And yet they keep leaving for huge paychecks, don’t they?? If RSA was so bad, why do almost all overseas players come back home when they stop playing? Hell, when they get long term injuries they come back home to do rehab. How many ex overseas players do the bulls have on their books at the moment?

CJ Stander, ran home as soon as he was done with Irish rugby, despite practically having the Freedom of Ireland.

So your atgument holds no water because the evidence disproves it.

I think it’s a bit unfair to still think of the Japanese league as a bit of a holiday for the players. They have top coaches and a ton of world class players so the days of an easy paycheck in Japan are probably over. Also, they are launching a new league next year so I reckon its only going to get tougher…

Yeah but the argument has always been about the quality of the domestic competition so surely that’s being negatively impacted because New Zealand’s best players are predominantly playing in Japan.. The youngsters don’t get to consistently test themselves against the best in the country… Eventually the situation will become untenable. Damian Mackenzie is apparently the next All Black set to take up a sabbatical…

Nick, remember when I said this last year, that with professionalism, all nations will eventually have to pick their best players because the players will invariably go to where they are best remunerated. Australia is first, but New Zealand will be following suit very soon. Mark my words. All a team needs is a bad season to reevaluate its policies… All of New Zealand’s best players are all taking up ‘sabbaticals’ in Japan, so effectively, its also weakening their local super rugby sides…

The problem is that with this current pool of talent, The Wallabies are sure to cop a few proper 40+ point hidings I tbr next couple of years and not just from the All Blacks this time, and interest in the sport will wane even further…

This victory is only papering over the cracks, Australian rugby is in a bad way if this is how they are going to perform against a 2nd/3rd string French side with less than 150 test caps between them. At some point they need to start selecting their overseas based players because the depth just isn’t there locally..

I think it’s more to do with the money because when they are done playing rugby, they almost always come back to South Africa. Morne Steyn, Duanne Vermulean, Marcel Cortzee, Arno Botha, Nizaam Carr, etc etc.. Even CJ Stander who basically has the freedom of Ireland, immediately came back to South Africa as soon as he had announced his retirement.

The Overseas guys also tend to come back home to South Africa when they have very long injury lay-off (6 months plus)…

So I think we can safely say they go overseas for the huge paychecks, and good on them for that, because their spot is taken by an eager youngster who then gains experience at the 1st class level.

The other thing that is beginning to happen is that guys are going to Europe in their primes and then coming back after 30 and still play locally for a couple of years(like Schalk Brits, Duanne Vermulean, Morne Steyn etc etc) and they are passing on a lot of experience to the younger guys that they are playing with and so in the long term, it’s actually working out now…

Australia should just pick players from overseas in my opinion, otherwise the Wallabies will continue to struggle, and the All Blacks will be in the same predicament very soon in my estimation because they keep gradually losing some good players to NH clubs and that will eventually add up..

You need to watch “chasing the sun” and here is an article written today about Willie Le Roux on SA Rugbymag (perfect timing really).. Just to settle this dispute.

He had one bad game against Japan, and that’s because he couldn’t feel anything on his arm but he was decent against Wales (in a pretty dour overall team performance) and he was very good against England in the final so I’m struggling to see how he was the weak link.. Against Wales in the Semifinal he got Sbu Nkosi and Mapimpi out of trouble a few times after the Welsh had outflanked them. If you really want to see Willie Le Roux’s value, watch his off the ball work and how he directs the wings and Centers because I reckon you followed the ball when you were watching the matches live.

Just rewatch the matches without bias and observe how he actually carries a very inexperienced back three because 75% of back three play is being in the right place /position at the right time before you even think about executing anything. There’s a reason why our backline conceded very few tries and Willie is one of the big reasons. On attack, because he tries some high risk things, ofcourse he will make some errors in execution but someone has to be creative in that backline. Its all about risk and reward because most things won’t come off due to the pressure of modern defences, but you’d rather have a guy that tries and makes a mistake than someone who won’t try because they are scared of making errors (That’s the type of mentality that has limited springbok play in the past and has led them to be labelled as Conservative and Boring).. In the build up to the final, Rassie said one thing to the team, “if you are worried about making mistakes, then you are an arrogant asshole”… Willie’s role in the Springboks needs context because you are just summarising his value from a few mistakes you saw him make with the ball.
Watch “chasing the sun” and you’ll understand a lot more.

And surely Burns has earned a stay of execution!
I watched the Indian innings half awake at 5:30am in RSA and everytime i fell asleep, I was woken up by the loss of another Indian wicket and the excitement of the commentators. I still haven’t managed to get some more sleep.

