Eddie Jones is at it again

[Brisbok]

The NSW v Qld rivalry always produces some pearlers...

Haha I was lost after the first sentence and never seemed to be able to get back on track. The last sentence then completely threw me and now I am totally confused.

 

[waratahjesus]

The NSW v Qld rivalry always produces some pearlers...

No rivalry, QLDs planning was reactive not brilliant. The capitalization on the success that was achieved through the playing group developing together (which is jones point) is great and deserves credit, the ARU did a great job putting it in place.

 

[TSR]

Thank God for the ARU & the Force. Rod McCall & Link should send them a thank you card and be grateful they were lucky enough to be in the vacinity of the QRU when the ARU masterplan came to fruition.

 

[Brisbok]

If only Michael Foley would be lucky enough for the ARU to decide to terminate the contracts of the 30 players currently in the Waratahs squad at the end of this season. That way, with a new squad to work with and a season or two to gel together, within a couple of years he would almost be guaranteed to win a Super Rugby title!

 

[AngrySeahorse]

Of course the biggest thing standing in the way of our Rugby Union ability is Rugby League.

Once someone invents a time machine and we can go back in time and stop rugby league from ever happening, we will be easily the best side in the world.

While we are at it back in time we should take "care" of the AFL as well.

 

[Newter]

However the existence of the Rebels, nor their current form, sufficiently explains why either the Reds or the Tahs are having such poor seasons, relative to last year or relative to the talent available to those sides. Neither the Rebels nor the Force poached hugely from either the Reds or the Tahs. Both the Reds and the Tahs have very good squads on paper, so you can't say they are lacking sufficient talent due to the existence of either the Rebels or the Force..

That's a joke. Let's leave aside the huge damage the Force caused to NSW and QLD with their poaching in 2006 - the Tahs nearly came last in 2007 due to that ransacking - the Rebels have clearly hurt a number of teams.

Laurie Weeks and Richard Kingi would have helped the Reds a lot this year. For one thing they could bench Daley and start two decent props. And Kingi is a strong, physical utility player. They could have used him in midfield when Lance went down.

The Tahs have missed Kurtley Beale - his linebreaks create cheap points. He's a saftey valve when the team isn't at 100%. The Tahs would have won some of their close ones if he'd been playing.

 

[Newter]

"Each side has been watered down because there are too many of them, and that's a real concern for the Wallabies, because you don't have your best players playing with each other," he says.

It's not really a concern. The Waratahs will form the bulk of the side.

 

[ChargerWA]

Let's leave aside the huge damage the Force caused to NSW and QLD with their poaching in 2006 -

It's called recruiting you numb nuts.

Why would you blame the Force, it was clearly the ARU's complete and utter balls up by not letting them recruit more overseas players, like they did for the Rebels.

The Force's players had to come from some where in Australia, and shock horror it was the two most rugby populous states in Australia that gave up the most.

If you are going to blame someone, blame the ARU. But maybe 6 years is long enough to just let it go and move on.

 

[Newter]

It's called recruiting you numb nuts.

Why would you blame the Force, it was clearly the ARU's complete and utter balls up by not letting them recruit more overseas players, like they did for the Rebels.

The Force's players had to come from some where in Australia, and shock horror it was the two most rugby populous states in Australia that gave up the most.

If you are going to blame someone, blame the ARU. But maybe 6 years is long enough to just let it go and move on.

Hahaha. Bit of a sore point, mate? I don't blame the Force at all, good luck to them.

 

[Train Without a Station]

I think the Red's victory last year shows how Eddie's comments are just sensationalist trying to grab the spotlight but when you look deeper into it, are a load of shit.

