cs, it was the Highlanders outside centre standing out wide. 😊

Bliksem, even Carter Gordon, who plays a pretty good game at flyhalf, is a horrible place kicker. Last week he hit the post from 30m right in front and in tonight’s earlier game he missed a few relatively easy kicks.

There is absolutely no way he will get into the WB team unless they field someone else who is a top notch goal kicker. So we end up with N.Lolesio, T.Edmed or B.Donaldson in the WB, all good kickers but poor field generals when under pressure.

If only Tom Lynagh has 2 more years of SR experience and say another 5-7 kg of muscle on him. 😔

Why is this article put out on Friday morning? Thursday late morning and it was a success. Friday is too close to kick-off and it has bombed. Last week tipping contyest had a couple of banana skins, lets see how we go this week.

– Not terribly confident but Rebels piggies finally looked good last week. Rebels by 5
– Them Noble Tahs will have a much harder game this week. J.Gordon and Tane won’t be running at rookie halfbacks so I doubt they will have fun there. However TNT have a pretty decent pack and Highlanders only have 1 lock in the 23. Tahs will starve them of possession and win.
– Crusaders are finding life a little difficult without 23 All Blacks in their team and the Fijian Drua will be licking their chops to repeat the “event” 2 years ago. Drua were all over the shop last week but I think their brutality will be too much for the Sader’s new boys.
– Brumbies to stampede an injury-filled Force.
– Canes and the Blues is a match made in heaven. The Canes’ forwards were ferocious last week and basically beat up the Reds pack. But the Blues are not too shabby. I’ll earn RT’s ire and predict the Canes here.
– Reds will be knackered from Sunday’s match whereas the Chiefs will be feeling fresh after the Training run against the Ponies. Chiefs to pull away in the last quarter and win by 20. My main interest is to see how Harry Wilson goes against the Hammer called LukeJ. If Wilson goes into his shell, his name gets scrubbed off the WB list. If Wilson plays a hard game and gives what he gets, he is a must in the WB 23.

In short: Rebels, Tahs, Drua, Brumbies, Hurricanes and Chiefs.

Personally I always thought a coach’s tenure should be based on his vision and planning, the ability to communicate good ideas to the players and the players are listening to the coach.

D.Coleman came in straight from Shute shield, so like a player elevated from grade to SR you have to take a long term view. Certainly the team seems to be behind him despite the “whispers from anonymous sources” which appear to me certain henchmen pushing their justification. Coleman has improved the side from the efforts of 2021 and should be given credit for that. Add that any rushed sacking immediately asks (a) at what financial cost to a club that is skint and (b) apart from M.Cheika who else is available with SR coaching experience?

This sacking of a coach via media bites has all the hallmarks of the rotten games played at NSWRU. Even worse is under Clown McLennan, the NSWRU old boys club passed all of their debts to RA but kept staff and it would seem still are a major decision maker. Seems a very odd way to go about High Performance alignment. 😔 😱

Yawns! Tahs finally play some footy after being creamed in 2 matches against the Reds, and ofc the writer is flying the flag of “Bestest team to EVER play the game”. Further he has the Wallaby coach writing all 23 of these super fabulous Tah men into the Wallaby set-up. No need for Joe Schmidt to watch any other games, he already has written the 23 players he wants for the WB side to go right through to the RWC2027 Final.

Meanwhile on planet Earth, I think some other Aussie teams played, but hey who cares about them! It’s all about the Tahs, ain’t it!

As an aside, I agree the Tahs improved heaps compared to their trial match and round 1 of SRP against the Reds. But it sure helped playing a once great team with rookie halves, no W.Jordan, Leicester.F and R.Mo’unga and some soft forwards. It was a weird game, both sides scored 4 tries however the Crusaders ran more metres, more passes, had 59% of the ball and less penalties than the Tahs but crucial drops and turnovers, scrums and lineouts lost and their maul stopped ruined the Crusaders’ chances all night. I cannot remember such a poor game from the Saders’ forwards, could it be they were still stuffed from playing the Chiefs the week before as well as the post-Whitelock, E.Blackadder and C.Taylor blues?

