Jeff, I do remember the day because it was a typical, then, Wellington summer’s day with biting, cold wind.

Thanks for the memory of that great occasion of NZ’s first cricket Test win over England.

I was at school decades before when I listened to NZ being bowled out by England in a Test at Eden Park for 26.

So that occasion at the Basin Reserve in Wellington was an example of a minnow finally becoming a whale, in cricket terms.

Facts matter, Train Without A Station. The ‘independent’ panel set up by Rugby Australia to examine the case for Folau’s sacking was chaired by an activist for gay and trans rights. Check it out.

Moreover, the Players’ Code of Conduct quarantees the right to religious expression to all the players. Check it out.

Rugby Australia and RUPA still have not told the Christian players what they can and cannot say about same sex marriage, an undertaking by Raelene Castle to the players. Check it out.

This is why Rugby Australia settled with the Folaus, with an apology and about the same amount of money that Qantas paid for its right to have the Wallabies called The Qantas Wallabies. Qantas no longer sponsors the Wallabies. The irony is that Rugby Australia have lost Folau and Qantas.

As Sekope Kepu told the Melbourne Work Place tribunal, the main reason why the Wallabies performed so poorly at the 2019 Rugby World Cup tournament was because they missed Folau presence in the team, on and off the field. The same point can be made about the poor performance of the Waratahs, too.

It is nonsense to pretend, as Geoff has done (and all the other rugby writers) that the Waratahs are essentially suffering from a turnover problem.

Geoff, your list does not include Israel Folau, the only iconic NSW Waratahs player of the last decade, a try-scoring match-winner, who was booted out of the franchise by a CEO who defected to the Auckland Blues.

Just saying …

This analysis misses the obvious point that the current Australian Test bowling lineup all move the ball into the right-hand batsmen. Starc bowls across the batsman but is essentially an in-swing bowler, like his fellow quicks and off-spinner Lyons.

There is no bowler who has a stock delivery that swings or spins away from the right hand batsman.

The Australian fast bowlers were forced to violate the Spirit of Cricket throughout the series by deliberately trying to hit the Indian batsmen, even tail-enders, to force pop-up catches.

It is amazing to me that no Australian commentator of note has not called out this disgraceful Bodyline Bowling in the detailed way that Mark Reason exposed it on the NZ website STUFF.

Where is the evidence that Steve Smith scratched out the batting side’s guard marking ‘five or six times’ in an innings during the two Indian innings in the Sydney Test?

Why did Smith’s gamesmanship which is against the Spirit of the Game happen during a drinks break when the Indians were on the brink of setting up a sensational victory?

These are questions that the cricket media need to put to Smith and Paine.

You can set yourself up to visualise how batting from a particular end of the pitch might be without scratching out the batters’ guard markings. Matthew Hayden used this method of visualisation that gave him the visualisation and preserved the batters’ markings.

Left wing, perhaps.

Nic,

Israel Folau departed Australian rugby in ‘unsavoury circumstances,’ you say.

But was his comment much different from the widely applauded comment by President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright: ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’

Just asking.

KCOP

If Israel Folau’s attackers were a majority of rugby followers why did the number of people attending Wallabies and Waratahs matches in person and on television decline dramatically? Folau had the support of the majority of Waratahs and Wallabies players. So much so that Raelene Castle agreed to work with RUPA for work out an agreement on what Christian players could or not say about their religious beliefs and not be sacked like Folau.

I asked Raelene Castle and RUPA several times what happened to this promise and I was told that they were sort of trying to work on it.

The fact of the matter is that there is still no document that allows Christian players to express aspects of their belief without being sacked. But players can attack Christian beliefs in far more vicious rhetoric than that used by Folau are not required to desist, indeed they are and were elevated to leadership positions for doing so.

It would be helpful in all this discussion if people read the evidence of Sekope Kefu to the Melbourne Tribunal where it was clear that Rugby Australia were not entitled to sack Folau on the grounds of his religious beliefs.

Rugby Australia, as it for the four years under the Cameron Clyne, Bill Pulver/Raelene Castle regime, kept relevant and important information about the Folau case from the media and from the rugby public. This continued when they settled the case. They refused to tell us that they had paid out millions of dollars to Folau. Instead they ‘encouraged’ the rugby media to believe that the settlement was about $200,000.

The real problem in all of this Cameron Clyne. He created a coup by becoming Chairman of Rugby Australia and then bringing in a cohort of board members and CEOs who were more interested in politicising the organisation than running the rugby game in Australia.

Hi Geoff

You presume that Optus made a much higher bid for Australian rugby than Fox Sports did with its second bid.

There is no evidence for this.

I would like to know from you, for instance, what the details of the Optus deal were. So far proponents of the deal have not given any details.

Moreover, when Optus had the chance to make a substantial and real deal months ago, it did not do so.

Instead, it pulled out suddenly when it was supposed to be clinching the deal allowing Rugby Australia to claim that ‘it was within a week or so’ of signing up to a massive deal.

