RWC 2027 Australia

waiopehu oldboy

waiopehu oldboy

Rocky Elsom (76)
Used to love McLaren trying to get that Scots accent around maori words & often getting the emphasis wrong e.g. man-a-WATU instead of MANAWA-tu. Mind you back then the NZers weren't much better, wasn't until Quinn came along that proper pronunciation became a thing.
 
Yoda

Yoda

Dick Tooth (41)
wamberal99 said:
Gordon Bray went to Homebush Boys High School, and represented NSW Combined High Schools at rugby. After leaving school he played for Eastern Suburbs.
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Unfortunately now, any decent CHS talent is offered a scholarship to a GPS or CAS school to play in their Mickey Mouse 5 game competitions ! Oh .. Go Shore... Go Kings! We need public school and country rugby strong for us to get better at a higher level. How we do that is the million dollar question?
 
JRugby2

JRugby2

Colin Windon (37)
Adam84 said:
Not sure the way “holistic” is being used here is really appropriate. Holistic doesn’t mean “writes about every other state or country.” It means covering the full picture of whatever area you’re reporting on, and I’d argue Tucker did that better than most.

He covered Queensland rugby in genuine depth: schools, clubs, pathways, Reds, politics, history, player movement; that’s a holistic view of the code in this state, his target market. Spreading yourself thin across multiple regions isn’t automatically more “complete,” it’s just broader. Tucker went deep, and depth of his knowledge in Queensland is what make/made him good writer.
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Good point - you can definitely go deep into a singular area but I think my argument stands in that, that can also limit you.

Probably just proves my larger point in that it's each to their own - and what defines a great writer is up to the reader.
 
Braveheart81

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Mr Pilfer said:
Yeah it doesn’t appear great now and 16 teams out of 24 moving through is definitely too many
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The only option to avoid that is having 4 pools of 6 with only the top two from each going through but that means playing 5 pool games and makes the tournament too long.

I don't think you can do 6 pools with 8 quarter finalists. 2 second placed teams progressing out of 6 is too random.
 
Slim 293

Slim 293

George Smith (75)
Two things -

1. The tournament needed to expand
2. The pool stage needed to be shortened

They could've had four pools of six with the top four from each pool going through to the round of 16, but then you've still got a bloated pool stage.

When you add more teams you're always going to initially have heavily uneven matches against tier one teams, but the goal is to achieve more competitive games against the mid to lower tiered teams with the top ranking sides having the luxury of utilising their full squad.

Ultimately in a couple of tournaments they can expand further to 28 32 teams and have a more fluid draw similar to FIFA.

But it's a step in the right direction... shorter pool stage with an additional knockout round featuring more teams vying for a finals spot.
 
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Wilson

Wilson

David Wilson (68)
It's an awkward schedule for now while we're at 24 teams, but there's no way we could make the jump to 32 teams (which produces a clean schedule) without smaller expansions to give more teams more regular opportunities. With the investment in the nations cup and the expanded schedule we'll hopefully see some big step ups from the '2nd 12' teams over the next couple of cycles, introducing some real jeopardy into the round of 16 games and paving the way for another step up
 
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W

wamberal99

Phil Hardcastle (33)
Yoda said:
Unfortunately now, any decent CHS talent is offered a scholarship to a GPS or CAS school to play in their Mickey Mouse 5 game competitions ! Oh .. Go Shore... Go Kings! We need public school and country rugby strong for us to get better at a higher level. How we do that is the million dollar question?
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It would take billions. I went to a selective High School many years ago, the school had rugby, cricket, and basketball programmes. All the coaches were teachers. Referees, umpires, etc were all volunteers (or teachers). We even had international rugby referees like Roger Vanderfield. Now from what I can gather, my old school (Fort Street) prioritises sports like Futsal, Basketball, Ultimate Frisbee, K-pop dancing on and on. A list of 19 sports and physical activities. Rugby Union is one of them.
 
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Heavyd

Heavyd

Alan Cameron (40)

Asked ChatGPT to do me a draw for 4 pools of 5. Several pools of death.​

​

Pool A​

  • France
  • NZ
  • Japan
  • USA
  • Chile

Pool B​

  • England
  • Australia
  • Georgia
  • FIJI
  • Portugal

Pool C​

  • Ireland
  • Argentina
  • Italy
  • Spain
  • Samoa

Pool D​

  • South Africa
  • Wales
  • Scotland
  • Uruquay
  • Tonga
 
Crashy

Crashy

Chilla Wilson (44)
Yoda said:
Unfortunately now, any decent CHS talent is offered a scholarship to a GPS or CAS school to play in their Mickey Mouse 5 game competitions ! Oh .. Go Shore... Go Kings! We need public school and country rugby strong for us to get better at a higher level. How we do that is the million dollar question?
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GPS is 10 games plus at least 5 games against other schools - you would not describe any of these non comp games as friendlies...
 
Yoda

Yoda

Dick Tooth (41)
wamberal99 said:
It would take billions. I went to a selective High School many years ago, the school had rugby, cricket, and basketball programmes. All the coaches were teachers. Referees, umpires, etc were all volunteers (or teachers). We even had international rugby referees like Roger Vanderfield. Now from what I can gather, my old school (Fort Street) prioritises sports like Futsal, Basketball, Ultimate Frisbee, K-pop dancing on and on. A list of 19 sports and physical activities. Rugby Union is one of them.
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Yes... sports like rugby are taking the back burner now unfortunately. Plus no teachers are passionate and want to coach it. Team sports are great and rugby for me was challenging, athletic, satisfying and had enough physicality to be good for you. Kids are too soft these days. Rugby lost a lot when rucking was eliminated. If it was reintroduced now and policed it would be a far better game, especially at higher levels. Still a great game and you're probably right... billions...
 
Yoda

Yoda

Dick Tooth (41)
Crashy said:
GPS is 10 games plus at least 5 games against other schools - you would not describe any of these non comp games as friendlies...
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Crashy... my point was a lot of the good players are CHS boys originally. Poached to bolster the Private school comp. I went to a GPS school when rugby had strong public high schools and private schools. Saw the 'poor' Matraville boys flog our Joeys boys at Hunter's Hill... the school was shattered... can't have the povo's beating an elite rugby school...Ella's... pretty handy for skinny young blokes!.. now High and Grammar are hopeless... and the CAS 'friendlies' are not part of the comp. Never have been I know. Can't have Waverley beating Scots officially can we? The old Waratah shield was a great competition that had teams from everywhere. So ... rugby shouldn't be a private school tosser sport.... more money post RWC should support local club rugby and get get more kids playing that... but .. as Wamberal said... that will probably take billions..
 
W

wamberal99

Phil Hardcastle (33)
Strewthcobber said:
Anyone who remembers Growden fondly didn't read enough of his stuff.

I'm not the first person to note how many great cricket writers there have been, and great books written, with no rugby union journalism or literature coming close.

Even rugby league has "This sporting life"
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"This Sporting Life" was a great film. Ironically Richard Harris loved rugby union, and is quoted as saying he would trade all his acting accolades for a chance to play for Ireland or Munster.
 
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