Friday’s top rugby news has the Brumbies’ unity, Quade Cooper on lessons learned, Matt Toomua keen to remain loyal and a study into the health impacts of the game.
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Unity the key for Brumbies
In the lead-up to this weekend’s Super Rugby semi-final, Jake White has revealed the pride he feels that his rag-tag team have come so far. ‘I remember looking around and thinking, ‘Gee, what have I done?” White said yesterday, recalling the team’s first training camp together. What White has done is build a talented yet raw group of players into a Super Rugby force. Of the 22 players that will play this weekend, half of them had five or fewer Super Rugby caps at the start of last season when White took over. From the outside, it appears White is key to the transformation of a side that Clyde Rathbone describes as a ‘big family’.
The Canberra Times man on the ground in South Africa Chris Dutton got an insight into the unity of the team when invited for an impromptu lift back to the hotel after training yesterday.
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Cooper reflects on time away
In an appearance on Fox Sports, Quade Cooper has reflected on the lessons learned from his forced time away from the Wallabies this year. The naturally gifted player has focused on increasing his work ethic this year and said: ‘the harder you work off the field it starts to show on the field. So it’s been a conscious decision of mine to try and work it.’
While not really going into details about his relationship with Robbie Deans, Cooper was happy enough to admit that he had made mistakes in the past and that he had learned from those. As for the rather unkind reception he received from the crowd against the Crusaders, Cooper was relatively nonplussed ‘I play a professional game and I’m out there to do a job’ he said. Cooper is later today expected to be named in Link’s initial 40-man Wallabies squad.
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Toomua a loyal Brumby
In further Brumbies news, Matt Toomua has expressed his desire to stay loyal to the team he has been with since age 16. The young flyhalf is riding high on the confidence and form brought about by being able to play an entire season unhindered by injury.
Toomua’s current deal with the Brumbies ends at the end of the 2014 season, but he will not be going anywhere. ‘I’d love to stay in the program and that’s the general feeling of most guys … I’ve never been one to chase deals elsewhere’, Toomua said. Aside from the obvious insight of Jake White, Toomua also pinpointed the fact that former Wallabies flyhalf Stephen Larkham on the Brumbies coaching staff as another major positive.
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Rugby health study struggles for support
After the death of a player this week, there was always going to be an increased focus on the effect of the game on players. The IRB and NZRU have clearly been concerned about the issue for some time as last year they enlisted the Auckland University of Technology to undertake research into all long term health effects of Rugby Union, not just those related to concussion. Unfortunately though, the report which was to be released in November is in jeopardy after struggling to recruit the 400 former players it requires to collect data from.
Hopefully the study can get the participants it needs and deliver its findings. The concussion issue is one that is of increasing concern to participants and administrators of contact sports everywhere, especially in the States where concern over the health of retired NFL players has been building for a number of years.
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