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Congratulations to Uruguay, who have just qualified for the 2015 Rugby World Cup, where they will join Australia, England, Wales and Fiji in the upcoming tournament's Pool of Death. Hopefully, they'll do a Costa Rica and end up qualifying first over more fancied opponents for maximum hilarity.
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Oct 11, 2014 23:40
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MyChemicalImbalance posted:It was scary at the time, the whole medical team sprinted on and I'm glad to hear he's okay. Ulster looked far better in the breakdown and didn't let Glasgow play their quick ball at all, totally deserved the win today because Glasgow didn't adjust. A pity because Glasgow can play some really nice rugby and up until today, looked the best team in the league. Without Du Preez (for the season at least), Edinburgh are in a bit of trouble though they managed to put away the Dragons today, even with Tim Visser doing the most #ScottishRugby thing ever with his knock on. It's frustrating as hell watching Edinburgh, knowing that they have genuinely good players like Tim Visser and Dougie Fife only to fall apart because WP Nel has gotten sent off or Ross Ford can't hook or throw straight to save himself.
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Oct 12, 2014 00:33
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So according to Growden, the ARU may become insolvent in the near future. He's claimed that several high ranking sources have stated there was a presentation at a general meeting a few months ago detailing how the coffers were running dry. http://www.espnscrum.com/australia/rugby/story/243671.html Greg Growden posted:Tensions set to boil over at the ARU http://www.espnscrum.com/scrum/rugby/story/243977.html He's also written a fairly damning article about how the Wallabies team environment has become appallingly toxic, and something like the current crisis enveloping the team was probably merely a matter of "when" rather than "if." Dumpin McKenzie for Cheika isn't going to do anything, unless there's a serious clear-out and restructure of the entire set-up. In hindsight, Deans' record with the Wallabies doesn't look particularly bad, and it's quite telling that Cheika isn't even particularly interested in coaching the Wallabies. Compare that to what Deans said the other day about the prospect of coaching the All Blacks. edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Oct 12, 2014 |
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Oct 12, 2014 22:38
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Robbie Deans got the Wallabies to second in the IRB rankings, with consistent wins over the Springboks and like 4 over NZ. McKenzie's assignment was full of talk after a couple good season with the Reds, and has ultimately taken the team backwards despite new good players in the Australian camp.
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Oct 13, 2014 09:11
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Rugby in Australia's pretty much hosed long term. The grassroots/junior level development is light years behind what the AFL and FFA are managing in their codes, so it's only going to get worse.
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Oct 13, 2014 09:27
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Lacklustre Hero posted:Robbie Deans got the Wallabies to second in the IRB rankings, with consistent wins over the Springboks and like 4 over NZ. Yeah, each game under McKenzie is providing compelling evidence that Deans took a bunch of self-centred knuckleheads and got them punching above their weight regularly. The text messages that Beale sent have also ended up in the press. quote:An ARU letter sent to Beale on Wednesday details two messages containing photographs of “extremely obese women”, one with a reference to “Di — who wants a go f...... this?” http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...2-1227087596957 The stupid gently caress doesn't even have the courtesy to send a text that is grammatically correct.
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Oct 13, 2014 09:46
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Mr Chips posted:Rugby in Australia's pretty much hosed long term. The grassroots/junior level development is light years behind what the AFL and FFA are managing in their codes, so it's only going to get worse. The NRC is a step in the right direction to developing a feeder system akin to the Curry Cup or ITM Cup
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Oct 13, 2014 11:17
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It does seem strange that a business manager should have any sort of dealings with players, and if the coffers are indeed running dry at the ARU then maybe the two problems are linked. Why is a business manager even talking to players? I mean Beale is obviously an arsehole and he should obviously be punished, but who at the ARU thought it would be a good idea to have a business manager handling a bunch of man-baby professional athletes?
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Oct 13, 2014 13:39
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Vagabundo posted:Congratulations to Uruguay, who have just qualified for the 2015 Rugby World Cup, where they will join Australia, England, Wales and Fiji in the upcoming tournament's Pool of Death. Hopefully, they'll do a Costa Rica and end up qualifying first over more fancied opponents for maximum hilarity. Costa Rica?
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Oct 13, 2014 13:59
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At the football world cup last year they topped a group with Uruguay, England and Italy they were expected to be distant last in.
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Oct 13, 2014 14:11
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Oh yeah, I thought you were talking about rugby, I wonder why I made that mistake??
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Oct 13, 2014 14:17
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Kurtofan posted:Oh yeah, I thought you were talking about rugby, I wonder why I made that mistake?? Yeah, you're right, we could only wish for that sort of unpredictability, excitement and pure sporting joy in a Rugby World Cup.
