The Chewsday Chew – How bizarre (Ep12-24)

Nǐ hǎo Cobbers,

Well wasn’t that a strange weekend? The Drua getting beaten at home, the Reds pulling a nudie win, the Force beating the Cru and the Donkeys not even showing up against the Blues. So without further ado, let’s step straight into it.

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Nutta’s Aussie Super TotW:

Selection rules: If you played for an Aussie Super franchise, you can get picked.

1. Ryan Coxon – the Force front row was immense and deserves his jersey.
2. Tom Horton – had a really strong day out.
3. Santiago Medrano – a superlative game.
4. Sam Carter – the old man showed his smarts and reminded a few how good he is.
5. Ryan Smith – maturing into a dominant lock with big things ahead.
6. Liam Wright – the silent assassin was omnipresent.
7. Carlo Tizzano – was everywhere and into everything.
8. Reed Princep – had a massive match with 25 odd tackles and led from the front.
9. Nic White – just bossed it.
10. Tom Lynagh – some very nice touches and proving to be quite tough.
11. Mac Grealy – 54 metres and 6 tackles by the best Aussie winger.
12. Hunter Paisami – as physical as ever but getting more accurate.
13. Sam Spink – a class footballer.
14. Suli Vunivalu – pies, touches, and an all-round good hit out.
15. Jock Campbell – a great game from the back.
16. Matt Faessler – plenty of touches, metres, no missed tackles and efficient lineout work.
17. Peni Ravai – lots of high-energy off the bench and was enough to squeeze out Slipper.
18. Jeff Toomaga-Allen – again another text book session.
19. Cormac Daly – 10 carries, 10 tackles and a great debut for the Irishman.
20. Charlie Cale – +20 tackles and the best of a poor mob.
21. Kalani Thomas – had a great run and took his opportunity with both hands
22. Hamish Stewart – showed his breadth of skills.
23. Ben Donaldson – plenty of involvement and generally astute stuff, especially off the tee.

General comments on TotW:

• I gave the starting row jerseys to the Force lads. Their work against quality opposition, particularly given they have hardly been riding high on confidence themselves, was just fantastic. As per Brissy’s commentary yesterday, the spell from Medrano in particular should be compulsory viewing for all aspirants of rugby’s most important jersey. Now some may question my use of the term ‘quality opposition’ as regards the Cru this season, but any front row including Joe Moody and Owen Franks is top notch. And Brodie McAlister is no muppet either. The Force Row earnt their wine on Saturday.
• My no7 for the weekend was NSW reject Carlo Tizzano. Yes he copped a yellow, but no7s run that risk. With a pie, an Aussie-topping 25 tackles and the Forcies registering over 20 turnovers, the guy had a monster session and he showed what he’s capable of when he’s playing in a parity pack. Credit where credit’s due.
• My sole Brumby was Charlie Cale and for two reasons: he made no obvious or face palm errors that I saw and he made 20/20 tackles. I’m happy to be corrected, but he was the best of an ordinary bunch on a very forgettable night.

Random Comments from a Random Guy:

The Brumbies: I have to call out last weekend’s game was the single worst performance by the Brumbies that I can recall having to endure in years, if ever. It was just terrible to watch, nothing worked. In saying that, it must be acknowledged that the Blues were coming in absolutely red hot after shafting the Force the previous week. The Blues continued on their ruthless way and had an almost perfect day out. Their execution should not be understated or not acknowledged in how good it was. If it was against anyone other than the my Brumbies I would likely be lauding the Blues effort and execution as a must watch display for the ages. But I’m not.

And the Donkeys also did a lot to hurt themselves, in particular with the aimless kicking early on that gave the Blues good field position and pies that put the Donkeys backs to the wall. And then a lack of composure at critical moments was clearly obvious alongside a tactical unawareness and inability to force a break in the match/Blues rhythm to give themselves a chance to effect a change.

But the biggest lesson of all was the willing ruthlessness of the Blues to finish what they started. There was no let up. There was no cruising. It was all-out 1000 miles per hour havoc and destruction from the first to the last blast of the whistle. So fair play to them and fair warning to everyone else.

