Greetings earthlings and welcome to another Friday’s Rugby News, brimming with stuff that historians will later reckon is largely inaccurate.
Today we investigate another World Rugby thought bubble in ‘Clubs dash for cash’. Preview the last regular season round of SRP with ‘Like lambs to the slaughter’. Head to South Australia on purpose for ‘Steelers Wheel’. Look into breaking news out of NZ in ‘Even their kids cheat’, before wrapping up another rugby week with ‘Friday’s Goss with Hoss’, now almost three days alcohol free.
Clubs dash for cash.
Another week, another new competition idea gets trotted out, this time the Club Rugby World Cup.
It seems what we’ve all been waiting for is a global club challenge, to be held every four years from 2028. The idea being that eight of the top Champions teams in Europe (I know, they think they have eight good teams, God bless ’em) would join with seven SRP sides (way too many) and one Japanese side in two pools of six for the Club Rugby World Cup.
Me? I am ho -hum about the idea. Especially given we have the Nations Cup coming on board and the likely expansion of SRP in years to come, it just seems a competition for a competition’s sake. I get they want to play up the whole north against south tribalism and ‘my team is better than your team’ stuff. But it’s the north FFS. The only things they ever win is against other sides from the north; we all know true rugby greatness resides down south. Let them have their meaningless cups and comps and 6Ns, because when it really matters they go missing on the biggest stage.
Having said that, I’m sure that certain cash rich Middle Eastern states will throw plenty of blood oil money at it to get it started. planetrugby.com has the story.
Like lambs to the slaughter.
Hats off to SRP this year. It’s the last round of the regular season with eight sides still fighting for a top six spot. First, second and third could all change spots while there’s genuine intrigue and real permutations in every match. Check out Happy’s Thursday News for all the team news. For fearless predictions and tips you can (nearly) bank on, read on.
Friday May 30 5:05 pm AEST – Highlanders v Chiefs at Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin, on Stan Sport.
Highlanders 11th on 20 points. Chiefs 1st on 46 points.
With only pride and possible avoidance of the spoon to play for, will the Highlanders do a Bon Jovi and go down in a blaze of glory, or will the chance to finish #1 and then play all games at home be enough for the Chiefs to seal the deal?
Fearless Prediction: There ain’t no way the Chiefs will want to hit the finals on the back of a loss and nor will they: Chiefs by 38 and the spoon to the Landers.
Friday May 30 7:35 pm AEST – ACT Brumbies v Crusaders at GIO Stadium, Canberra, on Stan Sport
Brumbies 3rd on 43 points. Crusaders 2nd on 45 points.
It’s simple, by the time kickoff comes around these teams will know they are 99.99% likely to be playing for 2nd spot, 3rd spot at worst.
There’s a fair bit of statistical history and importance in this one. A Brumbies win will see them with their first top #2 finish in 21 years. Yep, that surprised me too. Plus, should they win in week one of the finals, it will lock in a week two home game as well and possibly the final (depending on other results). It’d be a normal person’s nightmare but a Brumby player’s fantasy, not leaving the ACT. And don’t underestimate the importance of playing at home for no Australian team has ever won a finals match in New Zealand since the competition began in 1996. Yep, not ever.
The Ponies are without talismanic skipper 7As who is out with a calf strain. Given 7As age (73 when converting tight head years to human years) and importance to Wallabies campaigns, it’s a good call. As a result, though, they are a little thin on the pine. The Canberrans welcome Noah Lolesio back to the #10 jersey after a pretty frightening injury scare a few weeks back with coach Bernie Larkham obviously confident Lolo is good to go.
The Crusaders, well, they’re the Crusaders and you don’t win the title something like 63 times in a row by being a bad rugby side. I can’t wait to watch this one, especially the forward battle with the added bonus of Lolo v JOC3.0 and it’s Wallaby jersey implications.
Fearless Prediction: Brumbies at home by 8. The rise of the Australians continues. Go you good things.
