Today’s rugby news sees Ian Foster head off to Toyota Verblitz, experimentation for the women’s game, a Jordie Barrett Irish sabbatical, Jake White shows his class and create some *ahem* contrast, and David Pocock has come here to chew bubblegum and kick arse, and is all out of bubblegum.
Former NZ coach Ian Foster to be big in Japan
Stuff reports that Ian Foster will take charge at Japanese club side Toyota Verblitz later this year in preparation for the 2024/2025 season.
Foster, who will replace former Highlanders and Hurricanes flanker Ben Herring, already has a high profile recruit on his books with gaol rugby’s Joey Manu confirmed to leave the Roosters and make the switch to rugby under Foster from next season.
They’ll join former All Blacks halfback Aaron Smith but not Beauden Barrett, who, while at Verblitz, will return from his sabbatical mid-way through this year, meaning he won’t play under Foster.
World Rugby considers smaller size 4.5 ball for women’s game
The BBC reports that World Rugby is considering the use of a smaller ball in the women’s game.
The global governing body is collecting training and playing data on the size 4.5 ball which is about 3% smaller and 3-4% lighter than a typical size 5 ball.
“The quality of our work is with the big ball,” England women’s head coach John Mitchell said. “But if I put on my development hat, these young girls have been exposed to a big ball their whole life. If you’ve got younger girls wanting to come into the game and you have smaller communities that don’t have the ability to play 15s but could do a lot more in schoolyards with smaller balls, if that gives them confidence to play the game then I’m all for it.”
Clarice Lindsay Starling, science and medical manager at World Rugby, said “typically an adult male hand is 10% larger” than that of an adult female. “The women’s playing community is quite divided,” Starling said. “There’s a big proportion of individuals in this community that think and feel that retaining the use of the same equipment in the men’s game is important.”
World Rugby is currently trialling the smaller ball, with playing data gathered at the Women’s under 18s Six Nations, where sides played with a size 4.5 ball this month, while training data was gathered from three Celtic Challenge sides. The outputs on this data will be shared when available.
Starling said the smaller ball would be in “better proportion to the female athletes’ hands” and could result in “numerous positive benefits” including fewer knock-ons in contact and increased passing speed and accuracy. This could then create a faster game with fewer rucks and scrums, while kicking and lineout throws might also mean improvements in accuracy and distance.
Changes to equipment in women’s sport is not a new concept. In basketball, the WNBA uses a ball one inch smaller in circumference than that used in the NBA. The 28.5-inch ball is also used by women and girls from age 12 upwards and boys aged 12-14.
Finally, don’t forget to get your nominations in for the 2024 G&GR Writer Maturity Awards, for those who can resist cheap and obvious gags laid out on a platter in the source material.
Barrett to take heads off at greater distance
Pravda reports that utility back Jordie Barrett will join Irish club Leinster in December on a six-month deal.
Jordie, 27, who plays in a successful 60s and 70s pop-music group alongside brothers Barry and Maurice, will arrive in Dublin after the November Test window. Following his spell with the four-time Champions Cup winners, Barrett will return to New Zealand with the Hurricanes on a contract until 2028.
Barrett, who can play across the backline, spent time near Dublin as a child when his father managed a farm. “Heading north to different conditions, different teams, different referees – I think it will open my game up, make me see the game differently and I’ll ultimately bring the best bits back to New Zealand rugby and into a Test jersey, ideally, at the end of it. Ireland is a special place for the Barrett family.”
Classy move by former Springboks coach (no not that one)
PlanetRugby reports that Bulls director of rugby Jake White showed his class by congratulating Northampton Saints on their triumph in the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final. Despite seeing his side succumb to a heavy defeat, the former Springboks head coach still had the grace to head to the Northampton dressing room and praise the victors in person.
“You know what it’s like, sometimes when you’re on the back end of a result like that, it’s tough, but I just want to say to you guys, ‘well done’,” White said. “You guys are flying high, it looks like you’ve got something special going on here. You’re top of the Premiership, into the semi-finals.”
“I just want to compliment you for the way you played. Your attack was outstanding and for me, as I said in the media, even the way you kept us out when it was 59-22 just proves that you’re not giving anything away. All the best in the next couple of weeks, I really hope that you guys go the whole hog and hopefully get the double, so thanks very much guys. Cheers.”
Where are they now? David Pocock
The ABC reports that former Wallaby flanker David Pocock isn’t in the Senate to f*ck spiders. The 35-year-old first-time politician is calling the heart of the establishment to account.
Pocock has the Department of Defence in his sights. The senator for the ACT has taken a particular interest in the department’s spending habits and its heavy reliance on large consulting firms including KPMG. Among many other contracts, KPMG has a $100 million job to build a Minority Report*-like portal called “One Defence Data” through which commanders can call upon every kind of data held by Defence from satellite imagery to munitions shelf-life.
[*including three weird-looking people in a pool, apparently]
Last year Pocock ordered the production of a review into the half-a-billion-dollar initiative, which included the finding that Defence had issued a six-figure payment to KPMG for work it knew had not been delivered. Associate secretary Matt Yannopoulos was unequivocal. He said he’d been assured by his team and by KPMG that “no milestone payment was paid without the services being delivered to a suitable quality”.
But Pocock’s mum didn’t raise a sucker. He issued an order for the raw correspondence underpinning the controversial payment, which came back two weeks later. In August 2022, One Defence Data’s governance officer had written to KPMG: “The Commonwealth is of the opinion that the Document Deliverables do not comply with the relevant Data Item Descriptions and are not of the quality or standard expected … However, in the interests of maintaining a collaborative relationship for the duration of the Work Order … the Commonwealth has decided to permit payment, on this one occasion only.“
Pocock told the ABC last week: “Defence appears to have provided misleading evidence to a Senate hearing and has failed to be transparent about the nature of its relationship with KPMG. This seems to me to be a potentially serious breach of responsibility by senior public servants and I will be taking it up through the Senate.”
The very next day, Pocock issued another, far more sweeping order for documents, including all correspondence between the department and KPMG’s director of cyber, former Defence official Peter Corcoran. Those documents were due to be delivered 18 days ago, but so far there’s no sign of them.
It might take more than a neck-roll to get Pocock to let go of this one.