The Reds championship team last season, was a result of talent being spread out, yet they still won a championship with that team, which also had the lowest player wages of all Australian franchises. So you can't accuse them of harvesting good talent. Despite being schooled or originally playing in QLD the following players played for other franchises (disregarding players overseas) yet the depth was there to replace them:

NSW
Berrick Barnes
Brenden McKibbin
Drew Mitchell
Ben Mowen

Force
James O'Conner
David Pocock
Richard Brown
Nathan Sharpe

Brumbies
Stephen Moore
Rocky Elsom

Rebels
Rodney Blake
Laurie Weeks
Heath Tessman
Richard Kingi
Julian Huxley

Now obviously as market forces and opportunity dictate, not every player on this list would have been wearing the red jersey last year. Some had already been at other franchises (Huxley, Mitchell). However, without the expansion it's highly likely Mitchell, O'Conner, Pocock, Brown, Sharpe, Weeks, Kingi and Tessman would have been at QLD. The point is despite this thinning of talent, there was enough depth to build a championship team based mostly on unwanted or unrated players (Fainga'as, Beau Robinson, Radike Samo, Scott Higginbotham, Ben Daley, Ben Lucas, etc.). So yeah the depth is there, not to have 5 teams knocking on the door at the top of the ladder but for fucks sake, how have the Lions and Cheetahs been historically. Pretty sure it's been propping up the base of the ladder. How are the Blues going this season? 1 and 5?

Currently we only have capacity for 2 sides to challenge finals. Prior to the Stormers resurgence the last 2 seasons, that's where the South African sides were though. Similarly there is only really 2 outstanding NZ sides regularly. Last year it was the Blues and the Crusaders. This year it's the Highlanders and Chiefs (though the Hurricanes are probably pushing my argument there).

One of our teams won it last year, another got the spoon. Australia isn't exactly Robinson Crusoe in that regard.

 

[Schadenfreude]

It's not really a concern. The Waratahs will form the bulk of the side.

and yet the search for the best players continues.

 

[Newter]

Currently we only have capacity for 2 sides to challenge finals. Prior to the Stormers resurgence the last 2 seasons, that's where the South African sides were though. Similarly there is only really 2 outstanding NZ sides regularly. Last year it was the Blues and the Crusaders. This year it's the Highlanders and Chiefs (though the Hurricanes are probably pushing my argument there).
.

Wow. Disagree. The only thing holding back each of the Aussie sides will be luck with injuries. I'd back any of them to "challenge" for the finals given a reasonably clean bill of health. So far that's been the Brumbies, funnily enough.

 

[PaarlBok]

Eddie Jones finally gets it. Plumtree told us this at the start of the season. All the SA teams are doing much better on tour compare to yesteryear.

 

[Ulrich]

He's probably right that it does make the Australian franchises weaker in the short term. The same happened when the Force joined the competition.

What it does do is provide 22 more players with the opportunity to play Super Rugby every week which results in strengthening Australian Rugby.

With the Force, players such as Pocock were given the opportunity to be key players way earlier than they would have at other provinces.

Now with the Rebels, players like Pyle, Jones, Saffy, Kingi, Phipps are all getting opportunities they probably wouldn't have seen at other franchises. Players like Bernard Foley are getting an opportunity at the Waratahs (because Kurtley Beale left).

There is no doubt that some of these players will go on to become Wallabies and certainly most of them will become very useful Super Rugby players throughout their careers.

Having more players playing professional rugby every week can only help Australian rugby. It might cause a little bit of short term pain, but overall it presents everyone with an opportunity.

Sure, however the overall "Super" rugby may not be as super any more since a lot of the players injected may be of tier 2 quality, for example. Just a thought.

 

[qwerty51]

Eddie Jones finally gets it. Plumtree told us this at the start of the season. All the SA teams are doing much better on tour compare to yesteryear.

Once again Paarl, that's not what Plumtree said or what you even inferred. I never denied Australia has little depth but you kept saying the conference system favours us in terms of easy competition points. That's not the case. We're actually more competitive than the SA conference.

 

[Braveheart81]

Sure, however the overall "Super" rugby may not be as super any more since a lot of the players injected may be of tier 2 quality, for example. Just a thought.

Of course that is going to be the case initially when you introduce a new team. You're adding a whole new squad who will have plenty of players with little or no super rugby experience.