I really want to think the Tah forwards dished it up to the Crusaders and put them off their game. To be sure, the Tahs lifted beyond expectations and the soft shoulders and massive holes in the halves lifted their confidence, but for mine this incarnation of the Crusaders would struggle to beat the Rebels. 😛

😂 😂

Brendan, back to class for you, boyo! Now repeat after me 1000 times per day until you dream it 24/7.

“Sydney Clubs and their SRU are the greatest in the Universe, NSWRU is a sub-branch of the SRU and ofc RA is a sub-branch of SRU also”.

There, easy ain’t it! LoL

I have heard that Phil is quite affable and really cares for rugby. That doesn’t mean he is not a boofhead though. 😁

Why do people give credit to boofheads such as Phil Kearns? OK, the bloke was a very good footballer but he was a shyte biased commentator with Foxtel and has barely said a sensible word since Foxtel lost the Australian rugby tv rights. Why am I not surprised this Newington drip sucks up to Hamish “It’s all about ME” Mclennan, who gave him the job to ratify the agreed upon hosts for the 2027 RWC? Both are Sydney private school boys who worked for the Rupert Merde-och organisation.

Kearns et al are not really saying “reduce the number of SR clubs and get better”, that is their word play to get the suckers in. Anyone with half a brain can see less teams = less local players seeing rugby as a career = fewer gun players, coaches, referees and juniors. The unspoken intention ofc is to kill off Super Rugby altogether.

Blokes like Kearns, Phil Waugh, Nick Farr-Jones, Simon Poidovan and Daniel Herbert were all great players who passionately love rugby, but they all have this crazy idea that Super Rugby (or its EVIL mini-incarnation the NRC) should be killed off. In their minds the only way to achieve Rugby Greatness is to start an Australian rugby competition similar to how the NRL went from the small local Sydney and Brisbane club competition to the cashed-up Gozilla in Australia today. It will be great for the 8-12 clubs that “join the party” (so to speak) and its not too difficult to figure out which clubs from Shute shield and Hospital Cup are already on the “list of the elite“. The downside is it will basically push every other club in Australia to subbie’s level.

So the thinking from Kearns et al is “we can’t afford more than 3 Super clubs as it will dilute our talent, but we can afford 8-12 Sydney-Brissie Super clubs and the talent will lift to RWC winner levels”. Hallelujah!

What escapes their minds is those rugby league competitions were fairly small fry until the the mid- to late- 1950s until the advent of the poker machine-funded clubs in Sydney. Queensland and Brisbane stagnated while all their talent headed to Sydney to the bigger money. The State of Origin boom from 1981 gave clubs outside of Sydney the impetus to move the competition out of Sydney to a larger ARL competition. The next boom was Foxtel’s attempt to take over TV rights. All that did was start the League War and massively increase the money in the game.

So if rugby in Australia goes that similar path, what gives these blokes the idea that rugby union won’t simply end up like league was in the 1950’s? There is no poker machine funding to lift their earnings, STAN or Foxtel would massively drop the coin for TV rights and which TV company would want to show club rugby on FTA? The last time it was shown on FTA, the Sydney RU had to pay the tv company. And it was so bad they almost went broke and ofc their sub-branch (ARU now called Rugby Australia) had to foot the bill.

Earth to Kearns et al, how is outer space going fellas? Any alien rugby sponsors out there or are they still probing you? 😂 😂

Week 1 bombed as I never thought the Rebels backline could be so lacking in ideas. When they had the pill they were so atrocious that they make England seem like the Hurricanes.

Tips for 1st-3rd March, the so-called Melbourne Super Round

Blues (A) to beat Highlanders by 5

Melbourne Rebels (H) to belt the Western Force

Fijian Drua (A) to crush Moana Pasifika

Crusaders (H) to flog the NSW Waratahs

Chiefs (H) too good for ACT Brumbies

Reds (A) to pip the Canes in a thriller.

