Happy Thursday everyone, another big week in the world of rugby. If you have Stan I’d recommend the English Premiership there were some cracking games on up there this week. I’ll be taking a week off as I have some holidays. I will say this, nothing beats watching rugby on an iPad and drinking red wine at a campsite.
Wallabies it’s the Hope That Kills You – Opinion Part 5
At least we weren’t South African in our reaction, but we got close.
Firstly I would like to acknowledge the performance of Bernard ‘Spanners’ Foley. I gladly enjoyed my large slice of humble pie after Thursday last week.
After 78 minutes the hope started to take rise, and then whatever twisted deity that oversees rugby in Australia said wait a minute and took possession of the cheese-eating surrender monkey and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I can only hope that we can grow and be better against the darkness at Eden Park and get a victory.
I was heartened by how relieved the Kiwis were in victory. I personally believe we are ascending and very very soon we will be beating them on a very regular basis. I also expect state media to be on full alert at Eden Park to keep the fortress intact.
To be honest it was a great game of rugby and it just shows why the best games of rugby are just light years ahead of any other winter sports.
Wallabies by 10 (again a victory of hope over experience). This year’s Rugby Championship has been the best in years and has been very evenly fought so it could happen.
Darcy Swain Judicial Hearing
Darcy Swain is fronting the judiciary this evening for his grass-cutting clean out on Quinn Tupaea. Personally, I believe that the suspension for Swain will be outcome based not on the action of the player. There are many similar clean outs in every game of rugby from the elite level to grassroots every week and this one had an unfortunate outcome. I don’t believe that Swain wanted to cause injury the Kiwi player but unfortunately that is the outcome.
You can miss me with this drivel from Beauden Barret “I feel for Quinn. He basically didn’t see it coming, he was a sitting duck. It was a bit of a free shot. We don’t like to see these sorts of injuries,” Barrett told reporters. The biggest late shot merchant in NZ rugby and not even the biggest grub in his family commenting on foul play is a joke.
From Pravda
Darcy Got 6 weeks
Link Here
Australia A confirm squad for Japan Tour
It’s little wonder we outside of NSW think there’s a bias regarding the selection of Waratah players. Max Jorgensen gets picked directly from school. Now I’m told he is a gun and gaol rugby wanted him badly but really what about Carter Gordan or other backs not from NSW. I wonder about what message it sends to actual rugby kids.
Team Here
Richie Asiata, Queensland Reds
Tom Banks, ACT Brumbies
Ollie Callan, Western Force
Jock Campbell, Queensland Reds
Hudson Creighton, ACT Brumbies
Filipo Daugunu, Queensland Reds
Ben Donaldson, NSW Waratahs
Tane Edmed, NSW Waratahs
Pone Fa’amausili, Melbourne Rebels
Nick Frost, ACT Brumbies
Matt Gibbon, Melbourne Rebels
Langi Gleeson, NSW Waratahs
Ned Hanigan, NSW Waratahs
Isaac Henry, Queensland Reds
Archer Holz, NSW Waratahs
Harry Hoopert, Queensland Reds
Max Jorgensen*, NSW Waratahs
Bayley Kuenzle, Western Force
Lachlan Lonergan, ACT Brumbies
Ryan Lonergan, ACT Brumbies
Mark Nawaqanitawase, NSW Waratahs
Caderyn Neville, ACT Brumbies
Dylan Pietsch, NSW Waratahs
Billy Pollard, ACT Brumbies
Tom Robertson, Western Force
Rory Scott, ACT Brumbies
Ryan Smith, Queensland Reds
Hamish Stewart, Western Force
Darcy Swain, ACT Brumbies
James Tuttle, Melbourne Rebels
Seru Uru, Queensland Reds
Suli Vunivalu, Queensland Reds
Brad Wilkin, Melbourne Rebels
Teddy Wilson, NSW Waratahs
*denotes Development Player+
Jack Dempsey close to decision on potential Scotland switch
Link Here
JACK DEMPSEY says he will make an announcement within the next three to four weeks about whether he is going to make himself available for Scotland selection leading into next year’s World Cup or stick to trying to rekindle his international career with Australia.
The 28-year old back-rower was born and raised in Sydney, Australia, and has played in 14 full international matches for the Wallabies. However, a recent change in World Rugby’s international eligibility rules mean that a capped player can now switch allegiance to another country to which he/she has “a close and credible link via birthright”, so long as they undertake a three year cooling off period. Dempsey has a Scottish grandfather and he hasn’t played for Australia since their World Cup pool match victory over Georgia on 11 October 2019, meaning that he’ll become eligible to wear the thistle late next month should be choose to go that route.
This isn’t what the change of regulation was introduced to do. It was supposed to help redress an imbalance which sees poorer rugby nations continually lose playing talent to ‘super-hoover’ tier one sides. However, Scotland isn’t the only country prepared to take the view that the letter of the law trumps the spirit of the law when it comes to building as competitive a national team as possible, and head coach Gregor Townsend won’t think twice about turning to Dempsey as he looks ahead at a killer 2023 World Cup pool which features world champions, South Africa, and World Rugby’s current number one ranked team, Ireland.
He’ll play for Scotland because it makes good financial sense,