It doesn't take too long before those teams start becoming competitive. It's certainly a long road to being a contender but when you compare the Rebels from this year to last year, they are light years apart. The addition of Beale and O'Connor certainly helps, but the biggest improvement in their game is their defence.

 

[Lindommer]

Despite being schooled or originally playing in QLD the following players played for other franchises (disregarding players overseas) yet the depth was there to replace them:

Rebels
Rodney Blake
Laurie Weeks
Heath Tessman
Richard Kingi
Julian Huxley

These three neither attended Queensland schools nor originally played there.

 

[Train Without a Station]

I'm aware that Hux came from the Brumbies, to the Reds and back to the Brumbies. However, Rod and Weeks started their Super Rugby careers at franchises before the Reds?

 

[Cave Dweller]

Short not good but long term it will be good for Australian rugby. All the teams are competitive. That does say a lot

 

[PaarlBok]

Once again Paarl, that's not what Plumtree said or what you even inferred. I never denied Australia has little depth but you kept saying the conference system favours us in terms of easy competition points. That's not the case. We're actually more competitive than the SA conference.

Take the Reds losses in SA away and it look totally different, in fact the SA teams broke the Reds in SA.

SA teams are busy setting records in tour wins.

On Friday they emulated the Cheetahs’ 2012 record in Australasia, deservedly beating the embattled Blues 29-23 with a bonus point to boast a highly respectable tally of two wins from four matches abroad.
As a result the Sharks have nudged their way back into the top half of the overall table for the time being, and have the satisfaction of knowing that all eight remaining matches for them in the second half of ordinary season will be back on domestic terrain -- and overwhelmingly in Durban.

They must raise themselves one last time after the exertions of their travels for the encounter with the in-form Chiefs next weekend at Mr Price Kings Park, before having a well-earned bye.

Not too many years ago, just about any South African side in the competition would have given an arm and a leg to return from New Zealand and Australia with a 50% win record; now it is happily occurring rather more often.

As things stand in the current campaign, teams from our shores have played nine matches overseas, and emerged victorious from five of them.

Apart from the two triumphs each by the Sharks and Cheetahs, the Stormers won their first tour assignment against the Highlanders and now await the titanic encounter with the Crusaders on Saturday morning (09:35 SA time).

Two South African teams have not yet embarked on the long-haul, the Bulls and Lions (who play each other on Saturday evening), and as things stand the latter-named outfit look vulnerable to adversely affecting the rosy state of SA affairs “on the road”.

But even they may find that going overseas actually eases the various home pressures on them – last year against the odds they also earned two wins abroad.

Here is a reminder of the winning performances overseas thus far in 2012, in receding order: Blues 23 Sharks 29, Highlanders 6 Stormers 21, Brumbies 26 Sharks 29, Hurricanes 38 Cheetahs 47, Rebels 26 Cheetahs 33.

It seems apparent that, more and more, our teams are genuinely beginning to embrace touring as a pleasure rather than a burden.

When the Stormers saw off the Highlanders last week straight after a particularly murderous slog from Cape Town to Dunedin, their performance rather flew in the face of the argument that you are especially susceptible to defeat immediately after switching time zones to a major degree.

And after the Sharks’ heroics on Friday, so much for the theory (I admit I’d harboured this fear in the lead-up to the Auckland encounter myself) that you may mentally have “one foot on the plane” at the end of the overseas leg.

Keegan Daniel and company – the skipper has set a magnificent example with his dynamism and energy throughout the few Antipodean weeks – actually played more intelligently and purposefully in the second half against the Blues, when they might instead have been excused for their legs just “going” a bit.

This was by no means a flawless showing by the Sharks against a dreadfully spooked, crisis-torn Blues side: they remain error-prone and sometimes still indecisive in the first-time tackle, which can cause unnecessary scrambling angst.

But all they will care about in the immediate aftermath is that they pluckily banked a healthy five points before the trip back to the welcoming warmth of KwaZulu-Natal ...

There are reasons for this. Bring promotion / relegation into the conferense setup, like we have at the moment with the Kings and everything change. SA teams see the tour matches are bonusses these days.