Search results

Cote btw delighted to see an old GAGR editorial stalwart back here, even if only in rare glimpses. Many posters today would not know of your pedigree. Of course you make an excellent set of points above. However, we can blame players, coaches, whomever, but who or what is ultimately...

Just for the record: I have never said that 'ex players' per se should not play a role, or only play a very limited role, in helping, running, furthering, supporting the code in this country and at whatever level. Such a stance would be ridiculous but it seems to have suddenly evolved into a...

Part of the debated issue here is that, in fact, the so-called old boys network is actually the most identifiable, prominent and media-gaining element of the code in this country, but it is by no means the most numerous. In many ways it gets more attention and comment than it ever deserves...

So did I btw go to a GPS school so I certainly know you you mean ;-). I would note that the very complacency of ARU/RA 'elite' institutional thinking that over the years I have had cause to mention here is IMO nowhere better found than in the way these bodies have totally taken for granted...

Haha. I guess it depends what one - in this context - means by the term 'old boys'. Sets of attitudes? Types of personal backgrounds? Long-standing 'older' rugby adherents? Long-standing members of long-standing rugby elite systems? I'm not trying to be argumentative. Rather the term I...

Needless to say: The above is merely a gross distortion of what I said and its meaning. This is no way to pursue a sound argument. 1. Yes, I have much first-hand experience of 'the [rugby] old boy system/cliques/'club'' etc that is a component of what might be called the Australian Rugby...

Perfectly put. And an 'old school' too that clings to and treasures a self-reinforcing 'rugby culture' of a type that feathered their particular preference nests and where accordingly they perceived no real need to change anything very much as 'there'll always be a corporate box seat for me come...

IMO, for these desperately overdue RA board renewals, we absolutely do NOT need status quo types and late-in-life prestige hunters, especially we do not need more 'successful bankers' (FFS they have been disasters in almost every Aust RU they have touched). These types and their types of...

That's the thing; the whole rugby boat has been sinking in very significant part because product quality and product relevance and code competitiveness (vs other winter codes) have all been sinking. The Super Rugby format is a bust (here, anyway), the Aust Super teams are getting slowly worse...

AND cricket is our only national sport and is just vastly bigger in every respect than rugby. Rugby is niche by any standard having a comparatively small winter sports following within (mostly) 2 States only.

Yes. We keep talking here re the allegedly 'liberating' effect that placing more Super and club rugby on FTA will have - it's an unthinking self-confirmation bias myth unless and until the core weekly rugby product offering is massively improved to incent FTA's viewers to it, and this would...

I say this now for the record: If Rennie does not recruit L Fisher as Wallaby Forwards Coach he starts as a second rate HC before he’s even started a Test.

Doesn’t that depend upon: - the level of sustained viewership interest in each level of comp; ‘multi comp on one platform doesn’t necessarily mean viewers value all comps and want to access them most days’ and - if ‘multi platforms’, how hard viewers today perceive it to be to switch from...

This too worth a read esp in this thread: https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/ratings-in-free-fall-the-truth-behind-shute-shield-tv-rights-deal-20200214-p540x2.html Anyone thinking RA gaining its recently much-hyped ‘all of rugby’ media rights will uplift the whole shebang to new heights...

What about None of them - the thrill has gone (He says as a rugby tragic with sadness in his heart)

Dru, not an unreasonable pair of points. But could not the same be said of Richard Graham's 2015 year, his 3rd? Remember how that went and then...........the years that followed. Moreover, the poor long-suffering Reds' fans may not quite see the subtlety of all this premature HC appointing and...

Oh oh just Yes. The sole and biggest gain I would personally get from Foxtel losing Aust rugby rights from 2021 is surely the permanent disappearance - to the Gulag of Hopelessly Over-Promoted Sports TV Frontmen - of the live Foxtel rugby commentariat. They are APPALLING. All of them. Their...

Maybe. But (a) you need meaningful FTA numbers that are sustained season-to-season before the sponsors with meaningful $s will up their offers to local RUs or RA nationally and (b) as a result IMO the FTA build would have to happen really well by say late 2022 to have a useful $s uplift to the...

What I think is that a loss vs Jags - hopefully not - will start to show is if these 2020 Reds lose their 3 opening games in a row, the notion that some hold that sadly Thorn - and his 'cultural revolution' and endless 'young, development team' mantra - is a myth will start to prove out. Maybe...

Let's alone it's almost laughable fan irrelevance, it's also highly debatable as to whether the NRC has achieved its most ARU/RA-avowed motive - the marked performance development of a higher standard of pro-capable rugby player. After many NRC seasons, where is the concrete evidence in...