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Oct 13, 2014 14:43
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MyChemicalImbalance posted:Yeah, you're right, we could only wish for that sort of unpredictability, excitement and pure sporting joy in a Rugby World Cup. gently caress that, I would rather watch a recorded rugby match of which I know the outcome in advance than watch a FIFA World Cup final live. Seriously, soccer is terrible and half the matches are fixed anyway. Oh and in other news, Toulouse finally played like Toulouse and got a solid home win against Apollodorus fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 15:12
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MyChemicalImbalance posted:It does seem strange that a business manager should have any sort of dealings with players, and if the coffers are indeed running dry at the ARU then maybe the two problems are linked. Why is a business manager even talking to players? I mean Beale is obviously an arsehole and he should obviously be punished, but who at the ARU thought it would be a good idea to have a business manager handling a bunch of man-baby professional athletes? It strikes me as a case of there being so many problems of such magnitude that no one knows where to start fixing things. The playing culture appears to be seriously broken, and a Louis Luyt-esque approach of "gently caress all y'all, I'll have the coaches field C-grade provincial players as the national side if it means you cunts aren't getting those jerseys" from up top is necessary. My assumption was that Patston's role was being expanded into a role akin to Darren Shand in the All Blacks, where while he's not part of the coaching structure, he is a necessary component to running the team and is basically the gets-poo poo-done guy in the team set-up, and Beale acted like an apparent sexist dickhead would in that kind of situation. That the players are basically leaping to his defence and saying "oh he's done nothing wrong" is not a good look for them, to be honest.
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Oct 13, 2014 21:25
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Vagabundo posted:It strikes me as a case of there being so many problems of such magnitude that no one knows where to start fixing things. The playing culture appears to be seriously broken, and a Louis Luyt-esque approach of "gently caress all y'all, I'll have the coaches field C-grade provincial players as the national side if it means you cunts aren't getting those jerseys" from up top is necessary. I don't think the majority of the players are cunts, though a few definitely are. Kurtley Beale is obviously one of them and is in general an immature and very troubled man. If the texts as published are true, he should have been sacked back then. Bringing it up now just muddles the issue and was a big mistake by the ARU (and don't tell me they didn't know about it). Hooper's response, in protecting Beale, belays the big problem and that is a distinct lack of leadership in the group. I think Hooper is a decent enough guy, as far as these things can be judged from afar, but he's 23 and he's the (at least nominal) leader of the team. He just doesn't get what an awful thing Beale did to her, because he probably thinks it's a harmless prank and his understanding hasn't evolved enough. At 23, I don't think I would have understood it either. But this is the kind of leadership the Ws have right now. The talent drain from Australia into Europe is clearly not just affecting the available playing talent, but, perhaps more importantly, the available leadership talent and that is my big worry. Adam Ashley Cooper, for example, has stated he will go to Europe after the WC, and he's the Vice Captain. I can't imagine that many of the senior players with any semblance of ability will be able to turn down their own opportunities. Time will tell if the ABs were lucky to have retained their senior players or if there was more skill involved by the administration. After all, even though Rugby is bigger in NZ than in Australia, I can't see it changing the financial imbalance between the markets in the NH and SH that much.
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Oct 13, 2014 22:20
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Vagabundo posted:Yeah, each game under McKenzie is providing compelling evidence that Deans took a bunch of self-centred knuckleheads and got them punching above their weight regularly. To be fair, Deans was mostly up against Peter De Villier's Boks, and in the year they won the Tri Nations NZ were resting key players ahead of the World Cup. And Deans couldn't handle Beale, O'Connor and Cooper either except for that brief period before they became the biggest names in Australian rugby and started kicking up a fuss.
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Oct 13, 2014 23:09
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Yes, but on the other hand, I get to watch my USA Eagles play the ABs next month. Talk about national sides being an embarrassment to your country...
