Happy Monday G&GRs, and I hope you had a wonderful weekend to recover from that short work week with plenty of rugby to keep you entertained. One of the reduced rounds this weekend, but that didn’t stop the spectacle of rugby. The Hong Kong Sevens were on, however, I won’t be covering it as I didn’t get time to watch it, and to be completely honest I know very little about Sevens and only have played one game of it in my life. We will also have a look at where the SRP 24 ladder sits. And to wrap it up we will look at Western Force’s craziest and most disappointing recruitment to date.
So sit down and grab a double shot ☕ of that wonderful magic liquid, and let’s get into it.
As always this is a fan-run site and any contribution is welcome, feel free to reach out to me at bris@greenandgoldrugby.com.au be it with an article an idea, or an opinion piece. There’s also a ‘Submit a Story’ option. So feel free to have a crack as the more the merrier.
Super Rugby Pacific 2024 – Round Six
Auckland Blues 50 defeated Western Force 3
What can only described as completely shithouse, the Twiggy Forrest All Stars were given a ‘six of the best trouser down old school flogging’ in Auckland on Friday night. They were unable to cross the line for a single try, and their only points came from a penalty. The Auckland forwards were just too powerful, it was like watching baby seals get clubbed to death.
The Blues managed to dot down 8 tries in the game, with halfback Funaki getting a double. But the reality was, that the forwards were the defining point in this game. Every time there was a scrum, the Blues forwards overpowered the Western Forces pack at will, earning scrum penalty after scrum penalty. Enabling kicks for touch, rolling mauls, try, rinse, and repeat. Going to oranges up 28-3.
Hoping that Simon Cron would be able to inspire his boys, or alter the game plan enough to stop having his forwards dismantled in the second half proved to be wishful thinking. Hoskins Sotutu and Corey Evans both grabbed meat pies for the Blues within 5 minutes of the second half commencing.
If there was any resistance before, it was certainly gone after that with the Force defence becoming completely passive and ineffective missing a staggering 28 tackles in the game. This cements the Force to the bottom of the ladder.
Melbourne Rebels 41 defeated Fiji Drua 20
In what turned out to be an anti-climatic game in some regards and a stunner in others, the solid performance by the Melbourne Rebels in their victory over the Fiji Drua could end up having monumental impacts on the remainder of the season. In a game that had more brain explosions than a Kurt Cobain autobiography, the Fijians’ discipline went out the window in utter style.
Fijian Drua coach, Mick ‘The Kick’ Byrne, apologised to Fijian fans for his team’s appalling discipline and brain explosions losing two players to shiraz’s naughty corner. At one stage the Drua were down to 13 players for over 15 minutes, and as good as the Fijians are, they weren’t good enough to hold out the fast-finishing Melbourne Rebels with 2 players warming the pine. Initially, the Drua were leading 20-8 just short of half-time, but then the wheels drastically fell off. The first serve of cheddar cheese for Fiji enabled Melbourne to re-enter the game from what was looking like a bit of a spanking coming their way. Leading up to the Rebels managing to score 33 unanswered points and taking the choccies. The Rebels showed discipline and a solid game plan to counter and disrupt the Fijians style, with solid outings from Carter Gordon, Louwrens, and a strong appearance off the bench for Taniela Tupou.
But this game will be remembered for the complete lack of discipline from the Fijians. Elbowing another player to the back of the head in front of the referee is never going to end well. And it didn’t for Frank Lomani, who has been having a stunning season so far to date. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to have a few more weeks on the pine. As well Jone Koroiduadua getting a red for a weak attempt at a head-butt, the Fijian’s night was over.
While in no way does this author endorse acts of thuggery like this, to be honest, there is a small degree of sympathy there for the frustrated Fijians. Damon Murphy isn’t my favourite whistle-blower, and his interpretation of the breakdown was pretty average at best. Allowing players to clean out well past the breakdown and interfering with the 9. The Fijian players raised this with Muprhy a number of times during the game, and yet he did nothing. The Fijians became frustrated by this, and Melbourne having noted Frank Lomani’s volatile nature from the game against the Force, where Lomani and Nic ‘The Lip’ White danced the tango a few times, decided that they were going to push his buttons. This in conjunction with unconfirmed Fijian sledging (allegedly racist in nature) from reportedly both the crowd and other players, Lomani lost his crackers and lashed out.
