Guys, without a doubt the best Super 14 coverage I have found for anyone living outside of Australia is through the rugbyzone website [www.rugbyzone.com], which broadcasts all games in full, both live and as replays, for a very reasonable annual subscription. They show quite a bit of other rugby as well. Well worth it.

Oikee, we’ve edited your previous comment. Either contribute to this thread in a meaningful way, and stop trying to disrupt this one, or move onto a different post. [Editor]

Hey guys, we’ve just made the announcement: the winner of this LG flatscreen television is James Mortimer:

Greatest Australian sporting moment? Winner announced!

Congratulations James! And thanks to everyone who entered this contest.

Doctor Best, this is a reminder to keep the threads on sport and not on cheap shots at fellow readers. Please take note, Zolton

Steffy, please contribute meaningfully to this thread or not at all. Thanks, Zolton

Guys, please keep this thread focused on sports. The first comment under this post was entirely appropriate. There’s no need to try and flame an argument. Thanks, Zolton

There is certainly a curiosity about rugby amongst the locals here. I watched the titanic Rugby World Cup match between the All Blacks and France at a bar in lower Manhattan, and the room was buzzing with excitement – and not just in the voices of the many ex-pats that were there.

The Americans I know who watch rugby tend to enjoy it. But it’s not part of the culture here in any way, and definitely not nearly as much as soccer is becoming.

That will be the greatest challenge that Roberts and co face. How to get reasonable media coverage for rugby amongst the saturation of traditional American sports.

Soccer (football) made its first real impact here back in the 1980s with the NY Cosmos and the arrival of Pele, amongst a series of high-profile acquisitions for the club. However, soccer also went into decline for many years after the initial burst of enthusiasm because it failed to translate well to American TVs (and attention spans!)

Perhaps a bigger Rugby Sevens push will be the first step towards infiltrating the American psyche. Start with the all action version of the game and work inwards from there.

Thanks Tim. We’ve adjusted that paragraph accordingly.

Guys, just reminding you all again that this is a sports opinion site not a forum through to make personal attacks. It’s not necessarily. Please refrain and keep the focus on sporting issues, of which, judging by the quality of comments on this post, you are all clearly very well-versed.

Some more unforgettable sporting moments:

17 year-old Ian Thorpe versus van den Hoogenband in the 200-metre freestyle final at the Sydney Olympics

Gilchrest making an Ashes century in 57 balls

Any one of Mike Tyson’s knockout blows

Interesting feedback guys. I really can’t take Twenty20 too seriously, and I would be surprised if the players got too worked up about statistics and the like in the same way as they do with Test or even One Day cricket. Twenty20, to me, is all about taking the most exciting elements of cricket, dressing it up like a professional American sport, and making it 100% entertainment for the paying fans. It’s a marketing exercise to bring new fans to the game. And what better way to do that than to get them involved. Just a thought.

Hi guys, the correct video is now up. Pretty amazing!

Nice summary Stoffy.

I watched the match in a Brooklyn apartment, surrounded by whooping New York fans, and what an experience that was. You couldn’t have asked for a better second half. The anti-Tom Brady sentiments were flying thick and fast. It seems his comparative glamour (and undisputed talent) has struck a sore point with fans outside of New England. But for me it will be that final desperate, winning drive from the Giants that will most be remembered. The pressure on Manning was unbelievable — he literally had the expectations of the entire city on his shoulders. And yet, like the young champion he is, he came through when it was most needed. A wonderful game, so much so that even the numerous ad breaks were bearable. Barely!

Thanks Stillmissit for the comment. It would be nice to return the discussion to rugby and those issues surrounding it rather than criticising other readers.

Hey Sam, and anyone else who’s interested, there’s some footage of that tackle of Brian Lima on Derrick Hougaard that you mentioned on one of your comments here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF8ctts9LOk

I have but one word for it: ouch!

Zolton

I recall that Sir Richard Hadlee came very close to doing it for New Zealand against Australia in a test match back in 1985, capturing 9 for 52 and taking the catch for the other wicket. In that three test series, Hadlee was absolutely devastating, taking 33 wickets at an average of just over 12.

Good point Spiro. When you look at the most successful coaches of the modern era in rugby league at least — people like Wayne Bennett, Phil Gould, Warren Ryan, and, more recently, Craig Bellamy — none of them were particularly elite players. The one exception to this theory would be Bob Fulton though, an outstanding player and a highly successful coach.

Attempts to field NRL teams from Adelaide and Perth – and the State of Origin match played in America several years back – are all good examples of Rugby League’s governing body overstretching itself.

Hey DF6, I guess those best qualified to comment on which code is physically more demanding are the players that have excelled at the highest levels of both codes. One point to consider though is that really tough union tests are only played a few times a year whereas the physical requirements of league seem to be pretty intense in the NRL regardless of the opposition.