Rugby Australia then said it would consider its broadcasting options at the end of the year.

But after Raelene Castle resigned, Rugby Australia said that the broadcasting deal would be back on the table for negotiations in July.

But today, Monday, we had the SMH reporting that Optus would not return to the negotiating table this year.

Nothing in the behaviour of Optus in this sorry saga suggests that they were particularly keen to make a substantial bid to Rugby Australia for the rugby broadcasting rights.

What sort of money were they offering? Who was going to do the production of all the matches in Australia? Would the service include running rugby from New Zealand, South Africa, France and Great Britain and Ireland, as Fox Sports does?

One of the rules of good journalism is that the journalists decide what is to be discussed, not the people having to answer the questions.

Your question about ‘the wreckers’ allowed Paul McLean to avoid the real issues now facing Rugby Australia, namely unaudited annual accounts and no broadcasting deal.

My take on what happened with Raelene Castle is that the new board members and RUPA were horrified at the financial and broadcasting mess left for them to clean up that they forced the resignation of the person responsible for the broadcasting part of the mess.

To quote Brett Harris again: ‘The RA board became increasingly uncertain Castle could deliver the outcomes the game needed to survive. In her resignation statement Castle said it had been made clear to her departure would give the board the “clean air” they believe they needed.’

Why didn’t the rugby media questioning Paul McLean try to find out what this statement from Raelene Castle really mean?

Geoff

I was surprised that the rugby media involved in the Paul McLean interview and answer session did not press the acting chairman of Rugby Australia on two crucial issues: the integrity of the unaudited accounts of Rugby Australia and the unresolved broadcasting rights for the 2021 and future rugby seasons.

The refusal to allow the accounts to be audited is a serious matter. RUPA agitated for weeks for this information and when the real but still unaudited figures were revealed to them they immediately settled for taking a massive cut to the salaries of the players.

This suggests to me that Rugby Australia has not been upfront with the rugby community about the real state of its accounts.

There have been media reports that the loss for the 2019/2020 year is significantly higher than the leaked figure of $9 million.

It has been reported, for example, that Rugby Australia’s lawyers are yet to be paid out for their work on the Folau case.

Why wasn’t Paul McLean questioned diligently on the accounts and why they remain unaudited?

Similarly, the rugby media has swallowed the lines that ‘Optus was within a week’ of signing a massive broadcasting deal with Rugby Australia.

There have been media reports that the Optus deal was a low bid.

Why wasn’t Paul McLean questioned about this by the rugby media?

Instead, on the Monday after the interview, the SMH announced that Optus was not returning to the negotiating this year.

The truth about the new broadcast deal is that Raelene Castle, who was leading the negotiations for Rugby Australia, snatched disaster from the jaws of victory with her obsession against Fox Sports.

On 25 April Brett Harris wrote an important story on this matter for The Guardian: ‘Raelene Castle becomes the latest casualty of Australia’s flawed rugby system.’

Here are two important paragraphs from this story:

‘It would hardly have surprised Fox Sports executives when Castle rejected their initial low offer of $20m a year for broadcast rights, but what Castle did next would have stunned them. For the first time, Castle took the broadcast rights to open tender, hoping to create a competitive tension between Fox Sports and another bidder, expected to be Optus.

‘Castle’s ballsy move prompted Fox Sports to make a much improved revised offer, but Castle did not seem to fully appreciate the magnitude of her victory and rejected it. It is understoo Fox Sports executives breathed a huge sigh of relief and then withdrew from the bidding process. The pressure on Castle has mounted ever since, reaching a breaking point with the captains’ call for change.’

Again, why wasn’t Paul McLean questioned about this at the media interview on Saturday?

Raelene Castle’s lost gamble on the broadcasting rights of Australian rugby is arguably the most catastrophic decision made by a Rugby Australia official.

Tim

Thanks for this. I knew about ‘Weary’ Dunlop and Carl Aarvold, a brilliant number 10, I believe. But it is great that you revived their memory. ‘Weary’ was buried in his Wallaby jersey. But the other names were new to me. These names reinforce the notion in the early days of rugby that it was a brilliant game to train young men for war. I once wrote an article on how the metaphors of rugby are all war metaphors. Players kick ‘bombs.’ The fullback is ‘the last line of defence.’ Cheeky halfbacks ‘snipe’ around the scrums and rucks and so on.

By contrast, cricket is a game where the metaphors are about death. When a batsman is bowled he hears ‘the death rattle,’ ‘departs the scene’ and throws his gear into his ‘coffin’ and so on.

It occurs to me that if I were writing that section of the essay now I would have given examples of where the producer’s version of the game has been used, in some instances, in various countries to affect the decision of referees.

We know that sometimes a replay will come up on the big screen alerting the referee to something he and the assistant referees might have missed.

Sometimes these replays are required with the new protocols regarding high tackles and foul play.