Saturday May 31 2:35 pm AEST – Blues v NSW Waratahs at Eden Park, Auckland, on Stan Sport
Blues 7th on 28 points. Waratahs 8th on 26 points.
Quite possibly the battle for 6th place, but neither side deserves it. Let’s be honest, both these sides are bin-juice this year and the fact that one of them could win and theoretically jump into the six at the expense of Moana Pasisika will be a bigger injustice than when I was refused a refund for two tickets to that movie ‘Australia’. If there’s ever been more dross, more cinematic faeces shone onto a screen in this country, I’m yet to see it. Maybe that’s why Hugh Jackman and his mum have had a bust up; she saw the movie and went ‘that’ll do me’.
For the Tahs, like lambs to the slaughter they have two kids who still watch Bluey starting at 9 and 10. The team hasn’t won in Auckland for almost 90 years. They have a prop who thinks he’s a Spanish soccer player going around tripping everyone, a souffle in the second row and are without their best and only fetcher, Charlie Gamble, out injured. This match will also likely be the last in a Tahs jersey for Clubba Langi Gleeson, Hugh Sinclair, Mahai Vailani to name a few and if things go bad early (and they will) this could get real ugly, real quick.
As for the Blues, who really cares? The sooner this festering turd of a season is over for both sides the better.
Fearless Prediction: The most humane thing here would be a 3-3 draw and they both miss the six as neither deserve to go on any further. Nor should they be allowed to continue to inflict severe emotional damage on their fans.
Saturday May 31 5:05 pm AEST – Hurricanes v Moana Pasifika at SKY Stadium, Wellington, on Stan Sport
Hurricanes 4th on 34 points. Moana Pasifika 6th on 28 points.
The MP side will be sweating bullets surrounding the Blues v Tahs result. Should the Blues win and score a bonus point, MP will miss the six altogether based on for & against. Should the Blues win with no BP, the MP will need to win with a BP to claim a top six spot.
As for the Canes, would any team want to face them right now? They’ve got their game humming, brutal up the middle and deadly out wide, and they’ll cause a real stir come finals time.
The magnitude of the loss to the Chiefs last week has the MP campaign on life support and a priest has been called to the hospital.
Fearless Prediction: Canes by 25 and MP out of the six, Blues in.
Saturday May 31 7:35 pm AEST – Queensland Reds v Fijian Drua at Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, on Stan Sport.
Reds 5th on 33 points. Drua 10th on 20 points.
The team formally known as the Reds could slip to 6th on the ladder, pending this (and other) results this weekend, and by kickoff will be masters of their own domain. The Drua, like the Highlanders, will be trying to avoid the wooden spoon.
The good news is that for the Reds, one little ol’ bonus point from the match is all that’s needed for them to lock in 5th spot (and a likely showdown with either the Brumbies or the Crusaders next week). If they fail to get a BP, then it’s likely off to Chiefland for week one of the finals and good night nurse.
I’ve been flummoxed by you Reds fans in raptures over last week’s loss. ‘What a good game it was’. ‘What high class rugby’. Blah blah blah. Let me remind you, your side was 1st on the ladder five weeks back. Yet here you all are celebrating the rank mediocrity on display since then and their abject slide down the pecking order.
The saving grace for you banjo enthusiasts is you run into a Drua side with nothing to play for. As much as we all like to romanticise that with nothing to lose the Drua will be more dangerous and flamboyant, reality shows nothing could be further from the truth. Far from home and nothing to play for I reckon the Drua will be dispirited, disjointed, dysfunctional, ill tempered, ill disciplined and ill-advised and just going through the motions, counting the minutes for the full time whistle to blow and their miserable season to end.
Fearless Prediction: Reds by 32: hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to Canberra you go. Celebrate now Reds fan. You have two games left in your season. Just one more than the Tahs. Yikes.
Steelers wheel.
