Recent content by Rob42

Absolutely the turnover is too high. It's reflective of a new coach starting from scratch every 2-3 years, usually with complete changes to those in the general manager/director of rugby/director of performance roles. A new plan every time. And never a chance to get out of the cycle of mediocre...

Now confirmed that Allianz Stadium will be closed after week 1 of the NRL finals for 10 weeks to re-lay the sand base. Apparently the sand was contaminated with clay, and hence drains far slower than expected. What a mess. Or an impressively long setup to catch out the B&I Lions in their match...

Surely the big challenge for any new stadium in the ACT is that it will rely on pulling crowds from Queanbeyan and regional NSW, but the NSW govt sure isn't going to fund a Canberra stadium.

Groundskeepers at North Sydney and Uni: congratulations, excellent work. Manly Oval, Chatswood, and Forshaw: tough gig.

Jamie Durie has a lot to answer for...

This is where a strong, consistent judiciary process is crucial, to assure everyone that any foul play that is missed during the game will be well punished later. A long way to go on that front.

Ed Craig. Obviously.

I wasn't there on Saturday night, but I've been to plenty of big games there and caught the event bus home to the north-west - I don't think I've ever had to wait more than about 20 min in a queue there, they stack up a huge number of buses.

I'm not sure about that, France wants to sign up young players to push them into their national pathway, they'll put a lot of pressure on those players to decline Australian representation.

Must be one of the rare photos that makes Tupou look small(ish)!

How great to see the Wallabies back up last week's performance with another great effort. Smart strategy well executed, by and large, and tremendous passion. Whilst it was a shame that we didn't have some of our best players available for all three tests, it did seem that they finished the...

Just watering the field, like for the Tahs game. Seems like the NH players struggle with it.

I'm sure he did discuss it with the refs, but what exactly? There's a big difference between asking "What's the sanction if the kick-off doesn't go 10 metres and is caught by one of our players?" [scrum to receiving team] versus asking "can I place a player in front of the kick-off to receive...

I think it's unwise to only share with teams and not publicly. It allows the teams to publicly spin whatever feedback they've received to their benefit, whilst World Rugby remains mute. It's similar to Rassie saying that he'd cleared their kick-off tactics with the ref beforehand - no-one knows...

Can I put in my semi-regular request for Super Rugby teams to replicate something like the Tah Talk pod from the Tahs which was (gulp) almost 20 years ago. Run by the media manager of the Tahs at the time, I think it was also Morgan Turinui's first media gig as well, whilst he was playing. It was great...