Recent content by Wilson

Probably the Australia A game against a Japan XV on the 18th of October, not sure he can claim that 2nd bledisloe from outside the squad. Only other chance would be if the tahs had any games booked in against Kubota or similar like last year, but I'm not aware of any. Might also be able to do...

They are, but it's also the reality of a settled squad. Reds/Brumbies are not seeing anywhere near as much year on year turnover, so they have most of the guys they need locked down for next year already and can play them here, while testing a few fringe options out. The Force and (even more...

"reckless/dangerous play" Not sure the specific incident, he did cop a yellow for repeated infringements during the Force game but that was for not rolling away. Must have been something they picked up after the fact.

I think the top flight UK refs make around £150k per year, but it's all pretty variable based on the games you get and the union you're based in. I've heard AUD$150k for the top Australian refs (as the salary, not total compensation) but I don't know how accurate that is. I think it probably...

Entirely on World Rugby rankings, though the qualifying route will have some effect on how those rankings shake out.

Whether or not the laws allow it is probably irrelevant, I don't think world rugby would ever make that appointment. More than anything it would be hanging Angus out to dry. That alone probably blocks any move to shift his registration to NZ - it'd be very hard to carve out a test career based...

The Pacific Nations cup takes place wholly within the Southern Hemisphere Release window (8 weeks from the first weekend of August).

Circumstances related to the act apply to the entry point, off field aggravating factors (lack of remorse, previous record, deterrence, etc.) can already be applied after mitigation under the current regulations. In a general sense I don't think applying aggravating factors afterwards is any...

There are plenty of ways to do this without him playing Super Aus - a year ago we didn't have this comp, and even now it only runs 3-4 weeks. Ideally players would get game time in it coming back from injury, but it's hardly a problem if they don't. The travel problems are also not nothing...

I think so, though he did just hit a bench PB of 180kgs. Games in Narrabri, that adds hours of travel before you can even get on a flight to NZ. It'd be good if someone like Gordon could play his way back in from injury in this comp, but he may not be ready to go yet. In future years we'll...

I think we need to cool our jets on expectations a bit here. We're talking about a comp that's not even a half NRC. The 3 or 4 games these guys get will help, but it'll take years in a program for them to make much of a difference. At this point it's basically a glorified pre-season program...

Western Force team list Starting XV; Marley Pearce, Albert Alcock, Tiaan Tauakipulu, Mitch Watts, Darcy Swain (c), Will Harris, Kane Koteka, Vaiolini Ekuasi; Henry Robertson, Max Burey, Viliami Fine, Kurtley Beale, George Poolman, Justin Landman, Mac Grealy Reserves; Wes Thomas, Max Sawers...

Yeah, if there was a strong argument for release it was probably last weekend for the extended squad members, but I don't see it as being too big a deal with what is a very new competition that they are still sorting out logistics for. Ideally they will take advantage of it in years to come, but...

Pretty sure they all have a bit of time off right now, the lack of release is more about injury risk than holding them back to train.

If it didn't impact their JIFF status (it shouldn't) they might not care too much, but they'd also probably prefer not to release the players, all things being equal. I think the general attitude here is for them to say no to anything that doesn't clearly benefit them. There's also even less...