Hiya Cobbers,
I hope you all had your fill of rugby over the weekend. What with the Super Final wherein the Cru executed the Blu, the Gallagher Premiership wherein the Tigers parried the Sarries and the United Rugby Championship wherein the Stormers steaked the Bulls, there was a veritable rugby smorgasbord to gorge on no matter what your preferred style of rare meat slapping into other rare meat.
The Cru and the Blu played typical Super style speed-rugby, the Sarries and Tigers seemed to kick, kick, and kick some more but still provided an extremely enticing match while the Jaapies do what they do best and belted seven shades of bovinial excrement out of each other.
In and among all that, I have to tip my hat to my nominations for MOTM – the Cru’s Sam Whitelock for an absolute masterclass of modern lock play and also to the cool-headed precision of Leicester Tigers No22 Freddie Burns. For the Jaapies, veteran hooker Deon André Fourie was a well-deserved MOTM; toughness personified.
Speaking of cool-headed precision, what was particularly interesting for me was watching the professional manner by which the Tigers forwards pods calmly set up the play for the crucial shot at drop-goal. Even at the 80th minute, under fatigue and under immense pressure, there was no panic, no silliness AND THUS NO DUMB PENALTIES when it came to chewing the time and manipulating the play to where it needed to be to allow their man to slot his shot. All Aussie franchises should be watching that sequence on rinse and repeat for a while.
That said, speaking further of smart footy (or the lack thereof…), Freddie Steward is, if not the biggest fullback in the game, then damn close to it. So why the Sarries insisted on kicking more than 2x dozen box kicks straight to him for the duration of the match, was a bit beyond me, especially once they were out of their own danger zone. Clearly it was a tactic, but a tactic to achieve what exactly?
Also, as a proud frontie, it was also very interesting to see how the Cru’s much less fancied replacement front-row absolutely turned the screws into their much more vaunted opponents in the back end of their match and frankly, made them look decidedly ordinary. Ofa Tu’ungafasi and Karl Tu’inukuafe had their arses handed to them by Tamaiti Williams and Fletcher Newell. That also then made me wonder a bit about how the AiBs are going to fare with the Irish scrum. And speaking of the famous getting monstered, I also found it enlightening that the much-vaunted, and apparently AiB shoo-in, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck was consistently sat down by Jack Goodhue until RTS was eventually given an early shower.
And lastly, at the risk of angering the rugby gods and thus putting the mockers on our own good Wobblies, I found the complete $hittbaggery play of the English, especially the complete schemozzle of their forwards, in losing to the BaaBaas to be enough to make me rub my hands together with glee and anticipation. Yes, I know it wasn’t their full side. But, I saw enough in that garbage to give an indication at least that those butchers apron wearing nonces are up for a good a-whacking.
All good stuff.
But enough of that palaver.
Welcome to Episode 14 of the Chewsday Chew. The purpose herein is not to write something overly sagacious, complicated or mesmerising, but rather to pose a simple observation, question or proposition and let the good readers of this esteemed site share their opinions thereafter. Call it the lazy man’s attempt to fill a void by poking our collective bear of rugby knowledge to share their reflections and lift the average beyond the humdrum.
And seeing as I was admiring the play of the Cru fronties in toweling the Blu fronties, admiring the Tigers piggies doing their thing to better serve some noncy kicker, and giving credit to Big Sammy Whitelock, I thought it only suitable I should heed Big Keithy and pay some small homage to that other oh-so-very piggy thing – the Cauliflowered ear.
Cauliflower ear occurs when blood collects in the outer ear after an injury and isn’t drained properly or becomes infected. That then starves the remaining, healthy cartilage of fresh blood. The healthy cartilage responds by overgrowing in the surrounding area resulting in our favourite bulbous deformities on the ear. Now I’ve always dealt with mine by cutting them and letting them bleed out in the showers. As a result, my ears are deceptively innocent looking for a guy who has spent +40yrs ‘Tally Ho-ing’ into the Row. But we have all seen some dead-set works of malformed art in our time. So who has you favourite stuffed domestic vegetables growing on their heads?
Now I think the favourite is undoubtedly Graham Rowntree with this gorgeous effort…
That said, I think Chris Jack had a definite thing going on in about 2006…
Our continental friends are not to be outdone of course and a prime example therein is Frenchman Fabien Pelous…
And even our own scrum doctor Tom Robertson picked up this wee specimen for dissection…
And credit where it is due, say what you like about him as a coach, but Michael Cheika has a pair of fair samplers as well…
Finally, I’ll toss in Kevvy Mealamu just to show that whatever you others think you can do, hookers will take it a bit too far…
And just for good measure, I thought to put this clip here for all the backs so you can see what it takes to fix them. Now to be fair, I just nick mine with a razor and let them ebb out in the showers. I find it far easier to get to them early before the blood starts to thicken. This is a far more civilised approach. But regardless, and acknowledging this guy is a wrestler and not a rugby player, but nonetheless here ’tis…
So come one and come all. Post up your favourite bloodied vegetables of the ear variety and as usual, more kudos for the more obscure…
