an Australian winning bid be so ignorant about what was happening?

Jerry Collins: FOREVER YOUNG

Thank you Andrew for that touching memory of Jerry Collins. A grace note to that story is that Newtown Abbott is where the 1905 All Blacks trained before their first match of their historic tour. The mayor of the small town saw the All Blacks training and suggested they needed to practice drop goals as that was the only way they would score any points against devon, then the champion county side.

Jerry’s predecessors defeated devon 55 – 4, with devon scoring a drop goal, then worth 4 points.

The other grace note is that one of The Roar’s comments noted that Jerry was the first old boy of st patricks college, wellington, to be selected for the all blacks in 50 years. he followed in the tradition of another all black old boy who was as thunderous in his play as Jerry, the great Maurice Brownlie.

Jerry Collins and Maurice Brownlie, two All Blacks flankers, champions for the ages …

I notice that in discussing Will Skelton’s charge on Richie McCaw I stated that referee Marius van der Westhuizen was talked out of penalising the Waratahs secondrower by the TMO Peter Marshall. This should have read, “talked out of issuing a yellow card.”

For the information of some of those making comments on this article, the reason why I often quote from other people is to ensure that a fair description of what happened is written down.

For instance, it is relevant that the match commentators suggested that Will Skelton was the main pile driver in the incident regarding Sam Whitelock.

If anyone at the ARU shoud understand Leonard’s terrific concept it should be Rob Clarke. As Stray Gator he comes from the advertising industry and he has a senior role at the ARUas general manager professional rugby marketing operations.

Someone senior at the ARU needs to pick up the Wally ball and run with it. It is obvious and has been obvious for over a 100 years since the All Blacks adopted their iconic black colours and their haka that the Wallabies needed something icon to match this marketing of the NZ national side.

The 1908 Wallabies used to do an Aboriginal dance, an Australian equivalent of the haka?, before it matches. But the captain of the side, Dr Herbert Moran, a Macquarie Street cancer specialist in later life, used to hide behind a big forward when the dance was on. For him, the dance was a travesty given the treatment of Aborigines in those times.

The dance was dropped (as was the Zulu dance performed by the Springboks up to the 1920s) and the All Blacks were left with the marketing gift of the haka.

Now the Springboks are coming to terms with this in a modern manner that appeals to audiences used to animation of a high calibre.

It surely is not beyond the capabilities of the ARU to make something of Leonard’s excellent idea, an idea that comes from a terrific career in producing excellent, moneymaking (for other people unfortunately for him) concepts.

Over to you Rob Clarke to show that you are the manager to take Australian rugby and its prime moneymaker, the Wallabies, into the digital era with a concept that looks like a winner, if only it can get on to the field.

Brett, what is more cynical? Coming into a rolling maul in front of the ball to force an illegal try? Or tackling a player who is not legally bound and therefore has technically moved away from the maul.

It was obvious from Rob Horne’s shake of the head that he believed Glen Jackson made the wrong decision.

Even if it was the right decision, and David Pocock was bound, how can someone be yellow carded for a cynical play that was based, in his opinion (which probably was correct and should have been checked with the TMO) that Pocock had detached.

Some weeks ago Craig Joubert penalised and yellow carded a Chiefs player at the BEGINNING of the game for cynical play!

Joubert’s and Jackson’s decisions are too much like the old, discredited tactic of “getting your retaliation” first.

Referees should not impute motive in haste. And when they do they must go to the TMO to verify that their decision is based on what actually happened, rather than on what they think happened.

Incidentally, I think Joubert and Jackson are excellent referees. But they could be better if they tempered their value judgment decisions with the actual evidence from the TMO.

I would go further and say that all yellow and red card decisions should examined by the TMO and referee.

Thank you for this, Wayne. As you say, it is a case of Homer nodding rather than Sherlock Holmes being on the job.

My implication was intended to be a compliment, not a criticism, to a rugby reporter who has sources in all areas of the game. My reaction was intended to be read as a “dammit, Wayne has beaten me to my story.”

The next campaign concerning the rolling maul is to get World Rugby to reinstate the ELVs rule allowing the maul to be brought down. South African and English interests killed this off with the claim that pulling down the maul led to injuries. I have never seen an injury in many decades of covering rugby from a collapsed maul.

We need leadership from Bill Pulver and Michael Hawker for this and other rugby matters. But where is this leadership?

