Search results

Is rugby really that cut-throat? I've always seen rugby as being far less ruthless with its standards/ player retention than the other professional football codes from both the media, fans and franchises (especially AFL which has huge churn). There are so many examples of non-performers...

Exactly right - let's make slightly alter the focus on the quality of the competition rather than on developing international players.

This is fundamentally wrong- we had a competition in 3 plus countries in very different time zones (this is important). The most common issue that fans had with the old Super Rugby is that teams would disappear to South Africa for weeks at a time and be virtually inaccessible. Super Rugby...

Dan, the decision to not recruit Matera has been detailed to death but primarily comes down to salary cap management and how to best spend limited amounts of funds. The Waratahs (probably quite rightly) determined that Matera's asking price was too much for a position where they have relatively...

Sendit basically did all the hard work for me (cheers bra) but at the end of the day anything making the Trans-Tasman more competitive has to be the prioritized. Including some second string NZers (who lets be honest are pretty much equal to our top players) to our teams in addition to our...

Marky N should definitely take note.

Or we just open up the competition to make sure the best players can represent any franchise in the competition? No Parramatta Eels fan is concerned that Dylan Brown is a kiwi representative, and I doubt any Waratahs fan would be too fussed if there outside centre Billy Proctor is a wannabee...

His defence was not OK.

I think Paul Cully generally gets things and he's spot on in this article - basically suggesting that Shute Shield isn't the panacea and any player needs a professional pre-season or two before they are ready for Super Rugby. Paul Cully: Is Super Rugby Trans-Tasman finished before it started...

Not having a dig at the guy because I think any outside back would have struggled under the circumstances but surely there are some better outside backs running around then Turner, Newsome and Mark N (Nawaqanitawase)? Even Maddocks can hardly be described as strike.

League is becoming increasingly specialised much in the vein of NFL. The players have very specific roles and train exhaustively at their core role (e.g. fringe backrowers practice running slight variations of the same line and defence to death but do very little else). So while on average...

For mine the biggest difference between the Waratahs (and some of the other Aus teams) and the kiwis is the difference in the athlecism and physicality of the outside backs and loose forwards - we just don't have the calibre of athletes to compete and it's this mismatch that's leading to the...

Let's be honest here; it's far too early to make a definite call about Vunivalu at this stage, as he simply hasn't spent enough time on the field. He's obviously a great athlete but his awareness is still lacking- he really just needs to start playing some consistent rugby.

Am I missing something with the reluctance from certain posters to play Paisami at 12? He literally played multiple tests in the position last year (and played well) including wins against the All Blacks. The notion of a 12. Paisami and 13. Ikitau/ Petaia is no more outlandish than a 12...

It tells you that rugby league and AFL has no meaningful international competition - so the focus was and will always primarily be on their domestic comps (and these comps have always been more popular than rugby, so they had stronger foundations). The A-League was successful in its early...

Looks like the new Rugby AU CEO sees increasing competitiveness as a priority through international recruitment... Super Rugby: More foreign players the future for Australian Super franchises says Rugby Australia chief executive Andy Marinos (smh.com.au) I'm strongly of the belief that the...

You could argue that current set-up forces us into using players who will never be Wallabies just to put teams on a field - I'd rather increase overall competitiveness then continue throwing contracts at Kyle Godwin or Alex Newsome?

1. If a franchise is willing to throw big money at a top 40 All Black and that player is not actively disencouraged from moving then it shouldn't matter- economics and personal interest will trump in the end. At the end of the day, playing anywhere in the Tasman is better than over the Atlantic...

Why would anyone outside of the 12 people who use this forum watch a bog average Aussie rugby product when the NRL product is so brighter, faster and more appealing? That's the reality of things in Australia, so comparisons against Top 14 in France are completely moot.

This is absolutely it - a successful Super Rugby competition is only going to help NZ Rugby and the All Blacks in the long run. David Havili playing in Australia shouldn't be viewed as the end of the world.