Happy Thursday all.
As today is remembrance day to all current and former serving members off the armed forces both past and present I say thank you for your service.
I also say Lest We Forget to constantly question the call to arms by our political leaders.
The Wallabies v Scotland – Opinion
I consider myself eminently qualified to speak about the performance against Scotland as I am a proud Scottish-born Australian rugby tragic.
Firstly to all of the Australian fans who say that berating Scotland is a non-negotiable here are some facts. That is Scotland’s third win in a row against Australia. In the last Six Nations Scotland beat both England and France away and had very, very narrow losses to Wales and Ireland by a combined total of 4 points. Realistically, they should have won the thing and had 8 players making the BIL tour.
Also to all of those people from Fox, the SMH and the insular peninsula who think that Scott Robinson should go I point you to the state of Scottish Rugby. Scott arrived in Scotland in 2012 when we were a hot mess and were realistically a Tier 2 level country. His work in the background has led to a point where they have a excellent functioning 3 level pathways identifying local talent and harvesting every available Scottish qualified player from all over the world.
The Game v Scotland
The Australian game. I am always a believer that the most important player in any rugby team is the Tighthead Prop and the second most important is his replacement. On the weekend we lost both and played approximately 30 minutes with a Loosehead playing Tighthead. Credit to Jimmy Slipps for putting in a shift and playing both sides.
We had two tries disallowed and only lost to Scotland by 2 points. Out attention to detail is the biggest area we need to get better in. The first disallowed try was a bone-headed play by Paisami in cleaning out Finn Russell too far beyond the ball and while it would have made no material difference to the result of the play the penalty was definitely there so he gave the officials the chance to make the decision. The second was frankly Eden Park or Twickenham worthy intervention by the TMO, and the host broadcasters’ work in not showing the hands in the face by Fagerson on Hooper was to be expected. (Australian broadcasters cannot take the high moral ground on this issue).
I would thoroughly recommend the autumn nations series website for the stats from the game, it is a really deep dive and I won’t bore you with the finer detail but it is well worth the look Link HERE
Also from the RA’s new car park attendant (According to the Dropped Kick off he got a promotion) Nathan Williamson HERE
Conclusion
We lost to a very good team with a winger getting injured before half time and both Tighhead props going off injured. Arnold was OK, Skelton was poor and Beale was insignificant. They are reasons not excuses, we still lost and to quote the coach we need to be better.
Why We Should Beat the English.
If you think our form is patchy the English lost 3 games in last year’s Six Nations with one of those wins being over the Italians who have not won a 6Ns game in about 5 years. This is not what one would call amazing form they also lost the Triwizards (Calcutta) Cup at Twickenham for the first time in 30 years to the Scots.
They have a fairly disrupted squad. They also have some of the most exciting young players in the game with Marcus Smith and Radwan.
Big concerns over the health of Thor and 7 As could lead to problems for us, and at the time of writing I am unaware of the relative health of both of these guys. The English play a very boring game and up until the injuries to the Props I felt like we could have taken them apart at scrum time.
Roman Poite Refereed his Final Test Match
Congratulations must go to Romain Poite on a magnificent test career. While Australian teams have never been a favourite having a terrible record under his whistle he must be congratulated on 72 Test matches making him third on the total number of test matches officiated.
World Rugby Vice-Chairman Bernard Laporte said: “On behalf of World Rugby I would like to express my gratitude to Romain Poite. To serve as a test rugby referee for more than 15 years is not easy. He has always been dedicated to being the best he can be on the field, while being a committed and valued team player away from the match. I would like to wish him all the best.”
He has officiated at three World Cups and some very big tests including the BIL v Nearlies game 3.
Referees have a tremendously difficult job and IMHO the advent of the TMO has made it much more difficult as WR try to make the imperfect perfect. Personally, I am of the view that the game should just be refereed by the man on the field and the two touch judges. Anything bad that happens can be dealt with by a judiciary after the event and the constant review slows the game down too much leading to the current problem of guys getting much bigger..
Link HERE
Scotland v South Africa: three changes to Springbok side for Murrayfield clash
JACQUES NIENABER had made three changes in total – one of them injury-enforced – to the South African side which started last Saturday’s victory over Wales, ahead of this coming weekend’s clash against Scotland at Murrayfield.
Franco Mostert comes in for his 50th Test cap at lock and Elton Jantjies comes in at fly-half, with both Lood de Jager and Handré Pollard moving to the replacements bench. Meanwhile, Willie Le Roux takes over from the concussed Damian Willemse at full-back.
Winger Jesse Kriel will also earn their 50th Test cap, while Frans Steyn is in line to set a new South African record for the longest international rugby career off the bench, taking over from Victor Matfield. It will be 15 years on Thursday since he made his Springbok debut.
If it is a dry day Scotland by 10
This Weekend’s fixtures From the Autumn Nations Series
Italy v Argentina Argentina by 10
Scotland v South Africa Scotland by 10
Ireland v New Zealand To close to call
England v Australia Australia by 7
France v Georgia France by a lot
Wales v Fiji Fiji in a boilover by 5, although it would be the most French thing in the world to lose this game and beat New Zealand next week.
Linke HERE for all the cool 2nd and 3rd tier games.
What do you guys think of my predictions.
