Australia Vs. England, Twickenham, 2nd November 2013

[Hawko]

Maybe we don't have the players to compete with the ABs and Boks at the moment, but the Poms were a shambles and could have been beaten. Instead, whatever mistakes the officials may have made, we were blown away in the forwards at the scrum and breakdown by a more committed and aggressive team. The backs attacked well but it was largely one-off attack and few seem to know how to catch and how to pass. The Wallabies didn't deserve to win that match even if the kick was adjudged out or Hartley was pinged for obstruction.

I will support the Wallabies no matter what but, as Barbarian says in his article on the front page, "I am sick of this shit".

I agree wholeheartedly with this game summation. Maybe I'm a hard taskmaster but I want my team to win AND I want them to play collectively AND I want to see cohesive attacking play AND I want to see brick wall defence AND I want to see people hit the breakdown with accuracy and brutality. It's none from five so far!

 

[Zander]

The top NRL players will play 24 competition matches (Origin players will miss 3 rounds). Exclude pre-season and finals as that applies individually across codes.
Top rugby players will play 16 Super rugby matches but play up to 14-15 Test matches if selected for all throughout the year. NRL's Test season changes every year, sometimes it's 1, 3 or 6 Tests.

The amount of games are similar but rugby players play more Test matches (even counting Origin as Test matches) which would be classified as more intense. The kicker is clearly the length of the season. Rugby players get about 1 month off.

 

[Budgie]

Bloody frustrating game to watch.

Even though Poite and Clancy were poor. the Wallaby performance was woeful, and seemed to be strategy free and leaderless.

Mowen is not a good enough player to be the Wallaby Captain, even though he is known for being better at talking to the referee than Horwill.

The English fullback had a good game, as did their number 8 Vunipolo. They won because the fed off our mistakes, and took their chances.

Yes the full back was out, but the penalty kick should have been reefed into the crowd so there would be no doubt that it was out.

 

[Muglair]

For a bloke who's obviously a good politician, Link forgot a key politician's tactic - upon coming to power, declare a massive, unforeseen deficit - budgetary as well as in skills, tactics, etc, that could take years to fix. This would also have had the advantage of being true.

He did. Recall after one of the early RC games he declared that the player skill levels were not sufficient to play his new game plan and we needed to dumb it down.

He has has not mentioned it since; not sure whether it was because we dumbed down our game plan as promised, or whether he realised the irony of criticising the skills of all of those Reds players he has been coaching for years.

 

[Muglair]

It seems like there has been a decade long malise in Rugbydom since RWC03 as Oz Rugby seems to have just gone through the motions and under invested in youth development and grass roots, and over invested in executives, schmoozing and overheads. The Development Officer network has been strangled for funds, and still expected to perform loaves and fishes miracles.

Since 2001 or maybe even slightly earlier. The wasted opportunities and squandered cash could have kept myself and descendants in French Champagne, 1st Class travel and cigars for generations.

Lets face it the 2003 WC was the weakest. England in decline (just past their best but aging quickly) beating an Australian side way past its peak in the last gasp of extra time.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

There was $40m plus in the bank after RWC03.

$4 m per year for 10 years, and what do we have to show for that expenditure?

How has the game grown in 10 years?

Participation numbers? Girls/Womens rugby numbers? New clubs formed in Tasmania, SA, NT, WA and Western Sydney? New School competitions? Increased Player numbers in Sydney Shute Shield and Colts?
New Clubs in Sydney Subbies rugby?

We were a bees dick away from winning our third Rugby World Cup in 2003.
In 2013, we seem to be broke and rocketing down the IRB rankings.

Precisely what have we got for $40 million over the last 10 years?

 

[Tordah]

Precisely what have we got for $40 million over the last 10 years?

 

[Muglair]

This was a big advantage and IMO opinion a missed opportunity of doing away with the whole ARU top up system. With a pure incentive based system I believe we would have got a more committed side and a more flexible one. I agree fully with you Jarse and believe that this is indeed why most of the out of form players are in the squad. It is why injured players get selected even when they are literally running on one leg. The ARU has already paid the cash and hence has to use them. IMO they have missed the biggest opportunity they are likely to see to truly reform player contracting in Australia. IMO the next contracts Wallabies players will see could well be pure match based payments that are based directly on the gate takings from each game as the ARU will be broke and in receivership. With the way the Wallabies are playing and the forecast revenues our game is in very serious trouble.