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Oct 13, 2014 23:47
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Unimpressed posted:I don't think the majority of the players are cunts, though a few definitely are. Kurtley Beale is obviously one of them and is in general an immature and very troubled man. If the texts as published are true, he should have been sacked back then. Bringing it up now just muddles the issue and was a big mistake by the ARU (and don't tell me they didn't know about it). Oh absolutely, but the players that are now leaping to Beale's defence should be given the hard word, and McKenzie should be prepared to basically axe cancers like Beale, regardless of how talented they may be on the pitch. It comes back to a culture thing, and how Graham Henry took apart what he saw as a toxic culture in the All Blacks when he came in should be a textbook case for McKenzie to study. One of the key things he did was remove three players that he saw central to the toxic culture, despite 2 of them being first choice selections in his early 2004 squad, dropping them for the Autumn International tour. And as much as the text messages coming out now muddles the issue, it also makes it abundantly clear that McKenzie has been aware of what is obviously a toxic culture within the Wallabies, and if he sat on something that would be a sackable offence in any other environment, rugby or otherwise, indicates that he has at the very least enabled it, if not been complicit in it. Unimpressed posted:Hooper's response, in protecting Beale, belays the big problem and that is a distinct lack of leadership in the group. I think Hooper is a decent enough guy, as far as these things can be judged from afar, but he's 23 and he's the (at least nominal) leader of the team. He just doesn't get what an awful thing Beale did to her, because he probably thinks it's a harmless prank and his understanding hasn't evolved enough. At 23, I don't think I would have understood it either. But this is the kind of leadership the Ws have right now. I think the captaincy issue is that Hooper simply doesn't have the authority to be a captain, but I'm not entirely sure who should be. Matt Hodgson, maybe? It was noticeable that Hooper was clearly unable to communicate with his squad, and I think it was against Argentina where when the referee told him to talk to his team after persistent infringing, he was heard basically saying "I've tried to." The other problem for Australia is pretty much exactly what you've identified. It's not just the front-line players leaving, but it's the players that would have constituted the depth and the middle-management players, that basically form part of the team leadership. The ARU have tried to introduce similar tactics like the NZRU has, but I wonder if the damage has already been done. Part of what allows the NZRU to retain their players is that they have very healthy bank balances (all the provincial unions reported a profit this year, which is remarkable considering how close to insolvency some of them were like Otago, and the All Blacks have two of the biggest sponsorships in rugby in the form of the adidas and AIG contracts), and the ARU can't really afford that at the moment. edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 23:49
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Vagabundo posted:The other problem for Australia is pretty much exactly what you've identified. It's not just the front-line players leaving, but it's the players that would have constituted the depth and the middle-management players, that basically form part of the team leadership. Are the NZ teams (plus the AB top ups) able to pay their players competitive wages? If so, that would be a big difference between NZ and Australia. Does Kieran Read, for example, make as much, or close enough to as much, as he would be making in France? I always thought there wasn't that much of a difference between the wages here and in NZ, but that was just me extrapolating based on the size of the economies, not on any actual knowledge.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:06
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Unimpressed posted:Are the NZ teams (plus the AB top ups) able to pay their players competitive wages? If so, that would be a big difference between NZ and Australia. Does Kieran Read, for example, make as much, or close enough to as much, as he would be making in France? I always thought there wasn't that much of a difference between the wages here and in NZ, but that was just me extrapolating based on the size of the economies, not on any actual knowledge. The players don't get paid to the extent that they would make in France or Japan, but the players of McCaw, Carter or Read's status are paid a fairly decent amount to remain in New Zealand, especially now that the NZRU's bank balance is looking decidedly healthy. The sabbatical option gives them some flexibility in their contract that allows them to also pursue a high-paying temporary contract with Northern Hemisphere teams. They can also get third party sponsorships that supplements their income considerably.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:14
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Vagabundo posted:
Any chance you could elaborate on this a little - or a link to an article or something if you have any, it's not something I've ever really been aware of but it'd be interesting to know more
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Oct 14, 2014 15:49
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slothrop posted:Any chance you could elaborate on this a little - or a link to an article or something if you have any, it's not something I've ever really been aware of but it'd be interesting to know more It's discussed in Graham Henry's book, but basically when Henry was appointed coach, one of the first things that struck him was the fact that a large number of the younger players were unhappy to be selected, and that they preferred to play for their Super Rugby and provincial teams. The book then details the binge drinking culture that existed during and immediately after John Mitchell's departure. The last test of the 2004 Tri Nations was a loss to the Boks at Ellis Park where they got 40 put on them and Henry was apparently appalled to see Carlos Spencer, Justin Marshall and Andrew Mehrtens presiding over a "court" session, where they lead other senior members in the squad in forcing younger players to basically drink until they were out of it as so-called punishment for the loss. Having identified them as the ones perpetuating the booze culture, Henry pretty much dropped all three for the Autumn Internationals, and only Marshall would play for the All Blacks again in a limited capacity. He also introduced practices like putting aside time on tour to actually see the places they were visiting and a booze ban on tour except for designated, approved times. There have been incidents like Cruden's recent indiscretion, but they've been isolated incidents. edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 18:50
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Wallabies are dead in the water at this point. I can't believe it but they actually managed to grind down all my hope and good will within the space of a season  at least there's always super rugby
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Oct 15, 2014 01:19
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Vagabundo posted:Carlos Spencer, Justin Marshall and Andrew Mehrtens presiding over a "court" session... Thanks, thats interesting. I was working at a pub in Mt Eden in 2003-04 and I remember the Blues squad coming in to do one of these things at the end of the season. They pretty much locked themselves on our outside balcony and proceeded to buy rounds of 24 beers. Spencer was one of the few who didn't get written off that day, even helped us clean up. I can see how that could be huge problem though, and it seems like it's made a huge difference getting rid of it
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Oct 15, 2014 03:01
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Former Wallaby Peter FitzSimons gets it right.quote:Wallabies, it's time to handle the truth http://www.smh.com.au/sport/the-fitz-files/wallabies-its-time-to-handle-the-truth-20141015-116flh.html
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Oct 16, 2014 03:43
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Fitzsimons is almost always spot on, no exception this time.