Why do people bang on with these pipe dreams? We had David Moffett spruiking it earlier on the Roar and 300 odd souls joined in the comments thinking it was April the 1st. Why not post a letter extolling the virtues of the Manly Rugby League organisation buying Liverpool Football club, or perhaps Balmain Tigers purchasing the San Francisco 49-ers. The probability of those two purchases/mergers is about the same as RA agreeing to marriage with the NRL.

The only thing the NRL would like to buy is to have an international footprint that rugby union has, but why would they merge or buy the Australian union which is skint and losing money big time? Even if they did merge/take over, it doesn’t open any doors to International rugby as the rest of the world would tell the merged entity to “take a hike”. I’m sorry but league will have to put more games such as NRL players with Lebanese ancestry Versus NRL players with Spanish ancestry on their World Cup Sham and I’m sure the crowds with flock in. So the NRL would get nothing except more access to the top rugby players for some pocket money.

What would the ARU get? Absolutely nowt in the long run. Yes they would get the sugar hit of more coin, except all the decent players would be moving off to play league as the NRL and lesser competitions expand. Incidentally I suspect the “marriage” would dissolve in week one when the golden child of the Betting industry, one PVL and mates at the NRL, demand the Tahs wear Tab corp sweaters, Reds wear some other betting company all over them. And ofc during all down time such as scrums and lineouts then the viewers can watch another 28 repeat ads of How Good is it to Lose your Money .

Why do you think the NRL is trying to get into the USA with the venture this weekend in the city of “Lost Wages”. It is all about getting more punters to bet on the games. 😁

And now for my Rugby Gripe. I know, I know; call it Old man shouting at the Clouds syndrome. 😁

As a long time Tahs member (President of Them Noble Tahs aka TNT) I did my bit and bought membership and tickets for SRP2024 home matches. Bu99er me dead, Bruce! Five out of 7 matches are on a Friday night, and the remaining 2 are on a Saturday night. There is not one Sunday afternoon match. Big Q is when does dad n mum bring the kids to a rugger match? To be sure, its not freezing their butts off at SFS in the middle of a winter’s evening. I hear Melbourne Rebels matches are very much the same.

I know the broadcasters have the greater say in when matches are played and basically they want eyeballs on their screens at peak hours and couldn’t care less how many are at the ground. This hurts the clubs, whose main income is from attendance, especially with RA cutting the TV payola by around $1.7 M bucks a year.

Why so? you may ask. Friday night is directly competing against Ch9’s NRL FTA broadcasts and I suspect Saturday is booked out by Ch9 as an experiment to broadcast at least one FTA women’s NRL matches. I suspect live viewing numbers will tank, as will STAN’s next broadcast offer.

RA, if you want crowds to your games then bring back the Sat or Sunday afternoon matches. Even the NRL Raiders are going for more Sunday afternoon matches to get the larger attendances. And what are the Brumbies doing, I wonder. Tahs, if SFS is booked out by the NRL, then play at Manly or Balmain, those grounds can take your maximum of 15,000 crowds.

On paper, the Tahs forwards should towel up the Reds lightweight pack. In the trial game, the Reds won the piggie battle with constant LQB to move around and disorganise the Tahs. The Tahs have countered with a pretty fast back row and likely will serve up periods of LQB themselves. the Reds have some weaknesses, mainly

– (A) The Reds’ THP Z.Nonggorr looked totally outclassed against A.Bell, who to be brutally honest is not the greatest LHP scrummager going around. Bell gets the accolades for his power running and game sense, often in the right place at the right time. I thought Bell’s size and strength plus the weight coming through from J.Holloway and Miles Amatosero gave the Tahs that 1st half dominance.
– (B) S.Uru is a pretty good player but is too lightweight to mix it with the big boys at lock. There just isn’t that power from the 2nd row to hold their scrums. Reds really need C.Vest to be there. A few years ago, the Reds had tall powerful 2nd rowers falling out of the trees, then BradT cheesed most of them off. 😔
– (C) the Reds’ centres are too small. Every top class side has a large human at inside centre and or a large fast outside centre to complement. Their size are in the wing and fb. They will miss F.Daugunu.

