Author: KARL

Welcome fellow G&GRs, another fine Wednesday where we stop worrying about the previous week and start focusing on the week ahead. Who is our team playing? Will they win? And how much can we beat those pesky Kiwis by this week? (To be fair that last one isn’t one I think about very often.) Some interesting stuff this week and certainly a couple of incidents that led to frustrations spilling over and a couple of acts that are likely to see players on the sideline for a period of time. Now no doubt there’ll be people here who disagree with…

Welcome fellow G&GRs, certainly a mixed result last weekend that made a mess of our picks, and in some cases made drastic changes to our places on the tables of the fantasy games we play. Obviously still pretty happy with the Canes being on top and liking that the Force/Reds game opened up the gap just slightly. I know it’s hard, but I feel we should all be a little sympathetic for the Crusaders fans, we’ve all been down there at some stage, but to go from top of the ladder one year to bottom the next would be hard…

Welcome fellow G&GRs, it’s that time of the week again when we can bask in the glory, or pain, of last week for another half day before we start to refocus on Saturday and dream again of “our” team making us proud and giving us hope for the remainder of the competition. I must admit I’m loving the competition this year, mainly because for at least another week my Canes are top of the table, but also for the really good games on show and the way some new players are stepping up to challenge the status quo. I love…

Good morning fellow G&GRs, a wonderful weekend of rugby, for some, but now it’s time to put all that to one side and start looking forward to the weekend where new dreams can be made and where we live in hope that “our” team can once again, or sometimes just once, reach for glory. Been a busy week at work so I haven’t had time to write an opinion piece to drive you all senseless, in some cases a very short drive, so here’s a round up of news that you may or may not have caught up on. Rugby…

Good morning fellow G&GRs and welcome back for another year of hope, opinion and the ever-changing world of rugby, especially here in Australia. It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how things develop over the next year and where they end up. In addition, there’s going to be a huge disruption in the way the game is played here with the new tackle law that has been brought in. This is going to be a real challenge for RA as the “Old & Bold” bemoan the lowering of standards, wokeness and the referee killing the game. The New Tackle…

Happy Hump Day fellow rugby enthusiasts. In memory of one of my favourite TV programs, Not the 9 O’clock News, this is Not the Jones/McLennan News. Don’t know about you but I’m happy to take a break from all the BS and ongoing discussion about where things are going. They’re certainly a mess at the moment, but there’s time and considering we can’t actually affect anything, I’m happy to just let them get on with it. Carrying on from my last Wednesday post a couple of you have provided suggestions on other positions and what these positions might need and…

Sorry team, Hoss is away this week, and I’m stepping in for him, so it won’t be the same level of drivel we’ve learnt to translate on any Friday. However, in the interests of remaining consistent for a Friday, I will ensure that it remains an opinion piece with no actual truth in it. During the week the Daily Telegraph identified 10 ways that rugby could be improved, and we’ve had some chats about it on the paparazzi site. The article is here in Stuff and not behind a paywall unlike the one Keith first showed me. Now being a…

Well, it’s that time of the year. Rugby has finished for the most part and while our attention now turns to Christmas and having a long-desired break from the daily grind, there’s also a focus on next year and where our team might be going. For me the pain of the one point loss in the final is slowly diminishing as I start looking to where the future might be and trying to anticipate the changes that might occur next season for the All Blacks. Certainly, there’ll be some big changes here as well. At some stage there’ll be a…

Well, that certainly didn’t go the way I’d’ve liked it to go, or how I expected it to go. But there we are, that’s sport for you. We all have our teams that we support and while we expect and hope they always win, it’s never to be. Now that the game has settled a bit, and I’ve come to terms with the emotion of the day, it’s time take a more open view of the game. I won’t carry on too much as Nutta’s excellent review here outlines the game itself. What I will look at is some of…

Good morning fellow G&GRs, another day when we can put the previous weekend’s games behind us and start to concentrate on the upcoming weekend with renewed hope and expectations. Being the final of the Rugby World Cup we now need to make decision on which team we’ll support. Of course there’ll be a lot of people with the “My team isn’t there so I don’t care who wins” but we all know deep down they’ll be hoping for one or the other. Will years of losing to New Zealand in Super Rugby and tests push Green and Gold Rugby supporters into the…

