Monday’s Rugby News has Cheika’s reaction to the Ireland game, worrying rumours about Rory Arnold’s future, and all the scores from the weekend!
[one_half last=”no”]
Cheika Sad
Wallabies coach Michael Cheika is a bit sad after Ireland got in the way of progress in denying the Wallabies a Grand Slam on the weekend.
“Very disappointing, the manner of it too; the controversy around a lot of those things,” Cheika said, according to the SMH. “It’s not dented my enthusiasm for the tour at all. We’ve had a great tour so far, we’ve improved a lot.”
“There’s a lot of new players in our squad and this is what we came here to do. We brought these guys over to get into the heat of these cauldrons and make better decisions and learn how to play. We’ll keep doing that over this year and next year and get our mix right.
“We’ll be hurting obviously tonight and then tomorrow we’ll dust ourselves off and get ready for next week,” added Cheika.
“In this sport you take your disappointments forward with you and you say, ‘OK, that hurt, I don’t want to hurt again.[We want to] go out there and try to make a difference, make a better impact and contribution in the next game.
“You can’t cry about it once it’s over. It’s gone now, just getting on to the next thing.”
GAGR’s very own Dean Mumm also threw his 2c in.
“It’s a pretty jagged pill,” said Mumm of falling short of a grand slam. “We weren’t shying away from the fact that we came here to have a go at a grand slam and you obviously need to get all of them to have the chance to do that so the team’s hurting as am I that we can’t get an opportunity to do that.”
On that note, Mumm also admitted fault for his lifting tackle that got him sin-binned.
[/one_half][one_half last=”yes”]
Cheika Mad
The Wallabies coach has had World Rugby’s chief refereeAlain Rolland’s number on speed dial this year, and he’s keen to have another chat with him over what happened on the weekend.
“I thought we played a lot of footy in the end but we got penalised a lot, didn’t we?,” the Daily Telegraph reports Cheika as saying.
“A 13-3 penalty count and that costs you field position, costs you territory and obviously points as well, so you can’t win a Test match if you’re giving away that many penalties, or that big a difference between the two teams, impossible,” Cheika said.
“It’s all about consistency of the application of the laws. (David) Pocock was taken out about 10 metres beyond the maul (before Ireland’s first try). That’s something that we would have got penalised for against New Zealand a few weeks ago.”
“But Ireland played well and they deserve to win because they put us under pressure in the first half in particular and we got too far behind,” Cheika said, in a comment that will be no doubt overlooked by All Blacks-supporting manchildren eager to prove a point on the internet.
Cheika had a lot more to say about certain refereeing decisions, but told the press he didn’t want to tell them and get in trouble.
“We have to do that stuff with the refs mate, they’ve told us that we can’t talk about it in public because they don’t want the interpretations being made public, that’s the edict they’ve given us and we can’t say anything about it,” he said.
“We’d love to but we’re not allowed to. I don’t want to get myself in any strife and I think we’ve made the point clear and we’ll go through the proper channels with Alain Rolland and we’ll get onto the game.”
[/one_half][one_half last=”no”]
Arnold Going Going Gone?
Reports, like the one on Fox Sports, came out on the weekend that Toulon were interested in snatching up Rory Arnold, with rumours of a $570,000 salary abounding. However, good news comes from the Daily Telegraph this morning that Arnold isn’t interested.
“Is that right? I haven’t read anything about that yet,” Arnold said, when asked by eager journos who probably hate the Wallabies too (Why are you telling him if he doesn’t know??? Gawd! Keep it under wraps you fools).
“I’m enjoying my time in Australia at the moment and with the Brumbies. We’ll see what happens there. I’m off contract next year so we’ll start getting in talks with the ARU and with the Brumbies now.”
That last sentence does hint of Arnold’s vague future plans, which may include a stint overseas. “Maybe [I’ll go overseas], I’m still pretty young and pretty fresh to the game,” Arnold said. “I don’t think I’m at that point where I want to head off too early. We’ll see what happens.”
“I’m enjoying my time in Australia at the moment,” Arnold said. “This is my second season of Super Rugby and first season of Test match rugby. I’m enjoying it and looking forward to many more games.”
Toulon are apparently also interested in picking up Tevita “Kanye”* Kuridrani while they’re shopping in Canberra, with Adam Ashley-Cooper’s Bordeaux also having a sniff around TK.
*No one actually calls him that. But they should
[/one_half][one_half last=”yes”]
Weekend’s Results
This week was the end of the 2016 road for most teams, with the Wallabies vs England game being the only the match on next weekend.
As always, there were a couple of belters this weekend past, with a few shocks too. Italy was again in the spotlight, this time losing to Tonga 19-17. That means that South Africa are officially worse than Tonga.
England beat Argentina 27-14, despite playing with fourteen players for 76 mins. Tiny and Humble New Zealand somehow keep managing to rack up wins, beating Big and Strong France 24-19, while the Crab Juice Classic between Wales and South Africa yielded a 27-13 win to the Welsh.
Also, on Friday night/Saturday morning, Samoa played Canada in Grenoble and beat them 25-23. That was thanks to 19-year-old Southland player D’angelo Leuila, who scored four penalties, one conversion and two drop goals (20 points in total). Quite a game, huh?
Full Results:
Australia 24 Ireland 27
England 27 Argentina 14
France 19 New Zealand 24
Wales 27 South Africa 13
Italy 17 Tonga 19
Scotland 43 Georgia 16
Fiji 38 Japan 25
Romania 36 Uruguay 10
Germany 36 Brazil 14
[/one_half]
GRAND SLAM CRAFT BEER
There’s only one thing better than watching a clinical David Pocock pilfer, and that’s drinking some craft beer while you watch your rugby.
Green & Gold Rugby has teamed up with The Craft Beer Market to offer a stonking deal for you. For $84 delivered, you can get your hands on 16 of the finest craft beers around.
This pack has everything – pilsners, pale ales, Indian pale ales, golden ales, bright ales, double lagers (if there can be Two Dads, there can be double lager, right?), wheat ales, chardonnay IPAs, and summer ales.
All you have to do is enter the code “GAGR84” to receive your discount on a lineup of beers that would give the current Wallabies XV (plus coach Cheika) a run for their money.