Sorry for the verbosity gents, just was away for too long.

I do not begrudge these guys earning good money for playing, good luck to them.

However I think we underestimate the desire of these young athletes to represent their country and be successful.

Our expectation that we have to pay every player a silly amount of money from a young age; wasted dough.

 

[nugget]

Tordah, gold, just snorted whiskey out my nose onto my keyboard. Ta.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Hope it wasn't a good Single Malt. If it was, I'd be licking the keyboard.

 

[Bardon]

For me Link made the mistake of not putting all the coaches on notice at the start of TRC that they were on a trial period. Then had a review before the tour, getting rid of the dead weight and bringing in the guys who can deliver the improvements he wants.

I still think the Wobs will do reasonably well for the rest of the tour. But you're going to end up parting company with some of the support coaches sometime next year. That gives the new guys less time with the playing squad before the next RWC.

For me as an outsider this tour should never have been about a potential grand slam. It should be the tour that Link stamps his identity on the team and where the framework of how the team will play in future was put in place.

By the time the guys are on the plane back to Australia it shouldn't matter how many games you've won as long as it's clear to everyone the team is moving in the right direction.

I know looking at the finances and talk from Pulver that the money might not be there. But new coaches need to come in at some stage and I'd argue the cost in terms of lost revenue that goes along with an under performing team will probably hurt the coffers more.

 

[nugget]

Hope it wasn't a good Single Malt. If it was, I'd be licking the keyboard.

was a yamazaki 12, should have licked the keyboard!

Cleared the sinuses out too.

 

[Slim 293]

We were a bees dick away from winning our third Rugby World Cup in 2003.
In 2013, we seem to be broke and rocketing down the IRB rankings.

At this stage we might not even make it out of our pool at the next RWC.........

 

[fatprop]

So you thought the same about the Brumbies pack then?

I did, and I was wrong, but also I see quite a difference between the S15 and test rugby

 

[Slim 293]

And the Brumbies' forwards are coached better.........

 

[I like to watch]

At this stage we might not even make it out of our pool at the next RWC...

At this stage we might be holding a benefit night to fund the airfares.
Back to the future...

 

[No4918]

For me Link made the mistake of not putting all the coaches on notice at the start of TRC that they were on a trial period. Then had a review before the tour, getting rid of the dead weight and bringing in the guys who can deliver the improvements he wants.

How do you know this did not happen? No one here really has any idea what Link has told the assistants and what his plans are. I would not expect those sort of discussions to be made public.

 

[gel]

Regarding the try that was scored off an obstruction, I was curious to know what the laws were relating to the incident given so many people have stated that it is either obstruction or not - no "not enough" etc. Sure enough - the law is pretty clear.

I found this article by James Leckie that popped up in one of the google searches:

http://www.rugby.com.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=SmI5GLBsJ70=&tabid=1800

The simple fact of the matter is that if a player, who is in front of a ball-carrying team-mate gets in the way of the defender, who is trying to get to the ball, ball-carrier or possible ball carrier, then he/she should be penalised for obstruction, if no advantage follows. If this is still too confusing, referees can think to themselves the following:- In a possible obstruction scenario, who has initiated contact? If it is the attacker, then obstruction has occurred, and if it is the defender, then obstruction has not occurred.

I am no referee, but I am not too sure that the bolded part is actually correct. I can recall seeing plenty of guys being called for obstruction when where the defender as initiated contact. For instance, just recently, I recall one instance where Genia ran behind Kepu whilst Kepu was standing still. The defender (initiating contact) ran into Kepu and it was quite correctly called for obstruction as it was genia who had run back behind Kepu.

I thought I was clear after reading the law book, but I am now more confused because of this article (the opposite of what he would have intended by writing the article, I am sure).

Does anyone here have any thoughts on this?

 

[Muglair]

At the risk of demonstrating some ignorance of the laws nowadays I would have thought that there are 2 offences here. In the 2nd case of Kepu/Genia is it in fact Genia being penalised for running behind Kepu rather than Kepu for actively obstructing the defender?

There are plenty of referees on this site ...

... and surely some correspondents who actually know the rules!

 

[Dan54]

Muglair, surely you know that anyone that knows the laws of rugby isn't going to risk putting them on an internet site!!!
Next you will be wanting sensible ,informed and unbiased comment!!!