But there are other occasions like forward passes where the judgment of the referee and his assistant is put under pressure.

Almost invariably these interventions by the television producers favour the home side.

As one of those rugby writers who has an ‘erratic’ preference for Liam Wright over Michael Hooper, I would make a couple of points in support of my position.

First, Hooper is one of those players, in my opinion, whose statistics are much better than his actual play.

If you watch his play carefully, you come to a realisation that many of his tackles are second-in tackles made after someone else has made the initial hit.

When he was younger he could make searing runs off an inside pass from a playmaker. This aspect of his play is rarely seen now.

Which brings me to the second point, you rarely if ever see Hooper make a big play. It is quite remarkable that after a long career with the Waratahs and Wallabies that there no big plays, match-turning plays, can be remembered about his play.

Third, he lacks the dynamism he had when he burst on to the scene. It is inevitable that a number 7 slows down and becomes less dynamic after playing a long stint in Super Rugby and Test rugby.

Richie McCaw started out as a tearaway, try-scoring number 7. I saw him score several tries for a NZ Junior side against an England side in a curtain-raiser before an All Blacks – Springboks match at Christchurch.

But as his career went on and after the inevitable injuries and knocks, he slowed down. When this happened, he re-designed his game, rather like Michael Jones.

In this re-designed style, he was effective in different ways from when he came into the All Blacks as a youngster. His last Test, the Rugby World Cup final in 2015 was one of his finest matches but in a different mode to, say, his first Test against Ireland when he turned on a terrific second half, won the Match of the Match award and help turn a large points deficit against the All Blacks into a victory.

The point here is that Hooper is at the point of his career when he should be maturing his game to be as effective as he was when he was younger.

He isn’t and hasn’t done this.

When there is no growth in a player’s game and he is long into his career, it is time to look to his successor.

Right now that looks like Liam Wright.

The point of my article was to point out that Rugby Australia has still not honoured its commitment to the Christian players to set out what is acceptable to say publicly about their beliefs, and what is not acceptable to the organisation and RUPA – and, presumably, its sponsors.

The lack of a definitive statement on this matter is the ‘shadow’ obscuring the good things that might be happening in Australian rugby.

Dave

Thanks for this. Hopefully we will meet up again at Eastgate and have a chat about the things that matter in life, rugby issues. I’d relish that. See you soon. I learn more about rugby and life matters from readers than I do from my fellow rugby journalists.

Spiro

Nicholas

Your argument was that without Israel Folau the back three performance would improve.

I didn’t see that argument fulfilled against England.

This is correct.

(17 September 2018) Guide to the Qantas and Emirates alliance published by Qantas.

‘Launched in 2013, this airline partnership offers Qantas and Emirates customers more seamless travel between Australia, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. This includes Qantas flights that connect to Europe through Dubai, as well as Emirates flights to Australia and New Zealand … Depending on your membership status and fare class, you also can enjoy access to airline lounges operated by both Qantas and Emirates …’

This partnership replaced the agreement with Etihad.

There is no indication in the new alliance announcement that Emirates has desisted from its policy, shared with Etihad, of not employing gays .

A statement issued from Sydney on 8 March 2010, Qantas Corporate Communication (4033) said: ‘Qantas today announced an expansion of its codeshare partnership with Etihad to include land transport from Abu Dhabi to Dubai … Qantas currently codeshares on Etihad services between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane …’

Qantas does have a business arrangement with Etihad that operates in Australia.

Spiro Zavos

Thank you for this. I regard the comments the most important part of any article I write.

I read them all and take in all the new facts and interesting insights that are invariably raised in them.

The comments are the real roar of The Roar.

His photograph was never published while he was playing representative rugby.

Is this ODI being carried on any television station?

That second sentence should read: I did not play for New Zealand or Australia on the sporting field.

Ian, you win the bet. I did not representative New Zealand or Australia on the sporting field.

I was inducted into the Greek/ Australian Sporting Hall of Fame, along with Peter Peters for services to sports journalism. And I did represent Wellington as an opening batsman against MCC (England) in a first class cricket match. Does this count in the bet?

Seriously, though, you don’t have to be an actual practictioner to give well-considered opinions on matters of sporting interest, or any other interest for that matter.

Robin Williams once reckoned that cricket was “baseball on valium.” I’d say that if T10 catches on the Williams joke will have to be changed to “baseball is T10 on valium.”

Incidentally, congratulations to Anindya on his new book “Spell-binding Spells,”, a fascinating study of most of the greatest bursts of bowling in the history of Test cricket.

DaveJ, that photo of Bradman and Cowdrey you have sent in is interesting.. Bradman’s top and bottom hand are further around the handle of the bat, in different directions, than Cowdrey’s.

The more I look at these two grips the more I see a sort of golf-overlapping grip by Cowdrey, allowing to the two hands to work as one, and a sort of two-handed baseball grip by Bradman, allowing either hand but especially the bottom hand to be the dominate hand.