Author: Reg Roberts

The Wallabies began the Spring Tour on somewhat of a high. A win over the Boks in Bloemfontein gave renewed hope, but still… those All Blacks. They were so damn good. Five tough test matches beginning with a fourth Bledisloe, followed by challenges against the Welsh, the Poms, the Italians and finally the French would be a mighty challenge. History shows we won them all, bar for the test at Twickenham, with tour highlights being the bookend wins against the Kiwis and then the Frogs. We’ve done the Bundy Rum Test Series where Quade Cooper produced the goods. His old…

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Wallaby fans weren’t exactly jumping out of their seats in excitement as the 2010 Tri-Nations series rolled around. The domestic series did little to provoke any thoughts of Wallaby resurgence against the might of the Boks and Blacks. We’d beaten Fiji, fine. The Perth defeat of England was quickly forgotten in the mire that was the loss to the Poms in Sydney. Then the game against Ireland in Brisbane was just downright boring. As it turned out, we managed to finish second in the Tri-Nations behind a completely dominant New Zealand team, with the Boks dire in third. But who…

As we say adieu to the Wallaby season following our massive win over France, we can start to look back at the year and reflect. Looking at our win percentage alone, we’re getting better. In 2009 we could only manage six wins from our fourteen tests. This year we somewhat significantly more successful in winning nine of our fifteen tests. Sure we went down to the Poms a couple of times, and the All Blacks maintain a hold on the Bledisloe Cup, but there were moments of joy in 2010. The Wallabies managed to beat the Boks in Bloemfontein and then break…

For the second year in a row the Wallabies have ended their season with an absolute ball-tearer. Last year it was in Cardiff when the George Smith–David Pocock double act blew the Welsh out of the water. This year it was in the city of love, and these Wallabies will certainly look back with fondness to their 2010 season-ender. I’ve been delegated the Player Ratings again, and the risk here is getting carried away with the magnitude of the win and the poor performance of the French. In the end though, it was a record win against the mighty French…

Ratings time! Much like the Italian hooker getting to the scrum, it’s taken us a while but we’ve finally got here. It was a somewhat hard game to rate. The Wallabies didn’t necessarily play too badly. They started in excellent fashion, then were frustrated by the Italians’ attempt to slow down the game. Come the second half, we changed our game plan, played a little more conservatively and took the points when we could. Let’s have a look at the individual players. 15 Kurtley Beale: Was quiet early, but never put a foot wrong without reaching the dizzying heights of previous…

The Wallabies entered their second-last match of the tour looking for a turnaround in form to regain the ground they had made at the start of the tour. A record loss to England followed by a mid-week defeat to Munster had shocked the Wallaby team. As a result, coach Robbie Deans and his offsiders made a number of significant changes to the side to take on Italy. Whether the changes were prompted by poor form, or squad rotation to rest players to take on the French next week, a much improved performance was expected of this Australian team. Australia began…

I wish I was rating the Pommies. I’d find it a hell of a lot easier. A couple of 9s on the wing, another at scrumhalf and a few in the pack. Throw in some 8’s in the midfield and at the back, as well as on the side of the scrum and you shouldn’t then need to consider anything less than a 7 for the rest of the team. The Australians on the other hand…. 15 Kurtley Beale – The rich vein of form just continues. I’ve said it before and will say it again, he is very Latham-esque…

Ok so we beat the Al Blacks for the first time in 11 tests last week, but we haven’t backed up from an All Black win in the Deans era. Further Wales have caused us trouble in Cardiff of late. In our last five visits there, we’ve won twice, lost twice and drawn once. In a somewhat uninspiring match, where the Wallabies failed to get much out of 3rd gear, we were able to come away with a win 25-16 and head to Twickenham, for the test v England, still undefeated this tour. We didn’t get the start we wanted,…

Robbie Deans has steered clear of any dramatic changes to his Wallaby side to take on the All Blacks in yet another Bledisloe dead rubber this weekend. There are two solitary changes to the team that were run down by the All Blacks in their last encounter.  Drew Mitchell, who missed the Sydney test with a bum hammy, returns for the grossly unlucky Lachie Turner (who won the Wallaby Player’s Player award in that last Bledisloe). In the pack big, bouncy Benny Alexander reclaims the Wallaby “3” jersey he last wore in Cardiff last November. Alexander was at loose head prop for…