70s Mo congratulations on a wonderful series. As someone who has written about Tom Richards and other notable rugby warriors involved in the Great War, it is a pleasure, mixed with Virgil’s lacrimae rerum (the tears of things) to read your detailed and loving accounts. Articles like this give journalists like me richer and more detailed information and stories to re-tell in the coming years.

The point I tried to make on Friday comes shining through in your series, namely that while the life of so many of the soldiers in World War I like your grand-uncle Jim might have been short, their destiny lives as long as we remember them in life and death.

Just a note to apologise to Sean Fagan whose name I misspelt in the article.
Sean is the outstanding scholar/researcher on rugby and league in the pre-War period, including the Great Split of 1907. All of us who write about this period, in both codes, are indebted to Sean for his hundreds of hours of research in finding out what actually happened and why in the period I call The Rugby Wars.
And as I note in my article, Sean has revealed the stories of so many of the Wallabies who were caught up in the real Great War.

Of course, Redsback is right. The shock of watching the Wallabies go down to England at Marseilles in the quarter final of the RWC 2007 has so seared my mind that I ‘remembered’ the match incorrectly. In fact it was the second time (1995 was the other) the Wallabies failed to make the RWC semi-finals.

RobC
Let’s hope you give The Roar readers the insights you have gained from your research on the coaches. In my view, coaching excellence and the promotion of excellent coaching are currently under-valued in Australia. There does not seem to a production line leading to successful coaches at a higher level here.

Why this is so is an interesting subject you might be able to shine some light on.

Adrian, there are some great stories here which should become part of rugby folklore. I loved the one about the blacks behind the posts cheering a Springboks missed dropped goal and then the referee, misreading their enthusiasm, ruling that it went over. Gold!

Brett, the strip wasn’t white. It was light blue. A white strip would have been the answer to the confusion. Why would SANZAR allow the Force to wear a light blue strip when the Waratahs and the Blues and the Highlanders have predominantly blue jerseys? This is another example of SANZAR being unresponsive to the interests of viewers, at the ground especially and watching on television.

Don you should remember though that in Bradman’s day and later they bowled the equivalent of 120 six ball overs a day. It was nothing to bowl something like 30 plus overs in one day of first class or Test cricket. Even school boy cricket and grade cricket.

Bowlers, fast and slow, bowled many more balls in an average day’s play than they do today. And the fast bowlers were pretty quick, too. So there was a terrific physical effort throughout most day’s play.

The Australian cricketers played an intense grade day, first class and then Test cricket.

England players played the country circuit, a charity game most weekends and then the winter overseas tour.

They played more cricket I would think than the modern players, not at quite the intense level of some of it (although Sydney grade was very intense) and careers of fast bowlers were generally longer than they are now and with fewer breaks through injuries.

One of the secrets of the English professionals was to get fit for fast bowling by bowling. Freddie Truman et al never spend a day in the gym yet they bowled over 1000 overs a a season, generally without breaking down until towards the end of their careers.

In my view, young bowlers, fast and slow, should bowl more in matches than they are allowed to these days by the experts. train the bowling muscles by bowling rather than by pushing weights.

Chris, welcome on board The Roar. I found your article full of insights that would be useful for Australian rugby, at all levels. The notion of humility in the team culture is crucial to the success of NZ rugby. Yet Australian commentators and coaches never get it and make the mistake of dismissing, say, the All Blacks as ‘arrogant.’

There is a difference between arrogance and confidence. This difference seems to be beyond a lot of our coaches. No names, no pack drill but for years I have privately warned various NSW Waratahs coaches about being too much molly-coddling of their players. How many Australian teams clean up their dressing room , with the senior players leading the way, the way NZ teams do?

It is instructive that Robbie Deans was so successful in NZ, with the Crusaders, and struggled with the Wallabies. As the article points out, if the players don’t get what the coach is about, then the coach’s values and methods just won’t work.

This is a big problem for Australian rugby. Rod Macqueen created an environment of tough-love for his Wallabies and was a winner. Deans was resisted by some of his players. Hopefully Michael Cheika can get his players to be more responsive to the Macqueen/Deans system that Chris has skilfully identified.

I once skipped university studies and followed Kel Nagle and Peter Thomson around a Wellington golf course. There were only a couple of spectators and we chatted amiably to the players as they made their leisurely and assured way around a tough course. Nagle found his ball at one time behind behind a tree. ‘They say trees are 90 per cent air,’ he told us as he took his stance, placed his iron an inch or so to the far side of the ball and then with his quick and efficient stroke sent it soaring to the green.

