Author: Jamie Miller

The All Blacks sit atop the Rugby Championship standings after a 28-9 bonus point win against the Pumas in Napier. In wet conditions, New Zealand had a little too much class and precision to set themselves up nicely for the Boks next week. The match was engrossing throughout. After trading penalties, a beautiful Conrad Smith grubber set Julian Savea up for the first of his two tries in the 26th minute. This followed up a grubber earlier in the same movement, brilliantly regathered by Brodie Retallick. #454760880 / gettyimages.com At the other end, the Argentinians followed a pretty familiar pattern…

As the Green and Gold (both the team and the site) gear up to take on The Darkness on Saturday week, coach Ewen McKenzie has some touch Wallabies selection decisions to make. But let’s put it in context – these are good dilemmas to have. Not too long ago, depth was a (the?) perennial problem in Australian rugby. For all the flak copped, the ARU deserve to be congratulated for pushing for Super Rugby franchises in Perth and Melbourne, which have broadened the player pool substantially. The NRC will only add to that. Good work suits. Nevertheless, we’re at a…

Check out Will Skelton and his champagne moment. Post by Green and Gold Rugby.

The IRB has done it again. It ignores the need to streamline a global season, despite almost all rugby stakeholders wanting one. It refuses to regulate the player drain, whereby rugby communities in the Southern Hemisphere become factories churning out product for cashed-up European clubs, who consequently have little incentive to develop local talent. And it turns a blind eye to the ever-increasing amount of rugby played each year, guaranteeing high rates of player attrition, shorter careers, and cheapened contests. Deciding for once to trade inertia for action, the IRB has altered the one core rule underpinning international rugby eligibility requirements: that at a senior level,…

Sixteen regular season matches played. Semi-finals done. And here we are again: a Waratahs v Crusaders Super Rugby final. The same teams fought it out in 2005 (with the Saders winning 35-25) and in 2008 (the same winner, this time 20-12). But what does more recent form, style, and results suggest for this Saturday? For me, this is the Tahs’ game to lose. They’re at home. 22 of the last 25 Super Rugby finals matches have been won by the home team, while the last time an away side won the final was when the Bulls scored in the final…

The ARU needs to do something now, including Wallabies player sabbaticals, in order to stop the talent drain from Australian rugby

So here we are. In one sense, the World Cup is ages away; the Wallabies squad will play as many as twenty-four tests between now and their first match in England. But between now and then, Ewen McKenzie will be wanting to develop a winning culture against the top teams in the Rugby Championship and then to heavily emphasise playing in European conditions on the spring tour. In other words, the time for developing combinations and structures is now, and the window for new ideas and players might close a lot sooner than one might think. History shows that if…

Earlier in the week, I noted that on the weekend G&GR darling Scott Fardy conceded no fewer than five penalties to take his season tally to Seventeen. I then talked about locks and excluded Fardy, largely because I think there’s very little chance he’ll be picked there for the Wallabies. Fardy plays a pretty unique role for the Brumbies, much more akin to a tackle jackal than a traditional lock, especially in the absence of David Pocock. In fact, there are more similarities than differences across the Brumbies back row at the moment, with no genuine scavenger. So what if…

Again? It’s 23 minutes into the Blues v Reds game and Rob Simmons has just given away his third penalty. The mind quickly flashes back to his totally needless yellow card for the Wallabies against the Pumas in Argentina last year. You can’t beat the All Blacks like this. I then foolishly chose to watch the Brumbies get pantsed by the Crusaders, in the course of which G&GR darling Scott Fardy conceded no fewer than five penalties to take his season tally to 17. (More about this in the next article). #487793075 / gettyimages.com What is it about locks and…

It’s been one of those mornings. An email comes in from my mate in Singapore, fully twelve hours time difference away. And it’s about goalkicking stats. Way back before the season started, in January, I observed that the Tahs’ recruiting policy was a bit strange: “All in all, the squad is therefore roughly as balanced as last year, which is positive, rather than having holes or imbalances. Where they lose me a bit is in three places. First, they signed Nick Phipps at 9. Now, McKibbin isn’t a top level 9, and nor is Phipps. So why stack your roster…

Jamie Miller explores the four weaknesses that the Brumbies exposed in the Tahs last night

A very leading referee told me recently that in recent years the IRB had moved away from law “interpretation”. A few years back the mantra from on high was ‘let the game flow’. But that had changed. Now, he insisted, the IRB directive was to promote black letter law in place of interpretation itself: applying the laws strictly and letting teams adapt their games accordingly. I believe that the idea that interpretation is out is largely a specious, if not fictitious point. The black letter law approach is an effort to take referees’ own understandings of how the game should…

The lessons keep coming – here’s what round three threw out. Something is really amiss in Christchurch It is hard to avoid the conclusion that somehow, as usual, the Crusaders will be towards the top of the log come finals time. They are notoriously slow starters to the season. They also have far from the worst draw in the comp. But just how they are going to get to the finals this year is unclear at this stage. The men in red and black were comprehensively outclassed by the Blues, no doubt about it. One of the Saders tries was…

After last week’s soft opening, here’s what we learned in Week One of Super Rugby (before the Tahs v. Force). The Crusaders are Unbalanced The Chiefs were the luckiest team around on the weekend. Between them, Tyler Bleyendaal (15) and Tom Taylor (6) missed 21 points worth of penalties from the tee, before a late intercept try secured an invaluable Chiefs win. The ‘Saders pack will be filthy. They utterly dominated the Chiefs both in the scrum and in tight. They had 66% of possession, dominated the penalty count 15-8, won 4 lineouts against the throw to just 1… you…

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