Author: Unanimous (the artist formerly known as Newtta)

Technology is a wonderful thing. At the stroke of a few keys, artificial intelligences can produce songs about rugby, broken lawn mowers, or anything else you like. This AI is limited to 2 minute songs, but that’s not a problem for anyone with good taste in music. Pretty soon, they’ll be generating rugby matches for us on demand, not just commentary, but with visuals, and with the results we want Do you want to see the Waratahs beat the All Blacks, or maybe a team of 30 local under 14s beat Ireland? But in the mean time, we’ve got plain…

Here’s one from Charlie: Greetings, G&GRs, on this typically Melbourne “summer’s” day, an oxymoron if there ever was one! It’s been a while between drinks, yet I find myself with the itch (not that type, Yowie, you should see someone about that) to write an article for old time’s sake. So, here goes. It won’t surprise anyone that, being the Canberra-born, Mexico-living referee that I am, I’m firmly on the side of Dan the Man Jacinta the Woman, and any other political party to the left of ScoMo/Dutton/Trump/Boris, etc. One recent happening for me was surgery on my right leg…

American Football appears to be regaining some of its rugby roots, seemingly reintroducing something like the mass plays of the 1900s. If Americans are to do something of course they need a catchy name for it – the “Tush Push”, or “Brotherly Shove” for the Eagles version of it. It’s when the offensive line pushes part of the defensive line back, the quarterback follows, and other players come in behind the quarterback pushing, and the whole mass pushes forward and collapses for a 1-3 yard gain. I find it beautiful to watch – the best play since American football deviated…

There are plenty of suggestions around at the moment for changing rugby competitions and administration in Australia. A tsunami of armchair administrators has been building for some years, and now even in the mainstream media we are seeing conflicting “Year Zero” suggestions such as killing off the states, having the states sit on the board, restricting the rugby knowledge of the board (that’s a genius one – Pol Pot would be pleased), and banning the CEO from sitting on the board (very helpful to have the CEO not in board meetings). A “mind various” of rugby negativity seems to have…

The Rugby World Cup has positions 1 to 4, but it doesn’t place the lower teams. I’ve decided to fill the hole and produce ratings and rankings for all teams based on their performance in the World Cup. We all have a feel for how well various teams did, but putting numbers to it can give a different perspective. I’ve used two methods, in part to see how repeatable the results are. The first method is a least squares score centred on 100. This produces numbers, which when you take the differences between them, give most likely margin if the…

Charts and more charts – two charts for each match in the world cup so far. The first type of chart (above) has a bold line for each team showing the score through the match, and also a dotted line for each team showing the number of players on the field for each team. Yellow and red cards show up on the dotted line as a lower level section of the line. NZ’s card can be seen above between 58 to 68 minutes. The second type (above) is a margin chart showing the lead through the match. Here, France only…

First things first. I needed a new name, and like Mrs. Slocombe, I am unanimous in my opinions, so Unanimous it is. Last Tuesday I put up an article containing match margin charts that showed the Wallabies under Eddie Jones typically getting off to a good start. Their average margin typically peaked at +5 points at the 13 minutes point, before entering a steady decline to finish with an average loosing margin of 18 points. Eloise commented that one possibility to explain this, was that Eddie had a reputation for giving his teams “20 Scripted Plays” to get the team…

The 13 Minute Team? Readers might have seen charts like the above one applied to various codes of football. They are something like a cricket “worm” chart. The one above shows the points margin of the weekend’s Ireland-Samoa match vs time through the match. The vertical axis is the Irish winning margin, which can be negative if Ireland is loosing, and the horizontal axis is match time in minutes. Following the green line from left to right, Ireland’s margin is 0 at the start of the match. At 8 minutes Ireland scores a try, and then one minute later converts,…

Wallaroos Yesterday Charlie covered the coordinated online messages by the Wallaroos, as did 50 or more news outlets. Later on Monday, Nine’s Wide World of Sport had an article containing a response from RA. You’ll be pleased to know that Rugby Australia is having meetings with appropriate people about taking steps of a yet to be specified kind in the general direction of improving things. “Rugby Australia will continue to involve the Wallaroos playing group, through RUPA (Rugby Union Players Association), in all planning and developments regarding investment in Women’s Rugby,” the statement read. “We are taking steps towards a…

Ntamack out As many outlets are reporting, Planet Rugby says that fly-half Romain Ntamack has been ruled out of the World Cup due to injury. The injury occurred in the weekend’s match against Scotland. Quoting from the article: “Romain underwent a small hyperextension of the knee. We preferred to take him out of the game so there could be no further damage,” head coach Fabien Galthie said following the win. However, it looks as if their worst fears have come true, with the fly-half reportedly set to miss the entire tournament. France Rugby have confirmed that Ntamack has ruptured cruciate…

Three RWC squads announced NZ squad announcement: Forwards: Codie Taylor, Dane Coles, Samisoni Taukei’aho, Ethan de Groot, Fletcher Newell, Nepo Laulala, Ofa Tuungafasi, Tamaiti Williams, Tyrel Lomax, Brodie Retallick, Sam Whitelock, Scott Barrett, Tupou Vaa’i, Ardie Savea, Dalton Papalii, Luke Jacobson, Sam Cane (captain), Shannon Frizell. Backs: Aaron Smith, Finlay Christie, Cam Roigard, Beauden Barrett, Damian McKenzie, Richie Mo’unga, David Havili, Anton Lienert-Brown, Jordie Barrett, Rieko Ioane, Caleb Clarke, Emoni Narawa, Leicester Fainga’anuku, Mark Telea, Will Jordan. Quoting from the announcement: The squad features 18 forwards and 15 backs with the following positional breakdown: three hookers, six props, four locks,…