The point was that some of those guys (depending on how far they go in their Japanese season) might not be in Australia prior to round 1.
Anyone playing in Japan immediately prior to the super rugby should have a mandatory three weeks sitting on a beach. Interspersed with some personal fitness work, of course. And then another three weeks coming off the bench, no 1 to 15 selections during that period.
Still nothing of the assistant coaches?
Anyone playing in Japan immediately prior to the super rugby should have a mandatory three weeks sitting on a beach. Interspersed with some personal fitness work, of course. And then another three weeks coming off the bench, no 1 to 15 selections during that period.
Haha - when I posted that, I knew someone would come up with an example like that. I didn't think of him - although I did think Tui's form tailed off at the end of the season (but maybe that was more to do with the environment here).Hendrick Tui went ok last year for us.
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Fair points Amirite, and you sound more on top of this than me - but people coming back from Japan haven't tended to go well going straight into a super rugby season.
I get that we need our best players to give us the best chance to win, but we also need our players at their best, particularly at the pointy end of the season. Who'd be a coach?
How wold Japan rugby compare to a good trial game?
I realise that in Japan it is a full season and not just 2 or 3 games but surely Japan makes them "game fit" for the upcoming season.
It is common in NRL for top line players who are aging and have injury issues to only train on a limited schedule.
Does a player like George Smith really need to practice as much as Gunn? Surely at some point his skills developed over decades as well as his rugby brain would allow him to skip a session a week to keep him fresher.
Jacques Potgeiter also played in Japan 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 the years he was at the Waratahs.
But if they want to return to play Super rugby the onus is on them to be able to manage their foorball to maintain a certain level of performance so maybe contracts in the first year of return should be performance based.