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Despite last week, which I put down to accumulated fatigue, I was picking a close Force victory. This Reds team with a rock star pack of non-performers has been (along with the Rebels of course) the major disappointment of the Super season. But I am absolutely gob-smacked by the selection of...

Not sure if you're serious. You're talking about Hooper, Latu and 6 marshmallows against a pack that hasn't lost for months. Maybe Skelton's been good for a week or two but we haven't won the collisions in any round except a couple of Aussie ones. As irrefutable evidence of this truth, I present...

Right now our backrow is Wells, Hooper, Hanigan. As was absolutely clear from the Blues first half, none of those three are big enough and strong enough in the collisions. Dempsey is similar. Hooper is Hooper. Wells, Holloway, Hanigan and Dempsey need to put on 10kg extra of hard muscle and core...

They have achieved parity against most sides. Can I conclude from this that Manu is the missing link to a good scrum?

Woops!

Absolutely agree on the need for an aggressive forward pack pushing them back, but every NZ team has that as an always-there characteristic. Its only in Australia that we talk up the advantages of having this. I think the Highlanders backs will probably have the edge, because the aggression the...

What I am excited to see is Lomax starting at 3. Not so much for him, he's very young to be starting, but it will harden him up for the JRWC and we will get to see just how much potential he will have for the future. Right now he's got the "future Wallaby THP" tag, so I am excited to see how he...

Say something about this competition when it is the Force, playing at home who will have had by far the worst of the travel timezones this week. Why the guru's who put the schedule together can't get a bye week to coincide with the end of every team's long trip is beyond me.

Fox confirmed this advice and also said there will be three transfers allowed. If it was any other two teams this would be OK but successful fantasy players have probably built their teams around the stars from these two teams. You might want to make some strategic transfers in round 15 to give...

Our most difficult game will be Wales, which for us is relatively easy. By that I mean that our record against Wales is excellent. But, the other three teams are likely to be Georgia, Fiji and Canada. Of those, Canada on current form is supposedly easy, but Georgia and Fiji will be stiff...

Watching the first half was like watching an U-12 team that had been promoted to the U-15's. The Waratah players lost every collision for almost 40 minutes. The power of the Blues players just blew away any chance the Waratahs had. Finesse didn't help because in every collision the Tah player...

It might all have turned to custard later, but the first Force try was a thing of beauty. It can be done; its just not being done repetitively. But it was beautifully done and I doubt any other Aussie conference team has scored a better one.

A fair summary of the game, I would add Perese's brain fart as a major cause too. The Tahs got the rub of the green but not hugely so. It was by no means a "Stuart Berry" performance.

As an impartial observer, I would suggest someone has opened their wallets in a rush. Possible causes: They are looking to build the gate from this game from dismal to something better. Given the last result, I can see a lot of marginal fans not turning up. Given the relative performances of...

I largely agree with this, but it happens to lots of young players. In the Tahs squad Irae Simone was going to kill it immediately and be picked for Oz this year, based on his NRC form. That hype proved to be just hype. The guy is super-talented but just needs time to develop. His main...

Does anyone know how Fox is handling the split rounds caused by the Lions tour? It looks like a nightmare. Round 15 is played between June 2 and July 1. So transfers will be locked out until the Tuesday (July 4) ie no changes allowed till then. But one game of round 16 is to be played on June...

This weekend big T only has to run hard off the halfback straight at Cooper and there'll be a huge hole made. IMO the reason that big T is not running in the 9/10 or 10/12 channel is that Gibson doesn't want him to.

Sorry I can't agree. Couple of weeks ago the Tahs were down 21 points in ten minutes. They clawed their way back into the game in the second half, ten or so to go, they won the ball around the 22 and start to attack. Phipps passes to Hegarty, behind and above his right shoulder. Hegarty knocks...

He (Gibson) has decided to rotate the scrum-halves and this week sees Gordon dropped (rotated) and Phipps elevated. That has to be the worst decision Gibson has made on selection this year. Gordon goes out for a scrum half who cannot this season put the ball in front of the man at chest height...

Interesting. Unless I've missed it (quite possible considering my advanced years and poor attention span) this is the first formal announcement that Dean Mumm will retire at the end of this year. I know its been a rumour, but not a formal announcement.