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Oct 16, 2014 05:22
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Yeah I've been reading his series on concussion (he's mainly referring to the NRL but it does apply to all modern sport really) and it's really good. I guess same kinda goes for Kerr-Barlow getting back up and playing after that horrific injury two weeks ago. It's heroic sure but the modern game should put player welfare first. Surely if your second half-back is injured you should be allowed to sub the first back on? What if it was a hooker/prop? What implications (potential injuries etc) do those positions have for having non-specialist players fill them in because the bench has already been used?
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Oct 16, 2014 08:19
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There are still a couple of weird rules, which need to be worked out. A few weeks ago, when Dan Biggar was put through a concussion test, we found out that his Blood Replacement isn't allowed to take any kicks towards goal. It seems that if you happen to receive a potentially game-winning penalty while your kicker is receiving the concussion test, you have to make the choice between having a non-kicker take the kick (in the hope that he comes back), or permanently substitute him for his blood replacement. It seems a huge oversight, and since it came to light, a terrifying ammount of fly-halves and full-backs are taking scary hits, trying to pull off garryowen kicks. I feel like they might actually do something about that before the World Cup?
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Oct 16, 2014 10:22
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Tyma posted:There are still a couple of weird rules, which need to be worked out. It seems weird that there are essentially two types of temporary replacement now: a blood injury replacement and a head injury assessment replacement. Only the head injury assessment replacement is prohibited from taking kicks, the blood replacement is free to take kicks. Seems a bit counterproductive, as the reason for introducing the subs for head injuries was to ensure the medics had enough time to assess the player without the team being at a disadvantage. I guess the reasoning behind it is to stop teams faking head injuries to sneak kickers back onto the pitch near the end of tied knock-out games that would otherwise go to penalties? I think it should be removed or just treated as on of the laws that get ignored as they are daft, like the one that says only injured players can be substituted (i.e. tactical subs are banned).
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Oct 16, 2014 19:34
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If a head-injury subbed front-row can go into the scrum, I don't see why a kicker should be stopped kicking.
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Oct 16, 2014 19:39
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I didn't even know that was a thing. Shouldn't teams have at least two people that are viable goal kickers out anyway? I guess that explains why Aaron Smith took the conversion to get the All Blacks over 50 against the Wallabies at Eden Park a couple of months ago, despite Beauden Barrett being on the field. I honestly don't understand why a concussion test replacement shouldn't be allowed to take kicks either. What does it matter if the guy's on the pitch because he's a tactical sub, an injury sub, a blood replacement or there because the other guy got his bell rung and is getting his head checked? It seems like a bit of an oversight in an otherwise reasonably successful initiative. edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 19:52
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stavros880 posted:I guess the reasoning behind it is to stop teams faking head injuries to sneak kickers back onto the pitch near the end of tied knock-out games that would otherwise go to penalties? It's because this exact scenario happened a few years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ppwVqvTipU The Harlequins physio slipped their replacement Fly-half a blood capsule, so he could be taken off, and the team's first-choice Fly-half returned to the field as a blood replacement.
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Oct 16, 2014 19:53
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Tyma posted:It's because this exact scenario happened a few years ago. But in that case, it was a fake blood replacement, and blood replacements are evidently still allowed to continue taking kicks.
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Oct 16, 2014 19:55
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I think about half the board of the club, the physio, the club doctor and the player involved were either banned, fined, fired or resigned after that though.
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Oct 16, 2014 19:58
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goatface posted:If a head-injury subbed front-row can go into the scrum, I don't see why a kicker should be stopped kicking. Can the kicker make a drop goal?
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Oct 16, 2014 22:16
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Yes. The law only says:quote:(d) A player who temporarily replaces a player who is being assessed at the pitch side for head injury must not take penalty kicks at goal or conversion kicks.
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Oct 16, 2014 22:20
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Cool. Lack of distinction between offense, defense, and special teams is one of the main things I like about rugby (and rugby league) in opposition to football, but I also appreciate tactical substitutions and their value in changing a team's play-style mid-way through the game. Maybe people should just be gentlemen and not abuse the laws?
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Oct 16, 2014 22:31
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Apollodorus posted:Maybe people should just be gentlemen and not abuse the laws? Yeah sure.
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Oct 16, 2014 23:36
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What the christ is happening in Australia? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCY6_iyOP5I
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Oct 16, 2014 23:38
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Mister Chief posted:What the christ is happening in Australia? Sydney Stars had to get a win somehow.
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Oct 17, 2014 01:29
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