Author: Roscoe Tims

When during the Wallabies’ Munster match Irish rugby commentator George Hook said “I have to say this is the worst Wallaby team I’ve ever seen,” you might have given it some credence coming so close after the comprehensive test defeat by the Poms at HQ. The only Australian player in the match who enhanced his reputation that day and put pressure on the selectors was Munster’s Paul Warwick. The local’s played with craic, we played with programmatic specificity? Robbie thought there were positives to our performance but then he probably thinks Elvis still hasn’t left the building? They say you’re…

Wallabies 59 France 16 It was kind of appropriate that legendary French centre Philippe Sella was the celebrity ‘kicker-offer’ in this morning’s Wallaby v. France test. He would have been beside himself with admiration at the way the Wallaby centres and outside backs played today. In fact, shouldn’t they have been wearing Le Coq? In the Sella days, Le Rugby Français was a marvellous feast of attacking football with the likes of Serge Blanco, Thierry Lacroix, Philippe Saint-Andre and Patrick Lagisquet carving them up. Mon Dieu? What’s happened since? The 2010 version looked like they’d be more comfortable in the…

Whatever will they think of next? A French robot scrum machine that replicates how the Australian eight scrummage? Unfortunately, René the Robot would be spending half the time with its console stuck in the turf crying out “Danger Benn Robinson!” I wonder whether the Wallabies should develop one of their own? Perhaps we could call it Al the Android as it replicates Domingo, Servat and Mas rubbing our noses in la herbe. It’d probably blow a Fuse and short circuit? Robbie has been furiously spinning away this week about how hard done by we are at scrum time: “wrongly maligned” and “preconceived ideas” come to mind. Get…

Mamma Mia here we go again. The Wallabies are in Firenze, it’s raining and the Azzurri forwards have some real tough hombres. How is the Wallabies’ head space at the moment after the England and Munster disasters? I’d say not bellisimo? We’re at a fork in the road or un bivio della strada. What we have to do is go to the Opera? Yes, Cosi Fan Tutte.  Although ours should be more about fighting rather than loving? Cosi Fan Tutte loosely translated means: “This is how everyone does it.” Well, this is how we need to do it. Go back to the…

G&GR spoke exclusively to former Australia A, ACT Brumbies and Munster forward’s coach Laurie Fisher over the weekend: Welcome to Green and Gold Rugby, Laurie – Australia’s foremost rugby website. Q. Munster has a proud history against touring sides. The last time the club played the Wallabies was in 1996. What does this game mean to a club like Munster? A. Very few provincial sides these days get the opportunity to play against International teams. As you say Munster have a wonderful history against touring teams and it is important for this team to uphold and enhance the competitiveness and…

England crushed the Wallabies today in an awesome display of power, pace and passion. There are ominous signs that this team is readying for a real shot at RWC 2011. Their performance was so un-Pom-like it looked as though they’d detached from the Six Nations and taken up residence in the South Pacific? The soft underbelly that’s Australian forward play has been exposed yet again. The Wallaby forwards were completely vanquished by their robust opponents. It would have been appropriate if the Remembrance Day two minutes silence had been repeated after the match in memory of Wallaby forward’s missing-in-action. Apart…

The Wallabies aren’t the only team who are renewing their playing stocks by injecting bright young things into their international setup prior to the 2011 RWC. The British bulldog will definitely offer bite this Saturday at HQ with young guns Ben Foden, Chris Ashton, Ben Youngs and Courtney Lawes leading the regeneration. Chris Ashton is a good example of this. A former Wigan Warrior and England mungo fullback, as a winger he’s turned into a try scoring machine for Northampton Saints. He was the Guinness Premiership Player of the Year last season and made his debut for England in the 2010 Six…

Here we go again. The much vaunted Australian scrummaging recovery has proven to be illusory. Our competency in the scrums is about as proficient as Pato Noriega’s command of the English language. Or more like those exotically named Belgium chocolates the Wallabies will be buying on their way back through Duty Free. Hard on the outside but soft and creamy in the centre. How much longer is our scrum going to be the laughing stock of world rugby? The Welsh offered zilch in most facets of play and were there for the taking. We gave them hope and opportunity through our piss poor scrummaging. We gave away…

Open or closed, I doubt whether the roof at the Millennium Stadium is going to save the Wales from a potential defeat on Saturday night. They can fiddle around with it all they like but I suspect the boyos are a chance of getting burnt either way. I’d be more concerned about the pitch, which was only laid three weeks ago. They change the turf on average about twice a year so it’ll be interesting to see whether it’s stable or not. Scrummaging will be a test on both the surface and the Wallabies. It’s likely the Welsh will use…

I think Sonny Bill Williams is a great addition to the All Black fold but for cryin’ out loud, he ain’t the bloody Messiah! The media and rugby in general has just gone nuts over this guy. He’s the new black. Can walk on water. Isn’t there anything to write about that doesn’t involve SBW? Everybody seems to have an opinion. I mean, we’ve got QC saying he’ll be quaking in his boots when he’s forced to tackle him. However, I’m not quite sure how much different it would be from now? That already seems to happen when Ma’a Nonu…

