Every week during the Super 14 season G&GR will take a look at the key plays and players of the week just had. We can be a myopic lot here at G&GR sometimes, so no point stopping now.
Let’s make it clear. Our focus is the Wallabies, so these reviews will focus on the Aussie teams and Aussie teams only. Not that we won’t cover the kiwi and saffa teams in our posts, but in this particular weekly wrap up it will be all about the Aussies. So let’s get to it. Read more »
Be my Valentine.
The ‘Super Star’ CA Brumbies take on the Western Force on Friday night at the new home ground of the Force, ME Bank Stadium, in what is shaping as an blockbuster match to start their respective 2010 Super 14 seasons. The return of Matt Giteau and Josh Valentine to their former stomping ground has lost some of the excitement due to Giteau’s quadricep injury, which will more than likely rule him out.
The Brumbies off season recruits have been well documented and most experts are tipping them to come close in winning the Super 14 in 2010, which would mean finals action for the first time since the Brumbies won the title in 2004. However, injuries to star recruits Rocky Elsom, Matt Giteau and a hand injury suffered by Ben Alexander have limited the teams time together on the training paddock, so instant success may not occur as easily as most expect. Read more »
Alfi Mafi congratulates Adam Ashley-Cooper on another Brumby FC goal!
I have heard the Brumbies of 2010 described as the Chelsea Football Club of Australian Rugby. Now, I don’t follow European football, but can hazard a guess that Chelsea is renowned for purchasing their highly successful team? For creating a winning team from the cheque book up? Personally I think this is damn hard on the Brumbies.
Unless there is something I don’t know about I figure the cheque book has rarely, if ever, been the inducement to get a player to the Brumbies. We all know the story of how they began. How Rod McQueen built a team based on the same principals of the quote that adorns the Statue of Liberty: Read more »
"I Dunno"
We finally reach the last position in the team, if only because of its numerical allocation. For mine, this will be one of the most interesting ‘battles’ of the series. Now I expect most people to jump on the current incumbent (tautology?), but I think that is unfair on the other options proposed.
Because, in the end, we’ve come up with three fairly decent candidates who were all highly regarded during their playing days. And actually there is some half decent talent amongst the none loose head props we’ve picked this decade. Promising too that four of them are still playing and young enough to be playing for a few more years yet. The Loose Head Props from 2000-2009 have been:
Bill Young (46), Benn Robinson (28), Matt Dunning (14), Nick Stiles (12), Greg Holmes (10), Richard Harry (7), Al Baxter (3), Ben Alexander (2), Pek Cowan (1).
We here at G&GR have come up with the following three has our top performers for the decade:
Smith: overcome with emotion
What a tremendous end to the season, both for the Wallabies and for this competition. Those who have been following the points tally may well be aware that the competition came down to the very last test against Wales.
As a reminder, after every test of the season Green and Gold Rugby readers at the forum assigned 3-2-1 points to their top three Wallaby performers per game. These points were then tallied each game with an ultimate top three players, a Man of the Match and two runners up, being decided. This award is the accumulation of those points.
All in all there were fifteen different players who polled points, and we had three different players taking home the series awards. George Smith won the Domestic Test Series award, Benn Robinson claimed the Tri-Nations award whilst David Pocock snagged the Spring Tour award in a count back from Wycliff Palu. But in the end it was the most experienced man in the Wallaby camp, George Smith who took out the ultimate award.
Hear his acceptance speech when Gagger presented him with this prestigious and highly coveted award:
In a tight finish Smith held off loose head prop Benn Robinson Read more »
And so the year has drawn to a close. The Spring Tour has been a disapointing expedition for the Wallabies. As for the players? We have seen the emergence of some wonderful young players this tour. Quade Cooper, Digby Ioane, Dean Mumm, Benn Robinson, Will Genia, David Pocock and Ben Alexander all showed tremendous class.
How will they fair in the final component of our Green & Gold Rugby Wallaby Player of the Year? Let’s jump into it and see. Read more »
The Wallabies started their 2009 test campaign against Italy in Canberra all the way back in June. Fourteen tests and about six months later the Wallabies won less than 50% of their games. As a whole the season was… disappointing. Bordering on disastrous. The continued failing in the Tri-Nations is a significant cause for concern. Our inability to back up good wins, such as against the Springboks in Brisbane, with another good performance is also worrying. The loss to Scotland, when you look at the rankings at least, was just unacceptable.
On the plus side, gees we looked good against the Boks in Brisbane. And the Welsh win was a cracker. And what about our young guns? Will Genia, David Pocock, Quade Cooper, Lachlan Turner, James O’Connor and Ben Alexander all proved their abilities at certain times this year.
