Author: Pfitzy

Alright, so here we are on the end of another shellacking. What could be fixed in terms of Wallaby performance has been covered pretty well in other articles. Overall I think it was some of our best rugby of the year, despite us maybe getting a bit of rough from the TMO. After containing my angst quite well to post in The GAGR Forums about this, I’m going to discuss the incident involving the Speight non-try, and not in the way you might think. The call from the TMO to review and subsequently disallow the Speight try is in the book, and there is nothing…

In the build-up to this week’s Bledisloe Cup decider, Pfitzy and Sauly go head-to-head over the likely outcome, and the reasons why. Sit back and enjoy the ride, then gnash your teeth at the other point of view… Pfitzy: Why They Won’t People reading this will call me a pessimist. I prefer the term Truthbringer-General, and once you start chewing on these perfectly cooked rinds of knowledge-bacon you’ll see why. The Wallabies had a great win on the weekend, finally putting The Blackness away with a muscly, niggly, beat-them-at-their-own game performance. Its the one we should have brought last year…

In a game that had everything you want out of rugby, the Wallabies failed to capitalise on a healthy share of possession and territory, and have yet again lost to the All Blacks. Despite the result, about which we’re all still chewing bile, there was a glimmer there; a team that played with a bit of physicality, some pride. They really looked like they were out there doing it for each other, and for one of the most consistent and hardworking players of our time, Adam Ashley-Cooper. Most importantly for those of us looking on, they looked like they were doing it…

Yes, well spotted – that is a vegetable joke, and a fairly pertinent one in light of the fact Nigel Owens is Welsh, and leeks are one of their national symbols. I’m not going to lay all the blame at his feet, because the Wallaby bench deserves too much scorn for that. But I am going to point out key moments in the match where his reputation as one the world’s best refs took a few kicks straight to the balls in this little diatribe. Let’s concentrate firstly on what was a pretty solid game of rugby. Up until that last 15…

In front of a poor crowd on the wet Gold Coast, the Wallabies managed to hold off the Pumas in very ordinary fa- You know what? Let’s just stop right there. I’ve copped some shit on here for – justifiably – giving Queensland some shit around these parts, so before anyone assumes anything, let me say this: I’m not going to slag Simmons in this article. Oh no. I’ve got a bigger target… If its “beautiful one day, perfect the next”, could you bloody well organise at least one of the two on a rugby night? Yep we had a wet Bledisloe in Sydney,…

Wallabies player ratings versus Springboks 2014 Rugby Championship Perth Australia

It has been bandied about both on the GAGR forums and the general twitterverse that the NRC could use something like the Ranfurly Shield. That’s a link to another part of the interwebs so go read it if you don’t know what the Ranfurly Shield is, you pleb. We’ll all wait here. Done? Good. The Log O’ Wood, as it is affectionately known, is often viewed with more import than the trophies for winning the competition. Primarily, the “challenge” aspect of it, where it can ONLY be won on the holder’s home ground, makes it extremely difficult to win. You only need to look at the two…

Its only a few hours until our new National Rugby Championship kicks off, and if you’ve been cruising the GAGR Forums, and watching the social media that has started up, you should be well aware of two things by now: Primarily, since the decision was made earlier this year to reboot a third tier for Australian Rugby, Pfitzy has been over the moon. For someone like me who was not brought up on the game, but came to love it with a passion, the NRC is the logical step we need to get our players exposed and our game exposeder … Yeah that’s a word…

The mud has settled, the screaming has finished (mostly), and the preliminary analyses have been hastily shoved into the interwebs by the journos with deadlines. Fortunately for you lot, the Powers That Be have asked me to put together my inimitable thoughts on the Bledisloe one (no deadlines attached) and give it a bit of body. Because let’s face it: that sucked. And sitting down in front of a replay while writing this didn’t make it suck any less. Sure, it wasn’t a loss. And that old analogy of kissing your sister doesn’t quite work for me – because I’m not a…

I’d like to start by saying that after my son’s soccer in the morning, then playing and watching rugby in the afternoon with my club, the mighty and beloved Renegades, I went to the SCG with my brother to see the Sydney Swans take on the Brisbane Lions. As someone whose parents were raised in Australian Rules Football in South Australia, I always had an appreciation for the game; as a kid growing up in a league-dominated town (my parents moved to NSW when I was very young), my Dad always taught me that rugby league was a slow, limited-skill…