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Jeez, never thought a win over a Kiwi team could leave me feeling so frustrated! I feel the Brumbies had them on the ropes for most of that match and should have won quite comfortably. I've rarely seen the Canes backline shut down so effectively. Instead after Ikitau choosing a swan dive for...

Pity we didn't see more from Vunivalu. What I did see I thought he looked pretty good, some players coming across from league have a bit of trouble adjusting at first but he tackled low, went into contact low and recycled well. He looked big and strong and should prove hard to stop if he can...

I see Santos is now a platinum sponsor for the Waratahs as well as the Reds, talk about having a bob each way! No wonder this game is being held in Narrabri, where Santos is trying to win over the community for its Coal Seam Gas project. Also explains why last year (when they were just...

Yep. Every touring side in SA suffers from this but the Reds have a particularly torrid time of it, perhaps because their discipline has been suspect anyway the last few years. Two other predictions based on bitter experience of staying up til 3am over the years. One, the commentators will...

Sorry, got my days mixed up - I have a 1 year old who's refusing to sleep so the days blur together! Also incidentally the reason I knew I wouldn't be able to make the draft as 8pm is prime time for trying to coax him to stop inflicting his lungs on the neighbours and go to sleep. Not too...

Thanks Jimmy, 7 points for a forwards drop goal, where's Liam Gill when you need him. I won't make the draft (family reasons) so I'll take my chances with the autopick, will be interesting to see how it comes off as I'm sure the autopick doesn't take the heavily modified scoring into account!

I'm not too surprised by that in the year following a World Cup - I don't recognise about half the names of the Round 1 teams at all!

Rugby Magazine fantasy is nowhere near its funding goal so I bowed to the inevitable and signed up to this league. I looked at Superbru but it's a no-salary system which means by round 5 every team is full of the same handful of players, which rather takes the fun out of it. So I'll give Draft a...

I went to see what's happening with this for 2020 and they are trying to crowdfund to raise £8500 to run the comp this year. After Fox quit last year it seems Super Rugby just doesn't have the numbers to make it viable. I quite enjoyed it last year so went to pledge (if you pledge £10 you get...

Now that's what I call a trial side!

Don't forget the faded curtains. Won't somebody think of the curtains?! No sign of it at the Reds page yet, but here's the rugby.com.au link: https://www.rugby.com.au/news/2020/01/17/super-rugby-trials-reds-rebels-match

The Brumbies are still white... Kind of. There's a couple of white panels on their navy blue jersey. I actually quite liked the Brumbies' yellow away strip from a few years ago. Or they could go with the grey camouflage, might help them get away with a few dodgies at the ruck? The...

I'm okay with the Rebels wearing that jersey as they are channelling the Eureka Stockade mythos, but some of the others are a bit less justifiable. Tahs and Blues can both justify theirs (I figure if your team is actually named the Blues, you are allowed a blue jersey). The Bulls have Currie Cup...

The Reds' attack has not changed since 2014. It's just repeated aimless phases with no direction that are easy to defend, until they either drop the ball or kick it away. I'd really like to know how a professional rugby team can be that clueless for that long. That was basically a repeat of...

I think the Reds actually did pretty well to only lose that by 10. The Crusaders did take their foot off the gas a bit, but with those sort of handling errors, Petaia out early, a ref firmly on the side of the Crusaders and fairly harsh yellow, the Reds of a couple of years ago could have folded...

The 'defensive' centre pairing actually worked really well and shut down the Canes centres, it's pretty rare to see the Canes backs so quiet. When Perenara had to shift to flyhalf and the Tahs were ahead I thought that'd be the game for sure. But the Tahs just shat the bed and gifted it to...

I'm really, really sick of Australian Super Rugby teams. They just don't seem to believe they can actually beat a Kiwi team, they can get themselves in front but then they just choke. Poor handling, botched set pieces, stupid decision making. Foley would normally kick that last penalty...

The new loosehead whose name I can’t spell looks almost a similar size. Scrum looks in good hands this year. It’s just every other aspect of the game with question marks over them...

Yeah when I said Pocock didn't let up for 80 minutes, that's what I meant - his effort was massive. He was the only Wallaby still throwing himself at everything right til the final whistle, even though I'm sure he was as exhausted as the rest of them. I'm not rating him poorly at all, quite...

Hooper out on the wing is part of the team's shape. Tui out there in defence is definitely not part of the team shape, and even in attack he shouldn't be there because he's not agile. Fast backrowers or hookers like Dane Coles are who you have on the wing if you want a forward out there. Not...