Hey Terry, no accusations were made other than that Chris Anderson has had a poor record of seeing out his contracts with clubs and that there are deep seated reasons for this. Check this article for some background on his dramas at the Sharks:

http://www2b.abc.net.au/grandstand/nrl/newposts/17/topic17987.shtm

or this one on his falling out with Melbourne:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/ashes_series/1667332.stm

Zolton

It’s ironic that on the eve of the third State of Origin match, Lote Tuqiri was banned for two tests and fined $20,000 for failing a breath test for alcohol at training the Monday after the MCG test against the All Blacks. Ironic because when Tuqiri was involved in a Cape Town night club incident with Wendell Sailor in July 2005 Sailor told reporters they wouldn’t have been out drinking so hard before a State of Origin match.

The inference from Sailor’s remark was that the ‘leaguies’ did not put the same priority on the value of rugby tests as they put on State of Origin matches.

Of the three front line ‘leaguies’ to have made the expensive (for Australian rugby) switch to rugby, Mat Rogers and Wendell Sailor have gone. Only Tuqiri remains having negotiated a huge four-year deal from the ARU and the Waratahs earlier this year. It is obvious that rugby’s investment in these players has been lost money. As Adam Ashley-Cooper showed on Saturday night, Australian rugby has good depth in wingers. Lachlan Turner is in the wings, as it were. And Scott Staniforth is waiting for a coach to give him the good run in the Wallabies he deserves.

Lote Tuqiri has been the best of the ‘leaguies’ at test level but this is not saying very much. He lacks real speed and a nous for the game, knowing when to run and when to kick. His passing and kicking game are ordinary. He is terrific under the high ball and from gaining kick-offs. And on Saturday night the Wallabies used him to good effect playing down the middle of the field.

It is interesting that four-man disciplinary committee recommended only a one-match ban and a $20,000 fine for Tuqiri. This suggests a sentiment to go easy on Tuqiri which came through with the over-generous settlement of his contract. John O’Neill, however, stepped in an insisted on the proper two match ban.

It’s time that Lote Tuqiri having taken rugby’s money does some effective running for it. O’Neill’s intervention suggests that if the over-paid winger doesn’t deliver during the Rugby World Cup tournament he may face questions about the validity of his contract arrangements.

ContemPLATO ergo sum, perhaps. ‘You can lead a horse to water, as Dorothy Parker, once remarked, ‘bub you can’t make him think.’ I’ve found the discussion very interesting, in fact, and have adjusted some of my views. But my main suggestion still stands up, I think, which is that charged-up supporters often do not get their emotions purged by the game itself. So they purge their emotions with their own violence. So ingrained has this become that there are supporters, like the notorious Millwall thugs, who adopt the old rugby tactic of getting their intimidation in first.

If the YouTube pictures had continued they would have shown Jonah Lomu scoring the try, almost tip-toeing his way down the sideline past Stephen Larkham to score the winning try. On his day, before his problems with kidneys depowered him, Lomu was the most devastating runner with the ball in hand in the history of the game. One of the tries on the video shows him bowling over Tim Horan, not an easy thing to do. His story reveals, too, the redemptive power of sport. His uncle was beheaded at Manakau City. Jonah got himself a scholarship to Wesley College. He was such an outstanding athlete that he once won the inter-college sports trophy for his age group by winning virtually every event. He was playing for the NZ Sevens at Hong Kong, and starring, when he was 16. He was played on the wing for the All Blacks because he was considered too young to play at number 8, his usual position. He played at number 8 for the NZ Schoolboys in a memorable match at the SFS. Jeff Wilson and Lomu starred for the NZers but it was the image of Lomu running down the middle of the field with that characteristic loping stride, with what seemed a dozen Australian players clinging to him like Lilliputians going for a ride with Gulliver that remains in the memory. If his health had not packed up so early in his career, he would have been the most devastating forward in the history of rugby.
The greatest thing about Lomu, though, has been the wonderfully brave and positive way he has handled his illness. No regrets. No whingeing. Just courage and what Ernest Hemingway described as the epitome of style: ‘grace under pressure.’

Dan, all the points you make are valid. The Stellenbosch Laws are more exhaustive than I had space to detail. For instance, they require the corner post to be moved from the sideline to a metre or so away, like the other posts on the 22ms and 50m mark. This is a small but profound change, in favour of attacking sides, and also in achieving rulings from referees that are objective rather than subjective. Referees and video referees will no longer have to work out whether a player touched the corner flag before he scored or not. They will only have to decide whether a part of his body was on the line or over before the ball is grounded.
I asked Rod Macqueen to do something about one of my favourite (not) illogical and time-wasteing laws. When the ball is feed incorrectly into the scrum, the penalty is a tap kick. But when it is thrown incorrectly into a lineout, a much more difficult re-start, the penalty is a scrum feed to the opposition. There is no logic in this. Having banged on about it for years I’m hoping that Rod Macqueen and the Stellenbosch Laws team finally make the penalty a tap-kick or the option for the defending side of a lineout.

This analysis would have pleased Bruce’s dad who was a great player and coach for Canterbury. The way the Crusaders played against the Western Force was virtually perfect rugby in conditions that were cold and wet, hardly conducive to the skilful game that Robber Deans, the master coach, has plotted for his team. The intelligence of the Crusaders is what always strikes me. They know as a team what the right play is, and then they execute it. I asked Robbie Deans once about the counter-attacking plays of the Crusaders. He told me that practised relentlessly to achieve these seemingly effortless raids out of their own 22.