Any idea when we might see J.Toomaga-Allen packing down for the Reds? Almost criminal, an AB front row almost. LoL

I expect the Tahs to be leading at half time, thanks to a zillion and one scrum penalties. A smart Tah would even knock the ball on 10m out from the Reds line just to generate up another scrum penalty and likely yellow card 😛 The Tahs reserve forwards worry me though. Expect the last 25 minutes to belong to the Reds. 😢

On a brighter note, great news coming through that Lalakai Foketi is not seriously injured and there is confidence of a full recovery. So I can open up a beer and celebrate. 😛

he he, Mith is filled with MIRTh today. 😛 The key words there are so far. 4 more hours and those words come home to bite ya in the bvm. LoL

Have almost the same tips as Christy (shows you all what a brilliant rugby mind he has 😛 )
So for Round 1, SRP24.
Chiefs by 10, should win this game easily, especially now that W.Jordan is out for the season to add to the Crusaders woes. Yes Chiefs have lost Retallick but the Borg have lost S.Whitelock AND R.Mo’unga and E.Blackadder. The Saders have some YUGeeeeeeeeeeee beef in the centres but I reckon Q.Tupaea and A.Lienert-Brown will cause as much havoc. As an aside, I wondered where M.Mataele went after leaving the Force. Yep, the moneybag Saders.
I really like the balance of the Rebels this year, their only weakness is at halfback. I think they will come out breathing fire and burn the donkeys at their “Burn House of Pain”. I admit I’m not terribly confident on this one. 😛
If the Force could field their #1 side, they would stand a massive chance to dent the Hurricanes but nope, too much quality cattle in sick bay.
Blues to smote the Drua. Drua have been great in the 1st half of their 2 trials against Rebels and Brumbies, in both games they led 21-7 at half time against basically the 1st XV of the opposition but their reserves were flogged in the 2nd half. Its always difficult for me with the Drua as I struggle to figure who has left and who is new to their side. I must put in more effort to get to know their players. Hopefully I may learn something when I trip over to one of their home games this year. I really need to get my head around the Fijian Drua roster but all those long syllable names melt my brain. 😔
One really wants Moana Pasifika to win more matches but as soon as a player stands out, the big Kiwi teams poach them. Highlanders looked pretty good towards the end of what was a horror SRP23 for them. With a couple of new and returned players, and ofc the coaches, they should be a force to be reckoned with this year.
Tahs should bully the Reds scrums till about the 60 minute mark, but they did that in the trial and still got flogged. This game should be tighter and its even possible the Tahs may lead at half time, sadly then its all downhill for the boys in blue. Their reserve forwards look Shute shield quality. Only surprise is Reds; Joe Brial was overlooked for John Bryant and Tahs; where is Ned? The lad is coming into his own as a quality flanker/lock reserve.
In short: Chiefs, Rebels, Hurricanes, Blues, Highlanders and the Reds.

Piru, sadly I don’t think we will ever see the NRC again unless STAN (Ch 9) drop televising half the Shute and Brisbane club games (lose all of 200 viewers but NSWRU and QRU power boys spill their gin-n-tonic in anger) and fund the NRC to run after the club boys have finished.

To be effective, clubs will have to start their seasons around early March and finish around mid August (like they always did till recently). Once club games are over, a form of NRC can start.