The famous Kurtley Beale ‘Falcon’, when he headed the ball during the Wallabies Tri-Nations win in Bloem, left him momentarily stunned. If you went back 50 years, perhaps to the days of the XK Ford Falcon and tried this stunt it may have knocked you out because the ball was a completely different beast. You would more than likely be hit with a four, six or eight panelled leather ball weighing around 14 or 15 ounces, the difference being that it had none of the flexibility or dexterity of a modern ball – it was far more solid. The ball would have been a lot heaver…

Save our souls, Sonny Boy Williams was launched on the international rugby stage today when he was named in the All Black touring party to Hong Kong and Europe. Perhaps that’s what some of his future opponents might be thinking? This much anticipated selection, on both form and potential, is a thoroughly deserved choice bro’. SBW is a class act – all athleticism, talent and menace – who looks entirely comfortable in his rugby skin and getting better with every outing. The early disquiet amongst Kiwi rugby aficionados about his perceived ‘bigger than the game’ persona, exacerbated by his association…

The Wallaby Spring Tour squad has been named by the selector’s this morning. Yes, there’s a bolter like the good old days and the surprise selection of four members from the Australian Sevens team from the Commonwealth Games. Australia’s Sevens captain Pat McCutcheon has been included alongside three of his team-mates from the just concluded New Delhi tournament – halfback Nick Phipps, winger Lachie Turner and winger/fullback Luke Morahan. Twenty-one-year-old Phipps is the squad bolter, having won the third halfback position behind Will Genia and Luke Burgess The evergreen Queensland Reds lock Van Humphries is celebrating his first Wallabies selection at age 34 and there’ll be a lot of Queenslanders…

You didn’t see Al ‘Le Fuse’ Baxter’s name listed as ‘unavailable due to injury’ on the ARU press release announcing the Wallaby Spring Tour training squad last Monday. That’s because he was available but has been discarded by the national selectors. This is a real shame because I think he still has something to offer Australian rugby. In fact, he’s in his prime as a prop forward. There certainly is a case for Al Baxter. Damaged goods you might say. Well, maybe but in this year’s Super 14 I can’t think of any Australian prop that outplayed him. Can you?…

The Wallaby 40-man Spring Tour training squad for 2010 has been announced. Twelve uncapped players have been included ahead of the seven-match Wallabies Spring Tour of Hong Kong and Europe. The most notable newcomer is Mr Let’s Roll the C__s: Queensland Reds lock Van Humphries, who is the oldest player named at 34. Van missed out on selection earlier in the year, despite impressing during the Reds’ mighty Super 14 revival. He’s recently overcome an ankle injury. The others fresh to the scene are Queensland’s Rocket Rod Davies, who was unavailable for selection earlier in the year due to a torn hamstring, Australian Sevens representative, centre Brackin Karauria-Henry,…

Before acting as Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies, Munsterman Richard Harris, the Irish thespian, starred in many films including the likes of Camelot, Cromwell and A Man Called Horse. He received an Oscar nomination for a hard hitting movie about a professional rugby league player named Frank Machin set in Wakefield in 1963 called This Sporting Life, with Rachel Roberts. Harris himself was a larger than life, hard drinking raconteur. His last acting gig before he died was with Rusty Crowe in Gladiator. As befitting a man who found fame during the sixties he also released a pop song…

If you look at where we are now are we better positioned than before last year’s Spring Tour? What’s changed since then, if anything? Have the test debutant’s introduced since that time reached expectations? Actually, at least a third of the 2009 Spring touring party won’t be selected for the coming trip due to injury, retirement or having fallen by the wayside. More on that later. This time last year we had won our three June tests (Italy twice and France), beaten the Springboks once in a stormer of a match in Brisbane (the AAC highlight) but lost the other…

What made Milwaukee famous was its brewing: Schlitz, Pabst and Miller beers. “When you’re out of Schlitz, you’re out of beer” With Mils Muliaina, his claim to fame is his dependability and positional play at fullback combined with searing pace and top notch counterattacking skills. He’s been the first choice All Black (89 caps) fullback for most of his seven years in the side ahead of other candidates like Leon McDonald, Doug Howlett, Cory Jane, Isaia Toeava, Ben Smith and lately Israel Dagg. He’s fairly versatile as well having played nine tests at outside centre around 2006/2007. And it’s that list…

A jigsaw could be described as a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of interlocking pieces. That may also describe the selection of the Wallaby squad for next year’s Rugby World Cup – it’s going to be something of a jigsaw. I guess we’d all confidently say that David Pocock, Rocky Elsom, Nathan Sharpe, Will Genia and Quade Cooper will be a number of those interlocking pieces. A month or so ago you wouldn’t have said the same about Kurtley Beale? But the landscape for him has changed markedly in that brief period of time. One of the puzzling things…

The Wallabies have succumbed to late All Black pressure to lose their 10th successive encounter after looking a chance earlier in the game. They might be 2nd in the world in the rankings after the Kiwis but there’s a significant gap between 1st and the rest. The All Blacks have already won the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cups and you wouldn’t think they’d have the same degree of motivation as the Wallabies tonight. To switch on and come back from 22-9 down in the 61st minute shows that they are worthy world champions. They’re the first team in the extended competition…