The All Black selectors have resisted the temptation of selecting their latest rugby ‘it man’, Sonny Bill-Williams for their Bledisloe encounter with the Wallabies on Saturday. Unsurprisingly the kiwis have stayed true to their fabulous centre pairing of Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith, with the prodigiously talented Isaia Toeava on the bench. The All Black team is: 1. Tony Woodcock; 2. Keven Mealamu; 3. Owen Franks; 4. Brad Thorn; 5. Tom Donnelly; 6. Jerome Kaino; 7. Richie McCaw [c]; 8. Kieran Read; 9. Jimmy Cowan; 10. Daniel Carter; 11. Josevata Rokocoko; 12. Ma’a Nonu; 13. Conrad Smith; 14. Cory Jane; 15. Mils Muliaina Reserves: 16. Hikawera Elliot;  17. John Afoa; 18. Samuel Whitelock; 19. Daniel Braid; 20. Alby…

With the Tri-Nations over, and the domestic competitions finished, Australian Rugby is left with a notable gap in the market. A fact obvious by the complete lack of content in the papers at the moment. Hell, even we here at Green and Gold Rugby have slowed down a little. There’s just not a hell of a lot to talk about at the moment. But it was different three years ago. Back then, as we crept towards the 2007 RWC, we had a little thing called the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC) – our attempt, seemingly failed attempt, at a national competition.…

In one of those numerical type quirks that can excite some people (not me it must be noted), in the ten tests played by the Wallabies in 2010, coach Robbie Deans has used ten rookies.  This means that a little under a third of the players used by Deans this year are first year rookies. Out of interest, how does this compare with previous years? Well, last year we only had four test debutants – Peter Kimlin, Pek Cowan, Will Genia and Kurtley Beale. 2008 was more like this year though with nine newbies getting their shot in the first…

The new Super 15 Competition will kick off on the weekend of Friday 18 February in 2011 and feature a host of innovations to provide the ultimate goal of more rugby content! The highly anticipated new draw was released today by SANZAR and features a number of adaptations to previous incarnations. One new team – the Melbourne Rebels. An expanded format in which teams are grouped into conferences (the 5 Aussie teams, the 5 Kiwi teams and the 5 SAF teams).  Throughout the season each team plays every other team in their conference twice (both home and away) and four…

Phew! How do you score the performances in a game like that!! At half time I was throwing around 8s and 9s all over the place. A couple of minutes to go until full time and the 5s and 6s were coming out. So I gave myself some time, took a breath, and started again. But what a game! I know it’s been covered elsewhere, but wowza. Full credit to the Wallabies for fighting back and securing the last gasp win. When was the last time we had one of those? One quick observation to make, what an impact from the…

Where were we one year out?: Somewhat surprisingly Australia were ranked #1 in 2002 according to Pick and Go. I guess we got a leg up by beating the British Lions the year before and downing the All Blacks a couple of times the same year (including our last away win against them).  On the flip side we’d just lost Rod McQueen and John Eales but it wasn’t all doom and gloom just yet. Key Players: With McQueen retiring another Brumbies coach, Eddie Jones, took over from as Wallaby coach and his skipper down there, George Gregan was now…

In what comes as a significant shock to the sporting world, Quade Cooper’s manager Richard Colreavy is using the threat of his client going to rugby league as a tool to get more money out of the Australian Rugby Union. Colreavy, who’s IMG Australia manages relative no-names Ben Batger, Cam Mitchell, Chris Alcock and Luke Holmes made the following statement. “We’re serious about this. We want more money. Look at our stable of players. None of them are worth jack. Quade’s our pay day. We need to milk him for all he’s worth because God know’s the other lot are…

Where were we in 98: Looking back to June-ish 1998 and using the IRB Rankings formula, via the Pick and Go web site, we disover that the Wallabies were sitting in 3rd spot on the ‘world rankings’. Above them were the All Blacks (1st) and Springboks (2nd). The ranking should not come as any real surprise given the dominance both teams had over us the previous two years. In fact the last time we had played South Africa they smashed us 61-22. A humiliating loss, without doubt. It was also what we in the industry like to call a ‘turning…

If anyone needed any proof that this test was won in the forwards, they only needed to watch the Wallaby press conference post-test. Robbie Deans was there, resplendent in his team issue suit. Next to him were David Pocock and Rocky Elsom who both looked like they’d gone 15 rounds with Iron Mike at his peak. Also there was Will Genia, who looked like he’d gone 15 rounds with Paul Briggs. He looked as fresh as a daisy in comparison. So when Robbie was asked the question “any injuries?” and his answer was that Saia had a slight cork and that…

Two Yellow Cards, and two players cited, within the space of a week leads us to ask the question. Are the Springboks the biggest cheats in World Rugby? Coach Peter de Villiers seemingly believes that his team doesn’t cheat enough, using that as yet another excuse for his team’s loss to the All Blacks last week. De Villiers has been quoted as saying “I don’t like to prepare the guys to cheat and it seems to me (it is) the only way going forward” in frustration at his perception of how the rules have been applied of late. Well Green and…