The reason for my pessimism is the RA chair (D.Herbert) and CEO (P.Waugh) expressed their desire to get an Australian CLUB championship competition going. Who is going to fund all the travel and hotel bills for a game at club level, for mine it fails its purpose of raising the bar to a higher level. The only winners would be a couple of Sydney and Brisbane club sides, while everyone else (including every other club in Oz and the people funding this scheme) can go Fkkkk themselves. 😡

“coach” EddieJ dissed C.Gordon on the basis that he couldn’t play unstructured headless chook rugby against Fiji despite getting monstered with massive hits from slow ball. Eddie then selected his Randwick “love-in” B.Donaldson to show them how to play the Randwick way in the Wales match. That went well! The last sight of poor befuddled Eddie was him in the stands sobbing that he couldn’t get his mate Jorgo’s son a run in the side.

I found it strange that everyone raved about Donaldson’s match against Georgia on the basis that he scored two tries gifted to him. The 1st was from a nice C.Gordon cut-out pass about 5 metres from the Georgia line and the 2nd was the freakish intercept and run from T.Tupou, who then passed to Donaldson for a clear run to the line. Give Ben some kudos as he got into the position to receive those passes but his job was “catch ball and run”.

To me B.Donaldson is a good player at times but he is a “confidence” player. When he first played for the Tahs, he was a breath of fresh air as he kept putting players through gaps with neat short passes. I felt it more to do with finally some structure in the Tahs’ attack and a #10 (BenD) who understood and was capable of seeing the plays. If he can get to that level and keep it there then he is a big chance of the gold jersey.

C.Gordon, he got the raves and selection on the basis of his play at the Rebels, which depended on the team playing team rugby, everyone was on the same page. Poor Gordon gets into the WB and the team is told “just run like the Ella boys at Randwick, doing your own thing and the defences will go up in smoke”. We all know how well that went. 😱 😡

Bugger! Best wishes to Lalakai Foketi, a blow to the Tahs but his health is far more important, they have to be especially careful around neck injuries. Take it easy son, and don’t come back too early.

In the week before SRP #1, I think I have read reports of about 12 first pick 23 players getting themselves injured in training. Western Force have lost about 20% of their run-on side already including Izack Rodda and their new captain Jeremy Williams. The medics and RUPA talk of keeping games to a certain minimum over a year, but they seem to be playing far more heated battles on the training fields than in the stadiums. What the hell are the coaches doing and surely there is another way to get the players match fit. 😱 😢

Just to keep the interest up, The Rebels beat the Fijian Drua in the trial match on Friday evening. To be honest its hard to make any conclusion without knowing who was on the field at the time.

The team sheet I saw prior to the match had the Rebels starting side at almost full strength. I don’t know the Fijian Drua team makeup but they led at half time by 21-7. Of those two pieces of info, the Rebels starting side got belted in the 1st half despite having a very solid bunch of forwards on the park. After half time, the Rebels scored 3 tries (one in the 79th minute to break a 21-all deadlock) and win the match at 26-21.

If the Rebels did put out their “fair dinkum” side in the 1st half, then all this trial showed is (a) the Drua top XV is still a very good side despite player loss from the 2023 team and (b) the Drua reserves are not up to SR level.

hard to make any comment on the Rebels without seeing the match.

I really have to make sure I am not on some MAGA site of conspirators whenever I read comments that Will Skelton is a waste of space. Are these people serious or just trolling for a response?

Modern rugby is more and more a forwards game aided and abetted by quality jacklers right across the park. Big Wil will never be seen running 50 m with the ball through hapless back-line players but that is not his job, it is to rule the roost in the middle of the park where the big boys play. And there are not many better than W.Skelton at destroying opposition rucks and mauls, plus adding considerable clout in scrums and even a bit or mayhem in lineouts.

In his few games in the RWC before Goose Eddie and his S&C tools ran Skelton and T.Toupo into the ground, dare I say Big Willy did his job really well, considering most of the blokes playing besides him were newbies playing like headless chooks or blokes who really should not have been there (looking at Rory’s brother for one).

So you blokes bagging Big Willy at RWC23, before you put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard??) watch how much help Skelton is getting from his team-mates. At times it looked like he was the only bloke “on the ramparts fighting off the enemy”.

