National Rugby Championship 2015

[TOCC]

Maybe Channel 9 doesn't like rugby union, but the NRL broadcast deal which provides the Thursday night matches was signed in 2012 well before the NRC was created, Channel 9 initially experimented with Thursday night footy during the opening rounds but found they get better ratings leading into the finals.


Moving forward for the NRC the Thursday night time slot is only going to become more crowded with the AFL and NRL signing for more games on this night in their new deals, but Monday night has now become vacant, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the NRC shift from Thursday night to Monday night games in the future.

 

[Train Without a Station]

I think that would be a smart move too TOCC. if you can't beat them, avoid them. The majority of NRC games are Saturday/Sunday and Monday ties in better for a game to game squad routine anyway.

 

[southsider]

Heartland XV rugby in NZ is pretty old school amateur. There are stories of Bus Drivers taking their boots along to a game because from time to time they are called on to ride the pine. Their players are tradies, teachers, coppers, dentists and farmers etc that have real jobs and play just for the love of the game. There may be the odd talented athlete there who chose a career in other than professional sport, but generally there will be no former NZ Schoolboys, or U20's or players on the fast track pathway to Darkness. Just "salt of the earth" part time rugby folk, just like the old days, or is this just me with my rose coloured 1970/80's glasses on..

cant be that bad a level, they televise it in NZ, or at least the finals they do.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

^^^^ and a bloody good thing that they do as well otherwise we would have missed this gem:

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Just saw on Twitter that the ball was in play for 41min and 14 seconds last night beating last seasons high of 37mins and 38 seconds.

 

[AussieDominance]

Just saw on Twitter that the ball was in play for 41min and 14 seconds last night beating last seasons high of 37mins and 38 seconds.

Whilst it's a good thing to hear hopefully we aren't preparing the next batch of touch footy players.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Whilst it's a good thing to hear hopefully we aren't preparing the next batch of touch footy players.

There's room for improvement in terms of ball in play while keeping the physicality. It's more about limiting the ability to time waste.

 

[TOCC]

Did you watch the game? Defence seemed to have improved from 2015..

If anything it might force the players to works on fitness a bit more, but overall the set piece and defence were still fundamental aspects of the game. City used the scrum as an attacking weapon.0


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[WorkingClassRugger]

Did you watch the game? Defence seemed to have improved from 2015..

If anything it might force the players to works on fitness a bit more, but overall the set piece and defence were still fundamental aspects of the game. City used the scrum as an attacking weapon.0




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I agree. The game wasn't lacking on the physicality front. The defence was much improved. I actually think that these variations should be rolled out at club level as a means of preparing for the NRC. Surely couldn't hurt.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Adding to that. I think there may be opportunities to build on that figure with things like 30 seconds to form and execute a line out and 60 secs to set up and take a conversion.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Look at some of the historic footage of rugby games on youtube.

Scrums were packed, fed, done and dusted and the pill was back in the hands of the Hairdressers in about 15 seconds after Sir blew the whistle to indicate that a restart was needed.

An undernourished looking winger with chicken legs tossed the ball into a Lineout about 19 seconds after the ball crossed the line of touch. There was no ball boy with a towel to dry the leather ball off either!

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Line outs were a lot less intricate back then. But still there's no reason they couldn't be sped up. The hit in the scrum has changed as well. From the old footage they tended to fold into the scrum. Which I think works better. The problem is taking that out removed some of the theatre from the game. I was actually told that by someone at the NSWRU when I was doing my coaching cert. I don't see much theatre in resets but who am I but an ex-prop.

 

[qwerty51]

Liam Gill and Benn Robinson have been named in the Barbarians squad to play Samoa next week in London.

 

[AussieDominance]

Did you watch the game? Defence seemed to have improved from 2015..

If anything it might force the players to works on fitness a bit more, but overall the set piece and defence were still fundamental aspects of the game. City used the scrum as an attacking weapon.0


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Yes I did I thought the game was much improved including defence. Rugby was better when everyone wasn't just trying to get big and wanted to be skilful and fit but defence is also a key aspect.

