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I think often, Skelton is derided because he's so big, so he should be doing what others do, but with more impact. That is, the expectation is unfairly high on him because they want him to do what, i.e. Simmons does, but better and in a more bruising manner, because he's bigger. That's not to...

I must say, I'm looking forward to that second Bledisloe cup game next weekend :D But yes, unfortunately Sir Richie is mine for the next week. On the plus side, I'll probably be too depressed to post too much!

I'm looking forward to teach having Stirling Mortlock as his avatar for another week after the Wallabies win by 3. It will be off the back of a fantastic piece of Kurtley Beale magic to score in the corner in the dying stages, just so I can see the world truly burn :D

While it could be a risk, I feel like the injury record of the Tahs over the last couple of years under Cheika has been FAR better than any of the previous 5-10 years, and probably better than for any of the other Australian Super franchises. Obviously there are other factors, but it doesn't...

I would be a hypocrite if I wasn't! Mind you, if we win the last thing I would be worried about would be your avatar :D A tougher assignment this weekend, but I believe!!!

Haha, I'll try not to gloat, as you were a good sport about it all! I will request more faith from the rest of the Aussies in future though!!!

In terms of the 10/12 channel, like others have said, I think Foley will go to a wing, with AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) defending at 12 and Giteau at 10. I imagine they would then be relying on Hooper to protect the 10 channel from having to make too many one on one tackles with his shooting defense, and Pocock lurking...

I'm not a doctor, so obviously take whatever I say with a pretty large pinch of salt. However, I had hip problems a few years back that required surgery, that appeared just before my season started (not rugby). The physio basically said I won't be doing any further damage by playing on it, it's...

Oooh, that's a good one. It's a bit hard to find recent shots of Australians winning things, so we'll go with this one I think: As for the odds, if there were only bets when Australia were at even odds against NZ, this would be a pretty uneventful thread :D Anyways, I look forward to you...

So which one of you poor kiwis are going to have their avatar and/or signature greatly improved after this weekend?

If Moore goes down, TPN plays 70-80 min, depending on the situation and Hanson plays small minutes. If both go down we're in trouble, but no more trouble than if two players in just about any other position (except 7) go down. Unfortunately we can't plan for every possible doomsday scenario...

Sorry for my ignorance, but what goes into these marquee player alignments? Is it just players who have decided to put their hands up for the teams? There are a few on there that seem out of place (Godwin, English) and plenty of Wallabies missing, while most obviously won't play much in the NRC...

Strewth's way of looking at it is actually far better. Looking at important misses or scores isn't going to tell you which approach (prioritising kicking vs. field ability) was superior. A look at what the general trend is would be far better. If NZ lose in two weeks time because they miss a...

Why would we put a Japanese team in the NRC? Surely their national comp is a fair bit stronger than the NRC is. Also, although genetics may mean that the Japanese are on average smaller than, say, Australians, they only need to develop 20% of the players Australia do for Super duty, as they...

Am I the only one that actually can't make heads or tails of Cooper's tweet? I know you're restricted by the 140 characters, but no matter what context I come up with, I actually cannot figure out what it's saying.

Fair enough, you've probably (read: definitely) got a better idea of the culture there than I do. I'm pretty excited to see the Japanese up against top competition on a regular basis. I think, though, that the most exciting thing they could potentially do is get some big marquee signings. If...

Yup, I did both too. I've got a ticket for this year, but I'm away that weekend, which is devastating. I'm still pretty pumped to watch it though!

I would agree that it will never be the main national sport, but much like with the USA, it's a matter of scale. You only need ~20% of the interest in Japan compared to Australia to match what we have, and ~7% of the interest in the US.

Ah, sorry, I was talking specifically about TV ratings rather than crowd figures. I agree the crowd figures were a bit disappointing this past weekend. I must say, I was quite surprised that the stadium wasn't filled. It'll be interesting to see what the crowd is like for the Bledisloe though.

I put together a quick chart of the above information. The number above the line is the number of games in the data set. It shows a pretty clear decline, but a bit of an uptick in the total ratings for 2015. While the average still goes down, the higher number of games over 2014 suggests more...