The trouble I have with the young #10 for the Reds, Harry McLaughlin-Phillips, is he still plays like most young schoolboy stars who all their lives have played “give it to Harry” style footy. In the big boys stuff, all of the opposition are tough footy players who can tackle and hurt, so solo runs through the opposition and/or the length of the field are very rare indeed.
Every game I have seen H.McLaughlin-Phillips play in, he looks great running with the pill but I don’t see the lad setting up others into holes which is a core duty of a flyhalf. His field kicking and defence is ok for a 19 year old (so-so at SR level) but he needs that long spiral pass and the vision of when to use it.
He has loads of potential though. I honestly think he needs to play half the season playing 1st grade club rugby with a mentor giving him good feedback after each game (JOC perhaps). He will learn more there than the occasional run off the bench only to be crunched by a big Kiwi forward or two.
Regarding the Brumbies game against Fijian Drua last weekend, I only saw a 5 minute highlights package on the RA website but the 1st half was mostly 1-way traffic as the Drua put on some great tries. Hard to comment on the Brumbie’s come-back without looking at who was on the field at the time and who was rested on both sides.

Well said Don, and thanks for the reply. 😊

I think the time zone of Argentina, plus travel costs, is a bridge too far for Super Rugby. Also from what I hear, they are trying to get an All-Americas super club competition going.

Japan would be great, though the clubs are not interested as they are making loads of yen with their own setup.

It might be possible to get a knock-out comp going between the two top teams of each competition that runs just 3 weekends although costs and logistics would be a nightmare.

Personally I think the best start would be to invite Japan, Fiji and/or a consortium of “Îles du Pacifique” team into our Rugby Championship. SA, NZ, Aus, Arg, Japan and Fiji would make a pretty good “Southern 6-Nations” comp in my eyes. 😁 🏉

Rabbitz, I stopped watching the ODI world cup when Johnny Moaning Bairstow was out 1st ball to a horrible pill from Mitchell Starc. As Bairstow stood there, I really wanted the Australian wicket-keeper or Captain to ask Mr Bairstow, in a serious voice, if Johnny agreed that it was a fair catch or should they refer it to the TMO. 😂

The wimps let that one through to the keeper. 😡

Ian, at the end of the weekend, NOBODY on the board backed McLennan. The vote was 15 to “Toss this Flunky” against 1 for “Keep me”. So obviously all the NSW (Bar McLennan), Victoria and WA/Force board members voted McLennan out. In fact no-one from NSW or Victoria ever said they were backing the Hampster. They were left out of the original “rebellious” letter group, to eradicate conflict, and it was assumed they would toe McLennan’s line. In the end they didn’t, and its quite possible they never did. What is clear as daylight is all 15 were sick of the sight of the man and wanted him gone.
The only people singing his praises over the weekend were the usual suspects such as the resurrected “Honest Johnny” Howard and Phil Kearns. And of course, those purveyors of unbiased news 2GB and the toilet paper called Australian.
I note that Andrew Forrest seems to have quietened his praise of the Hamster since Phil Waugh chatted with him over the weekend. I suspect that Waugh assured Forrest of the Force’s future, whether the “Titanic Hampster” was there or not.

Well said Cam, sadly it looks like Dan Herbie and Phil Waugh have their hearts set on some sort of national club competition rather than a SR-Au lite or along the lines of the NRC.

The 3rd tier competition which in reality would always be Shute shield champs vs Hospital cup champs, will benefit a couple of Sydney and Brissie clubs but other clubs would weaken as their good players would flow to the Nat Club championship teams (I know they already do, but even more now). The end result would be Shute shield and Hospital cup teams not engaged in said Championship would lose almost all of their top players, so the city-wide comps would be like 2nd division. Add in that most of the Club Championship games would be a flogging, can you imagine a stacked Syd Uni or Randwick side playing against Burnside (Adelaide club champs 2023)?

I think Dan and Phil need to think past the local club scene if they want a 3rd tier competition, even if Syd and Qld Uni think its the road for them to become a Saracens/Crusaders of the antipodes. 😛