Author: Nutta

Matt Rowley wrote an interesting piece on the state of Aussie rugby recently. I largely agreed with him. I started typing a reply. But on reviewing before posting I realized it was a mess of my various whinges about all sorts of things. So in-line with my new year’s resolution to be more positive I thought to start by not complaining but by suggesting alternatives. I thought I would throw up some ideas on what I will do to fix rugby in Australia when it finally becomes “The Republic of Nutta” (the revolution is coming…). So I hereby put forward…

Does Ewen McKenzie choose the game plan for the Wallabies first, or the players?

I need to be up-front. I am not a fan of yours. I never really have been. That’s not your fault. It’s my problem. I have been critical of Australian rugby’s development of what I call ‘proper fronties’ (or distinct lack thereof) over recent years. Matt Dunning and then you came to emulate everything I was finding frustrating. Maybe it was unfair. Actually no, it was unfair. But you became the focus of my angst at the bigger picture and I confess to regularly giving you in particular a fair spray (which I’m sure you heard through a TV screen…

Back in the mid-1980s – a glorious time of proper lineouts, ridiculous haircuts and crap music – I was a young snapper just starting to play senior rugby in country NSW. I had a coach who was a cliched sheep farmer with an amazing knowledge of the game and a broad drawl that I could tell hundreds of anecdotes about. Well, we had a game come up against the zone champions – they were massive, fast, skilled, undefeated, blah blah blah… we had no form to think we could win, but sure as shite we weren’t going to be beaten…