Monday’s Rugby News has: Mick’s handy hints on how Australian rugby could be better, the Brumbies looking for a new coach, Dave Wessels wagging his finger, and Scotland saying nay.
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Byrne Sez
Mick the Kick reckons unstructured rugby skills are paramount in the new, dark world of ABs dominance.
“My view is that we should have five teams,” Byrne told the Australian. “Why? Because we’re not watering down our talent, we’re not developing our talent. Every single player out there wants to be better and we’re not doing enough work to make them better.”
Byrne reckons Australia are stuck in a time warp of playing ruggers like it was played at the turn of the millennium.
“The structured game was absolutely what killed the opposition [back then],” Byrne said. “We were smart. We manipulated defences and we got on with it. Now the game has got to the point where only 60 per cent is structured, while the other 40 per cent is unstructured.
“All around the country, I watch teams doing their lineouts, doing their lineout drives. But they’re not doing any plays in an unstructured environment.
“We need to upskill our players, get them into that 40 per cent part of the game. We’re scoring on the structured part of the game. We have plenty of players who can fill five teams and we have to find a way to keep five teams going.
“That’s where we’re going to get the development going and in four or five years we’ll have five teams that are competitive.”
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Brumbies Looking
With Stephen Larkham moving on to the Wallabies at season’s end, the Brumbies are looking for a new coach. Like with pretty much everything else, their search has been made difficult due to Super circumstances.
Despite this uncertainty, the ARU (which has a hand in coaching recruitment across the Super franchises) have not intervened in the Brumbies’ process.
At this stage, the Canberra Times reports that “Brumbies assistant coach Dan McKellar and former coach Laurie Fisher were part of the short list to fill Larkham’s shoes when he joins the Wallabies in a full-time role.”
The article also reports that, “Australian teams are set to push the ARU for an increased salary cap and bigger squads if one of the franchises is axed from Super Rugby in the coming weeks.
“The uncertainty surrounding the competition and individual teams has left players in limbo and some overseas clubs are already circling recruitment targets.
“If an Australian team is exiled, players with contracts beyond the end of this year will be spread around to the remaining franchises and it is believed all clubs are starting to examine rosters for the future.
“The ARU sets a salary cap of $5 million for a squad of 30 full-time players per Australian team, but it is not known if those figures will increase to accommodate for players from an axed club.”
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Axing Not A Fix
Western Force coach Dave Wessels reckons that cutting an Australian Super team won’t do anything, really.
“(I’m) extremely confident of the future, for any number of reasons. I have connections back to South Africa and I feel like there’s a high chance that things (won’t) change in South Africa,” he told RUGBY.com.au (sic – no, really they capitalised the rugby).
“The biggest frustration for me in the whole argument is if we took our team – let’s say we took 15 guys and we divided them against four other teams is that really going to make the difference between us and the Kiwi teams at the moment?,” he said.
Wessels then answered his own question: “The answer is no.”
“New Zealand rugby is better than us at the moment because their entire ecosystem is better and I think the old adage of, ‘you only fix the leak in the roof when it starts raining,’
“It’s been raining in Australian rugby for the last little while and there are certainly people who are now working very hard to fix the hole in the roof.
“We’re not seeing the benefit of that just yet but I think some of the systems that particularly (ARU high performance manager) Ben Whitaker is putting in place are going to really pay dividends over the next couple of years and I think there’s a really good future for Australian rugby.”
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You Cannae Do That
There’s gonna be a new global rugby calendar in a few years time, where June test window becomes the July test window and Super doesn’t get interrupted.
This means that the Six Nations would probably be better off – certainly England things so – by moving from 7 weeks (two byes) to 6 weeks (one bye).
But Scotland ain’t having a bar of it.
“My view is that seven to six weeks is a retrograde step and it’s a dangerous step as far as player welfare is concerned,” SRU’s chief Mark Dodson told BBC Scotland.
Dodson also insists the unions in Ireland, Wales and Italy share his view.
“We’re going to look after our boys,” he said.
“Anybody who has just witnessed the intense physicality in this last Six Nations and wants to reduce that down to six weeks is taking a huge gamble with player safety.
“There will be discussion over the next month and we’re very clear of how we feel. I’d imagine other people will be equally clear and will share our views.”
Dodson continued:
“Nations with smaller player pools are going to be compromised and hit far harder by a six-week competition.”
“So you’re going to make the Six Nations championship less competitive at a time when the tournament is at an all-time high in terms of popularity and broadcast revenues.”
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