Don’t get me wrong, Melbourne deserved to win this game and were the better team. But Murphy’s refereeing of this game was inconsistent and in this author’s opinion lopsided. I would love to hear the G&GR peeps’ view on this one.
Waikato Chiefs 68 defeated Moana Pasifika 12
The Chiefs through the brutal victory over Moana Pasifika, have proved that with D-Mac running the show they are a very different beast. They smacked down the MPs 68-12, coming back hard after their surprising loss to the Canterbury Crusaders.
The Chiefs started well and dominated possession and territory throughout the game controlling Moana Pasifika. D-Mac demonstrated his patience, control, and ability to steer his team with immense talent and vision. On top of this, he booted 9 from 9 to start with and then fluffed his lines on his last kick of the game, proving that cheeky little smile before he kicks doesn’t always work.
The second half started getting ugly for Moana Pasifika, with the Chiefs being in total control and looking like they could just dot them down whenever they wanted to. It started to look like a training run for the Chiefs. Moana Pasifika has significant work to do if they want to scrape themselves off the lower realms of the table.
ACT Brumbies 40 defeated NSW Waratahs 16
The Puppy Killers have delivered a comprehensive victory over the hapless Waratahs 40-16 in Canberra, making the Tahs look like a D-grade local team. Sorry, I retract that, that is an insult to all the D-Grade local sides out there that battle hard and show some skills.
The Tahs started off reasonably in the first half of the game, defending well particularly for the first quarter of the game. But it was ‘Big Sideshow Bob’ who opened up the game for Larkham’s Ponies, going through Tane ‘Sloth’ Edmed like he was a turnstile and banging down a 5-pointer.
Although the Tahs only trailed by 3 points at oranges, their skills, discipline, and defence capitulated and the Brumbies started to bring the hammer down on the hapless Tahs. Although it wasn’t all one-way traffic with the Tahs managing to get a try on the board at the 65-minute mark through Charlie Gamble (who was one of the Tah’s least bad players).
However, from that point, it was one-way traffic, with the Ponies through Corey Toole and Charlie Cale demonstrating that speed and power rule supreme. The Tahs season continued to spiral downwards for the rest of the game. And in another bad piece of luck for the Tahs, Angus Bell suffered an injury to the same foot that affected his last season.
The Brumbies start was a little slow, but they pulled themselves together and their rhythm and momentum came together, particularly in the second half. The Tahs on the other hand looked good in the first 15-20 mins and then slowly but slowly fell apart. One would have to say that their season is well and truly over.
Super Rugby Pacific 2024 – Ladder
There have been several big changes to the ladder, but too much can’t be read into these due to the split-round system that Super Rugby Pacific utilises. this will start to even itself out as the round winds out. But let’s just say, that the bottom three, well really the bottom four are a truly accurate representation. With only the Crusaders having much of a chance to dig themselves out of there. The Tahs, Western Force, and MP are likely to stay there for the rest of the season.
Western Force – What the #$%& are you guys thinking?
Well, there were rumours of it a couple of weeks ago, but low and behold the least likely team (in my opinion) to sign Kurtley ‘Gilbert’ Beale have done so. Via an injury to Harry Potter, the Western Force have signed the most controversial player in Australian rugby on a short-term contract.
Longtime G&GR readers will know that I’m not the biggest fan of Beale. I consider him to be not the most skilled of players, although he can be scintillating in attack Kurtley is one of the worst defenders in rugby history. And this isn’t including his off-field incidents, which I won’t list here, because I’m not sure our back-end servers can list them all. But let’s just all agree he is a renowned shite bag of the ocean-going variety.
I genuinely don’t see what the upside is in this for the Western Force. It’s a huge risk culturally to bring one of the worst-behaved players in Australian rugby history into your team environment. At 35 his skills, speed, and capabilities are waning. Despite what the crew from Stan Rugby and the Shouty Site say, I think this is a very backward step for the Western Force and one that I think is only going to cause them more problems.
Anyway, that’s enough for this Monday. Over to you G&GRs, have at it.
