Slim 293
Stirling Mortlock (74)
Comment from an expert.Jonny Wilkinson,
Then it's settled guys.............
His teammate said he's pretty good.
Comment from an expert.Jonny Wilkinson,
Then it's settled guys.....
His teammate said he's pretty good.
Steady on, McEnroe.
Firstly, very few of the players listed above would make the Wallabies squad, for various reasons, but mostly because they aren't Australian, or eligible.
Yes, I am aware that comment is heavy in sarcasm.
Having a good debate is one thing, but you are flogging a dead horse here. You have almost no support for your point and everyone else is ready to move on. Some of us moved on years ago, quite happily.
Let it go. There are plenty of other meaty topics on hand you can dig into.
obviously Yuro-Peon players and ex-players are better judges than anyone in Australian rugby. let's fill all coaching and selecting positions for the Wallabies with Yuro-Peon ex players. we couldn't afford poms and wouldn't want frog-talking Frenchmen, so we'd be after Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Italian experts. hhhmmmmm, don't those countries have a little in common? let's start with their very heavy reliance on Southern Hemisphere coaching expertise in national rugby and coaching and playing expertise in club rugby. they also have in common dismal records against and compared with the Wallabies. when was the last time more than one of those nations, even all Yuro-Peon nations, were ranked above Australia?
are you implying that the ARU should appoint representatives of the "leading ex internationals" in Europe to the Wallaby selection panel?
And even if my sarcasm is off the mark and they are in career best form, that as fuck all relevance to international rugby, and I will explain why.
Firstly, and from a performance point of view this is the most important one. These players are not playing in international schedules or competition. They are not traveling internationally from February to December with essentially only 2 single months of break at 2 different points where they play up to 22 games
They play in a padded out 26 rounds season with heavy squad rotation to allow for the additional Cup games. Matt Giteau prior to this season had 88 Caps for Toulon. Considering this is now his 5th season there, 22 Caps per season is an easily load to maintain.
Not every game is against top class opposition. Even in Super Rugby, the cellar dwellers have managed upsets every year. There is a huge gulf between the top and the bottom Top 14 teams. So even if 75% of those games are against challenging opposition, that's only 17 hard games per season.
Then the travel is reduced dramatically. Only domestic travel for Top 14 clashes and Heiniken Cup clashes have a lower travel load than that over Super Rugby.
A test player who is based in the Eastern States will likely make 2 NZ trips, 1 WA trip and 1 SA trip during the Super Rugby season. Then in the test season another NZ trip, an SA/SA trip and a Europe trip. That's 7 trips on 4+ hour flights. According to good a Paris to London flight is about 90 minutes. Less than any of these trips.
Test rugby players have essentially no pre-season and can take multiple seasons to properly recover from injuries due to the year round schedule. I think this lightened load is a huge factor in maintaining performance.
So even if we ignore all of that, then it comes to point number 2.
Secondly, the European owners don't want these players playing test rugby. So even if it was accepted that these players were actually in equal form despite a competition with a lot of disparity between teams, there still is the fact that they would only be available for certain windows and that team owners would not let them be available the same as domestic players. Are we going so well that we can just parachute blokes in 4 days before a test based on form against teams whose quality we cannot even be sure of?
As part of this, if these players make themselves unavailable for test rugby, they are worth more to teams. Do you not think that perhaps Giteau's contract offer considers the fact that he will never be on international duty? Surely this makes him more valuable than say Sexton who will be unavailable for Ireland's internationals.
I'd like to thank our two trolls for helping us pass the time during the bye week, but now it's time to vote for your favourite:
Troll #1: John Eales was pretty shit
Troll #2: Matt Giteau is currently the best player in the galaxy
Stay tuned for next time when we discuss Robbie Deans: super coach, and Tom Carter. the greatest inside centre in the history of the game?
Aaaaaaaaaaah, again:
"The older we get, the better we were"
Glad to be of service!
Then it's settled guys.....
His teammate said he's pretty good.
Player comes out in support of team mate. Massive fucking scoop there.
Last World Cup actually..I seem to remember France in the final
Then it's settled guys.....
His teammate said he's pretty good.
Player comes out in support of team mate. Massive fucking scoop there.
Aaaaaaaaaaah, again:
"The older we get, the better we were"