That should settle it. It’s highly unlikely that a keyboard pundit like Olly knows more about Willie’s influence than the world Cup winning coach who has spent hundreds of hours analysing and coaching Willie Le Roux, and then selecting him to go on and win a World Cup no less.

Or it could be that Test match rugby is a big step up from Super Rugby and hence Banks isn’t as dominant a player as he is at Super rugby level. He wouldn’t be the first player to be less effective at test match level.

He actually set up the attacking shape for that play/phase because Pollard was stuck at the bottom of a ruck after breaking the line. Also I take it you don’t always watch the full Springbok matches, because ever since his debut, Willie Le Roux has individually been responsible for more Springbok victories than any other player. Even in his debut series against Wales at home, he pulled the Boks from the Jaws of defeat to handsome victories in those two tests. That 36-34 win in Wellingtong, Willie was probably man of the match. In Siya Kolisi’s first game as Bok captain, it was Willie and Faf who dragged the Boks to victory from 24-0 down.These are just a few examples so please put some respect on Willie LeRoux’s name.

He had such bad nerve damage that he had no feeling in his arm but continued to play…That for me says everything about the man..

Imagine being stood down for not adequately honouring a drug abusing womaniser whose greatest claim to fame was blatantly cheating at the biggest tournament in his sport and being proud of it for the rest of his days.
Maradona was a lot of things, but a role model he was not. So it’s quite ironic that Matera is in hot water for not being a role model(being a racist)…

Imagine being stood down for a drug addicted womaniser who’s greatest claim to fame is scoring using his hand in a sport where that’s the only part of your body that you’re not allowed to use. And to make matters worse, he was unapologetic about that blatant bout of cheating and was in fact, still proud of it.

Just imagine that guy being the national role model that you’re being punished for not mourning correctly (because there are correct and incorrect ways of mourning someone).

What are the larger issues at play? Apart it being a PR exercise because some miserable person dug up some racist tweets from 7 years ago? What’s the difference between him apologising and standing him down for one match?

Just make him issue an apology, promise to attend a sensitivity training course, donate to some charity, etc etc. The timing for me is very dubious and how do you even access 7 year old tweets because I can’t access my tweets from last year. Whoever dug these tweets up definitely had an agenda we are not aware of. He was 18 years old, its like people don’t remember how dumb and stupid they were at 18. I certainly was.

Your holier than thou attitude is quite unfortunate. No one is perfect, if anything the politicians we entrust with leading us are probably dirtier than most. He should have just apologised, said he didn’t know any better, which as an 18 year old, he definitely didn’t and maybe made a donation to some charity, and be a better person moving forward. What’s standing him down really going to achieve apart from it being a PR exercise.

Im not religious but I’m pretty sure Jesus said something about him without sin casting the first stone.

So that’s England /France and Australia/Argentina ruined then. Its ridiculous. For something tweeted 7 years ago? I’m not going to Condemn Pablo, because 10 years ago, I was a racist and tribalistic Bigot myself at 21 years of age. And I’m a black African man. ???????????????????? By no means am I defending his tweets if indeed they are racist xenophobic, but this world has gone crazy. We’ve all made comments in the past that we now regret. And we need to stop equating extraordinary talent in any sphere with moral superiority or goodness of character, because these guys are just as human as us.

With the extensive use of cameras nowadays, it should be easier to pick out the initial culprit. I’m guessing before the days of the use of the TMO for everything, the current rules as they are made sense, but not anymore.

Im sure someone will say we need less involvement of the TMO, not more, but if the players know that any provocation will be identified and dealt with harshly, they will be less incentivised to start anything, especially because it would be costing their team dearly in points or going a man down. With less provocation, there will therefore be no need to involve the TMO anyway, but that deterrent definitely needs to exist.

Quick unrelated question. Why does World Rugby continue to punish retaliation more than the initial provocation? Because surely they are incentivising niggling an opposition player because of the massive potential payoff (penalty, yellow card, red card) and the initial instigator usua gets away with a warning.
What they should do to cut the niggle out is mete out the same punishment for the instigator as the retaliator and the retaliating team gets the penalty as punishment for the instigating team for starting it all because with the rules as they are, the Argentians will continue provoking their opposition as a deliberate tactic to gain an advantage and its really not fun to watch from a neutral perspective.

Do teams that hide their 10s on the wings or at fullback do it because their 10s are terrible tacklers or is there another strategic reason for this??