The golfers of that era, with Ken Nagle and Peter Thomson leading the way, were great sports on and off the course.

Thanks for the memories Kel.

Lovely article, Debbie. I think we’ll start to see special FAST4 tournaments starting as the tennis equivalent of Big Bash cricket, And I think it will catch on, too.

The era of slow sports is passing quickly. Life is quickening up, people have less time to do the more things on offer to them.

There will be five-set tennis, three-set tennis and FAST4 events to cater for the different requirements of spectators, ranging from the purists to the celebrity followers.

This is an excellent analysis of what is a chronic problem for Test cricket, ever since Len Hutton used a slow over rate to give his speedster Frank Tyson plenty of rest between his own overs when he was off the long run.

Most of the blame has been heaped on the fielding side, the captain and his bowlers.

But some of the blame must go to the batting side too. Batsmen chat to each other between overs, sometimes between balls. In some instances the batsman is not ready to face up to the bowlers, when the bowlers are ready.

Many years ago the authorities studied old films of Tests to work out why in, say, Bradman’s day in England around 120 six-ball overs were played off in a day. One thing that came out of the films is that the players moved into position very quickly at the end of each over. And that batsmen did not chat between overs.

If the authorities were really determined to get the over rate up they would enforce penalties against the fielding side and also stop the batsmen chatting between overs and enforce the right of bowlers to bowl when they are ready and not when the batsmen are ready.

The point here is that batsmen should always be ready to face up, if the bowlers are ready to bowl.

If this regime were used the over rate would increase to allow 100 six-ball overs a day quite easily, I would say.

Scott, the highest compliment I can make about your rugby analysis on The Roar is that I learnt something from every one of the 125 articles you wrote for the site. I am sure that all your readers on The Roar have the same opinion about your work as I do.

You gave us an inside view of the tactics, strategy, planning and know-how that goes into creating a strong rugby side. Your analysis showed us how complicated and yet how simple the great game of rugby is.

The way you did this with the three dimensional models and the astute use of running photographs provided all of us with an education about the game as it is played on the field and planned off the field that has been unmatched by other writers, on The Roar, or on other sports sites, in my opinion.

I say this as someone who has written about rugby for decades and read and studied it for even longer. I have never come across anything as logical and as fascinating in explaining plays and why they worked or did not work as your articles on The Roar.

I have always believed that a major part of the opinion writer’s task is to be an educator in the area he/she is writing about. You have certainly been that on The Roar.

So there is an element of the bitter-sweet for the rest of us in your decision to hang up your boots regarding your contributions to The Roar. You will have a lot more time to get on with other things in your life, family and coaching. That is a gain for you. But we will have to get used to not having your explanations and diagrams about the past games to reinforce our understanding of what happened on the field. That is our loss.

When The Roar was started there was the intention to make it a great sports site, the best of its type anywhere in the world. We also had a vision that to achieve this ambition we had to give a forum to talented writers and thinkers about all the aspects of sport to bring their knowledge and insights to a wide audience in Australia, especially, and other parts of the world.

It has been a pleasure to host your columns. They stand now as a terrific body of rugby writing and commentary that will stand the test of time.

As I have said several times on The Roar, the Wallabies could do with someone with your clarity of thinking about what works and doesn’t work on the rugby field. All the best with your coaching, and thanks for gracing The Roar.

On the contrary Des. I believe you have identified yourself as the secret chapel farter.

The ancient Greeks had a myth about Achilles who was told by the gods that he could have a long and boring life or a short and brilliant life. Achilles choice was the short but brilliant life, ‘the crowded hour of glorious life that is worth an age without a name.’

Phil Hughes’ destiny it seems was to follow the same path.

I remember rushing down to the SCG to see him play his first first class innings. He batted through the first session against a lively Tasmanian bowling attack. I wrote a piece for The Roar suggesting he was destined to be a cricket great. We will never know if there was to be a middle bloom to his batting career that would take him to such an exulted level.

He gave glimpses on many occasions of a prolific run-making future but never conclusively fulfilled the early promise.

He might have been short of runs from time to time but he was always long on class, on and off the field. He was a country kid with a perennial smile on his face and an amiable bustle in his step and manner. He was a perennially likeable person who just loved to play cricket, to help his side win matches and to give pleasure to spectators around the cricketing world.

He joins Archie Jackson, another NSW cricket prodigy, who was taken from his life, family, friends and the game before he could fulfill the sun-drenched ambitions of his aspirations.

Rest In Peace