Wheelchair Rugby Australia will this week host the Wheelchair Rugby World Challenge in Adelaide, the City of Churches (so called because of all the facilities required to bury the victims of serial killers, that and ‘the city of completely unhinged thumb suckers brutally whacking people’ scored poorly with a tourism focus group).
This from WRA’s website: The Wheelchair Rugby World Challenge, a new event on the global wheelchair rugby calendar, will see the all-conquering Australian Steelers play at home for the time since 2018 against 5 of the world’s best! The new competition will run alongside the existing Wheelchair Rugby National Championship and a newly introduced juniors division ensuring Adelaide will now host the largest wheelchair rugby event in the world in 2025.
Those in Oz can watch on KAYO or FUX Sports. Those unfortunate enough to live in NZ can forget their worries for a while and tune into SKY to see these terrific athletes in action. Murderball is back baby.
Oi, Natho, be nice if RA actually had some media coverage of this too, don’t you think?
Even their kids cheat.
Fresh from James O’Connor’s explosive insights in a G&GR exclusive interview last week regarding the proliferation of Kiwi cheating, evidence just in from stuff.co.nz (watch the video) showing rampant cheating at a first XV grudge match in NZ.
Rather than sanction the young man involved, this writer understands the NZRU have fast tracked his progress and signed him to an ABs contract allocating him the #7 jersey.
Hmmmm.
Friday’s Goss with Hoss.
Cole fired, no more.
English & Lions prop Dan Coles has finally called time on his stellar career. At age 38 the tighthead prop finishes with 118 Pommy test caps to his name. Dan played for England from 2010 to 2024 winning three 6 Nations titles in that time, but no World Cups because the north sucks at RWCs. He also has three Lions test caps as well as 14 Lions appearances overall. Well played that man.
Bloody hell people.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, referees are human beings. A Kiwi football union is calling out a pattern of worrying and escalating abuse against match officials in their area and saying enough is enough. The Horowhenua-Kāpiti (pronounced ‘place over there’) Rugby Football Union (HKRFU) is considering cancelling games after a referee was threatened with being stabbed. Surely anybody making such a threat needs to be arrested. thepost.co.nz has the story.
What’s in a name?
So RA cannot use the term ANZACs for the AU/NZ team to face the Lions in Adelaide huh. Ok, so why not the ANZATs: Australia New Zealand Adelaide Team. You’re welcome RA, but I’ll be sending an invoice for an obscenely large amount.
Coachella
The assistant coaches for the ANZAT side have been confirmed with Simon Cron and Zane Hilton added to the coaching team. Cron and Hilton join the headline act of Les Kiss and Razor Robertson fan, Ian Foster, to oversee the team for the Adelaide fixture. Just on that, word on Inside Line is that there are likely to be 4/5 Kiwis in the squad along with those on the periphery of Wallaby selection, and perhaps an appearance from one M. Hooper.
Really old rugby men shouting at clouds.
Two fan favourites of the Reds, Sanchez Genia-san and Quadoku Cooper-san, will sign off from Japanese rugby this weekend when they trot out for the Hanazono Liners (which I believe are used to keep your underwear fresh in warmer climates) when they play game #2 of their relegation battle with Mie Heat (a cream used to reduce inflammation and swelling).
The pair of 37 year olds are yet to declare for any side next year, and it’d be fitting for the halves combo at the Reds the Rebels, the Wallabies and Hanazono to call time together at the final whistle. Although Sanchez is telling anyone who’ll listen, and those who don’t even ask, that he’s keen to play in the ANZAT side. While that might be true the odds are extremely unlikely.
With 190 test caps between them I’m sure all rugby fans join with G&GR in thanking these two for all that they’ve given to rugby in Oz and beyond. Go well gents.
Fantasy League
Bragging rights are on the line people as we enter the round after the penultimate one for Fantasy League. Can the holmanist hold on? Can Gordos Gaul bridge the gap and is Dmacdaddy really D-Mac’s Daddy? All will be revealed next week.
There can be only one.
Until next week. Go the Tahs Brumbies.
Hoss – out