 

[boyo]

I watched the Rays v Stars match on foxsports.com.au
In the first half there was no muting of the audio on the replays and the commentators spoke over them - a poor state of affairs. Fortunately this was remedied by the second half.
Otherwise, it was good to have this match available.
A good match to watch.

 

[Lee Grant]

I'm just back from a schools game but the FoxSports site had a couple of "This video no longer available" blanks.

Anybody having luck in this regard at this time of the day - 7:30 pm?

I thought you could access these games for a while afterwards, not just live.
.

 

[Highlander35]

Think they said that replays would be up within 24 hours of live stream.

 

[Brumby Runner]

Think they said that replays would be up within 24 hours of live stream.

And I think also on the Buildcorpnrc site.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

2015 Round 1 Results

Brisbane City v Perth Spirit at Ballymore Stadium, Brisbane
Brisbane City 29 (K Hunt, J Laloifi, S Kerevi, J McIntyre tries; J McIntyre 2, H Taefu cons); defeated Perth Spirit 16 (K Koteka, A Cottrell tries; I Prior 2 cons)

North Harbour Rays v Sydney Stars at Manly Oval, Manly
Sydney Stars 45 (D Hickey, J Gordon, H Jones, T Robertson, J Hanson, T Coolican tries; A Roberts 5 cons) defeated North Harbour Rays (A Northam, M Adams, T Hill, J Holmes tries; H Angus 3 cons)

Greater Sydney Rams v NSW Country Eagles at Merrylands RSL Park, Sydney
NSW Country Eagles 32 (J Brooks, E Stubbs, A Kellaway, W Miller tries; J Lance 4 cons); defeated Greater Sydney Rams 31 (J Heyer, C Masson, P Asquith, J Gillespie, B Kapa tries; P Asquith, J Ayoub cons)

Queensland Country v Melbourne Rising at Bond University, Gold Coast
Melbourne Rising 39 ( B Meehan 2, L Taliu, S Fuglistaller, P Leafa, D Shipperley tries; J Debreczeni 3 Cons) defeated Queensland Country 31(C Mitchell, S Fa'agase, J Taulagi, R Leilua tries; S Green 2 cons)

2015 Buildcorp NRC Standings (after Round 1):
Sydney Stars 4 points
Brisbane City 4 pts
Melbourne Rising 4 pts
NSW Country Eagles 4 pts
Greater Sydney Rams 1 pt
Queensland Country 1 pt
Canberra Vikings 0 pts
Perth Spirit 0 pts
North Harbour Rays 0 pts


Round 2 Fixtures
Thu 27 August, Sydney Stars v Queensland Country; Leichhardt Oval, Sydney, 7:30pm - LIVE ON FOX SPORTS Channel 502
Sat 29 August, Melbourne Rising v Brisbane City, Harlequin Rugby Club, Melbourne, 2:00pm - foxsports.com.au and FOX SPORTS NOW
Sat 29 August, NSW Country Eagles v UC Vikings, Woollahra Oval, Sydney, 3:00pm - foxsports.com.au and FOX SPORTS NOW
Sat 29 August, Perth Spirit v North Harbour Rays, McGillivray Fields, UWA Park 3:30pm - foxsports.com.au and FOX SPORTS NOW

Greater Sydney Rams BYE

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Just had a quick once over the squads to see where the pro players are playing. I might be one or two out in my counts but the distribution of Super Rugby Contracted Players (Wallaby RWC squad excluded) is:
North Harbour Rays - 2
Greater Sydney Rams - 3
NSW Eagles - 9
Sydney Stars - 10
Brisbane City - 11
Queensland Country - 14
Canberra Vikings - 14
Melbourne Rising - 14
Perth Spirit - 14

It will be interesting to see if the results correspond with the amount of pro players in the squads.