Overall though, which player would come out on top? Who would win the coveted Green & Gold Rugby Wallaby Player of the Year award? Well stay tuned over the next few days and all will be revealed.
The much vaunted 25th anniversary of the Grand Slam tour gets under way with a ‘meaningless’ fourth test against the All Blacks in Tokyo. Add to this a couple of scrounged together midweek games for the dirt trackers and the tour gives us seven games, five of which are test matches.
Does this justify a 35 member playing squad? I dread to think how many support personnel are traveling as well. The original grand slam squad of 1984 numbered 32 with a few injury additions, but they had to play 18 games, including the tour ending Barbarians encounter.
With the addition of the two mid-week games, against Gloucester and another to be confirmed you can be assured that every player (injury permitting) will get a run. So let’s take a look at the seven uncapped players in the squad and do some guess work on what their immediate and short term Wallaby prospects hold.
The Rock, The Man
Rocky Elsom has been named Wallaby captain for the upcoming Northern Hemisphere tour beginning later this month.
He has taken over from Stirling Mortlock who was also named in the side. Berrick Barnes is the Vice- Captain. This will no doubt increase speculation that Mortlock’s Wallaby career may be coming to a close on top of his recent visit to Japan to check-out future options.
Seven uncapped players have been included in the Wallabies squad announced today. The tour will incorporate Australia’s first attempt at a Grand Slam of the UK and Ireland in 25 years. The new caps are Kurtley Beale (NSW), Rob Horne (NSW), Dave Dennis Read more »
Robbie Deans, and his selectors, have named a number of new faces in the 43 man Wallaby training squad in preparation for the Grand Slam tour later this year. Perhaps the most notable rookie is scrumhalf Richard Kingi of the Queensland Reds who only last week signed an Academy contract with the QRU.
Kingi: LOVES his footy.
Other un-capped players are Kurtley Beale (flyhalf, Waratahs), Nick Cummins (wing, Force); Rob Horne (Centre, Waratahs); Mitchell Chapman (backrow/lock, Brumbies); Ben McCalman (backrow/lock; unsigned); Dave Dennis (lock/backrow, Waratahs); Salesi Ma’afu (prop, Brumbies) and Damien Fitzpatrick (hooker, Waratahs).
The uncapped players are joined by returning Wallabies back in favour Digby Ione (outside back, Reds); Josh Valentine (scrumhalf, Brumbies); Stephen Hoiles (No 8, Brumbies); Matt Dunning (prop, Force); Sekope Kepu (prop, Waratahs).
Too easy
So far this season the Wallabies have let themselves down in just one, sometimes two facets of the game. Tonight, they fucked every single one. The scrum, lineout, breakdown, kicking, discipline, running, passing; all sucked. It was only an average defensive performance that kept them anywhere near the match.
The heroics in Brisbane were catalysed by some towering leadership performances, where men went out to make the difference – like Polota-Nau with his tackling. This week they sat back and seemed to hope “the pattern” would do it all for them. It’s a simple lesson, when will they learn it? Read more »
Kurtley "the flyer" Beale
It’s the same Wallaby team that did the Boks in Brisbane (see below) – the question being whether they can play with the same intensity.
TPN and Lakky are reputed to have gotten over their rib injuries, but to cover Turner just in case, Kurtley Beale has also been flown out as extra cover.
In the meantime the All Blacks, being scaredy girls, have delayed naming their team. Read more »
The most important thing out of this match was the pure, undiluted class A confidence that the Wallabies scored. A very solid scoreline, and this was squandering a load of points. Here are my payer ratings, tally with what you saw? Scoring system at the bottom.
1. Benn Robinson: Another scrum dominated, on cue. A pest in the loose to boot. Legend. 9 G&GR’s Wallaby man of the match
2. TPN: Became the Wallabies hardman with some kamikaze hits in the first 20 which set the tone 7
3. Ben Alexander: Beasted the beast. 8 Read more »
It’s taken me all week to summon the strength to re-watch The Clusterfµck of Perthfontein, and you know what, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d remembered. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that within it are hints that this Wallaby side could become as good as we hoped, and maybe in not as long away as we’d feared. I believe what’s in the video below, together with a few stats I’ve pulled out, back my reasoning.
I’ll readily admit that there was a lot of ugly in last Saturday. Australia lost because of: Read more »
"er.....the blokes."
Maestro Deans has made sweeping changes to his team to face the Bokke this Saturday with the biggest changes being Will Genia and David Pocock getting their chance to start this week. After sniping at the heals of Burgo for a few weeks Genia takes over from the wayward incumbent while Bam Bam gets his chance to step out of the sizeable shadow cast by George Smith and Phil Waugh.
Deans explained his overall reasoning for the changes in typically cryptic fashion and gave the followers of Dingo Bingo something to get excited about.
Read more »
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