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I believe Paisami was concussion, he had a few on a row so it makes sense to give him proper off season time off. O'Connor was a knee injury, no idea the severity. I think this is the most detail I've seen in the press:

I'm firmly of the belief that the Brisbane and Sydney clubs should be focusing their recruitment around the guys playing 2nds and 3rds at school that don't necessarily look like they're going to be anything. More than anything clubs run of warm bodies and a 100+ gamer playing in the grades who...

I believe O'Connor and Paisami both flew home injured around the time Ikitau linked up with the squad.

Mo'unga Memorandum

We are still a tier 1 nation - The tiers are an established governance concept and define voting powers at world rugby. Until Japan was made tier 1 they have always been the rugby championship and six nations teams. If you're advocating that we step back from the rugby championship and cede...

Gordon should never have had a top up, he hasn't ever played well enough at international level to justify it. Swinton would've been unlikely to make the squad given how little rugby he played at super level. You are right about the size of top ups being relevant though, the wage bill not at...

The factual inaccuracies around this that keep getting trotted out really annoy me. From the smh article: Patently untrue, the first 4 years of 5 teams saw 2 Australian sides win the comp (2011 Reds, 2014 tahs) and another runner up (Brumbies 2013). This is at least equal with or most...

Arguably players on top ups like Vunivalu and Uelese would've been left out, so it wouldn't have even shifted the needle that far.

I disagree there, whatever you think of Jones' selections the coach should never be forced to pick a player they don't think is up to it just because they're on a top up. I think it's a reflection of the fact that the coach was changed so close to the world cup while player contracting happens...

It'd be pretty hard to justify Leota hanging onto his starting spot in that situation though.

It's either a Brisbane Gold (or something equivalently new) or QLD Reds, I don't think you get anywhere half-leveraging the brand by having a Brisbane Reds.

I don't see how you can have a QLD country competing in the same competition as the QLD Reds. I understand the tahs might be seen as a Sydney team in NSW, but the Reds are very much a QLD team and have been working hard to engage the fan base across the state. The city/country split in the NRC...

The hand waving nonsense around the numbers he presents is mind boggling. He completely ignores the base costs required to run each team (like the wage bill that needs to be serviced for a squad of ~40 players and ~5 coaches and all the associated administration staff), the struggle we'd have in...

Take them off the invite list for the old boys dinners?

If they did it's one of the few things they've gotten right.

Not sure about plans for the future but it may be that QLD suburban is a function of travel - the games are played in Ballymore so it's easiest to get another local team there for numbers. A NSW tournament may see a NSW suburban instead, at least until NT are back up and going. Not opposed to...

I've seen plenty of players faces highlighted on membership advertising so far, but given McDermott, McReight, Petaia, Wilson, O'Connor and Paisami have all been overseas until recently or are still overseas that might be why an ad they just put out is light on players featured. The main faces...

It's a period where he would've been interviewing or signing his contract, so I can only assume ideas around where to take the game would've been front and center. It's true he did have more to say than just an old boys day, but that he even thought that was worth mentioning (or something the...

I think mostly it's fine to stay the course and hire an establishment candidate when everything is humming along and going well, it just doesn't work so well when it's a dumpster fire and getting worse.

It was around when he started he made those remarks, but it's not as though he was a stranger to the adminstration or the problems facing the game. If that's the best he had it's hard to see why he was hired in the first place.