Well, here it is,five games down and, if things go right, two to go. New Zealand takes on Argentina in the first semi-final of the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Despite beating Argentina in this year’s Rugby Championship, Argentina did have both their first win against NZ in 2020 and their first win against NZ in NZ in 2021. There is also the memory of the All Blacks failing at this stage against England in 2019. Both teams come into the game with a single loss in the pool games. Argentina losing to England and New Zealand losing to France. In…

So the second quarter final of the weekend. Ireland, have played at 10 World Cups and this is their 8th quarter final game. New Zealand has also played at 10 World Cups and this is their 10th quarter final game. Which team would go on to glory and can Ireland bust their hoodoo of not getting past this stage? Both teams were able to field their top teams, with players coming back from injury in time to take to the field for this game. New Zealand had a slight shuffle with Mark Telea not available for selection due to breaking…

Bit of a sad week for Australian rugby and I’m not sure the future is going to be any easier. However, it’s Wednesday so time to forget the past and start looking forward to the weekend where we again have an excuse to get up early and watch some rugby. It’ll be interesting to watch knowing that while you still have teams you support and will want to win over others, there isn’t the same emotional attachment that you have to the Wallabies and just maybe this might make it easier to watch. So who do we support now? Hmmmmmmm!…

WOW! what a game. So here we are, last game of the RWC Pool matches and one that most people expected to go with an easy win to Fiji that would see the Wallabies out of the RWC. Now we know hope is not a planning tool, but we all just had that little bit of it in us. Could this be the upset of the tournament, and could it be enough to get the Wallabies through? Well, it almost was! Portugal winning 24 – 23 with a conversion in the last minute of the game. Unfortunately, not enough to…

New Zealand and Uruguay play their last pool game of the RWC. New Zealand needing a bonus point win to guarantee their place in the quarter finals and Uruguay playing more for pride, but also hoping to go out on a high. Ian Foster had made a number of changes from the team that demolished Italy and stated that for some of them this was their chance to push for a regular place. Now I don’t care who you are, or how experienced you are, or even how much you play for “the team”, when the coach says this, you…

New Zealand found itself in an interesting position heading into this game. The ABs had taken big losses against both South Africa and France (losing its first ever pool match in the process) and while it had put Namibia away well, there were still questions of the playing and coaching group. Some people were even asking (dreaming) if New Zealand was going to follow Australia and not get out of their pool. After all, Italy had beaten Wales in 2022 and only lost to a full strength French team 24 – 29 earlier this year. Even in New Zealand some…

Good morning fellow G&GRs it’s midweek, time to put last week’s disappointments behind us, or if you’re Eloise the successes, and look forward to what the weekend will bring. Yes things seem bad, but I woke up and got out of bed without falling over, the sun came up and life goes on. Now I’m not so much a “glass half full”, or “glass half empty” kind of person, as more of a “we can fill the glass up” person. As I sit here writing this with a nice glass of Ardbeg Anthology to help my clarity of thought, I’m…

Another warmup game for Ireland as they contemplate the big one next weekend when they take on the Springboks. While the new eligibility laws have allowed teams like Tonga to potentially be more of a threat than in previous years, the game showed that it takes more than a few names to change a team. The Match Clinical is the best way to describe this match. Ireland played very clinically and to their strengths running out a pretty easy 59 – 16 win against a Tongan side that never really lived to the potential some of their more experienced players…

This weekend it’s time for the minnows to step up against the big boys and after starting the weekend with France against Uruguay it was time for Namibia to step up against NZ. It’s hard to criticise a 71 – 3 win, even against a side sitting at 21 in the world rankings and to be fair NZ did what was needed and played with some flair and passion. Some players took their opportunities while others didn’t really set the game on fire in the way they would’ve wanted. Namibia is a good team with some good players. They well…

Half way to the weekend. Time to let it go from last week and start to think about where things will go this weekend. Will our team do better, will it do worse and what of the teams that may affect our run later in the tournament? How will they go and what impact will their game have on our peace of mind? I must admit I’m loving this tournament and really looking forward to seeing how things pan out. Why it’s a particularly big week for seven Wallabies players As written here in SMH by Tom Decent, a few…