The Force: In stark contrast to the point above, I would be remiss to not acknowledge the Force approach to the weekend just gone. To be clear, the Force have had a really tough season. And while the Cru of this year are not the Cru of years gone by, they are still the Cru. So hats off to Cron and his crew. After a 50-3 shellacking from the Blues, Cron and Co took a group of guys whose confidence levels must have been near completely shot, shaped them up and then sent them out to do a job. And out they went and execute they did. Well done to all involved.

The Reds: Will the real Slim Shadies please stand up. Is this the real Reds? Where have they been of late? Or is this a momentary Kiss in the pan again? I’m reminded of my Old Man at times like this and I hear his words in my ears: “What’s done is done, boy. All you can change now is what happens next.” So what’s it to be Queensland? What happens next? Are you going to continue what you started?

The Super Competition Balance: I saw a graphic over the weekend highlighting the year on year progression of Aussie Super teams performance against NZ teams. The message was that when comparing the current time of year results against previous years, after approx a dozen trans-Tasman matches had been played, Australian Super teams’ performances had moved from being 11-1 down in terms of a loss-win record, to now being much more 50/50 and on par. And the inference was that both Australian rugby was getting better and that possibly that NZ rugby was getting worse.

However, I would caution against putting too much faith in either of those two conclusions, as what I believe we are seeing is a natural lift in Aussie performance to be sure, but it is largely from the same group of players across the board. One would expect them to get better from another year of experience, combination and maturity plus coming off such a low base. Comparatively, the Kiwis are much more mature in their processes as they recommence the now oft-repeated cycle of Year1 of the World Cup build up wherein we see their mature players retire or go overseas for a year or two of financial and experiential growth, which opens the door to their next crop of new/replenishing players to shine through, before Year 3 and 4 comes around and we see the Kiwis lock down performances again as Bill year approaches.

So while I’m happy to see Aussie performances get better – and I genuinely think they are – let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the Kiwis are somehow a lot worse or suffering some sort of endemic decline. They are cycling through their oft-repeated World Cup rotation. It is what it is, but it’s not the Kiwi rugby existential crisis some folk claim it to be.

Marine v Marine: In what can only be described as avoiding a landmine, the Royal Marines only narrowly defeated the US Marines by 27-22 in a fiercely contested 2024 Virginia Gauntlet match last weekend, held on the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia (US obviously). Apparently the Virginia Gauntlet is an annual thing wherein the two sets of allies take to each other in triathlon, basketball, shotgun, rugby 7s, boxing, football and golf as well as the centerpiece of Rugby XVs. While I acknowledge that corporal punishment of service folk in western armed forces is a thing of the past these days, it would nonetheless have been a delicious bit of theatre to be a fly on the wall of dressing sheds if the Yanks had beat the English in a proper game of rugby. It’s not often I barrack for Seppos.

Closer to home, big ups to the Albury Steamers over the weekend with Troy Tatchell racking up his 250th game for the borders club. At the same time father and son Tom and Harry Harrington took the field together. For the pic they are joined by Leticia Harrington (naturally from the women’s squad) and as such all the family were out on the field last Saturday, with another daughter/sister Edwina playing in the junior competition, for the clubs Back to Murrayfield Family Day. If you don’t know of the Steamers, they deserve some hearty support if you ever get the chance as they truly are a lone outpost of our game in a heartland of AFL.

That said, a massive congratulations also has to go to the Tumut Bulls. The often strugglers of the Southern Inland competition have continued their stellar start to the 2024 season with a clean sweep of the Albury club on the day.

In Sydney town, the weekend just gone saw a replay of the Subbies 1st Division 1st grade grand final from last year when Blue Mountains took on Hunters Hill. Last year, Blueys held on against a monster comeback from Hunters to post an epic win in the history of the Lapstone club. This time around, Blueys maintained their dominance, but without the helter-skelter heart-in-mouth result, for a far more pedestrian 38-17 win. All up the Blueys won out across the day with 3 wins to 2 (plus 1 draw) and 90 points to 82. For those interested, a very real rivalry is continuing to grow between these clubs that will assure viewers of a full days entertainment each time they meet for years to come.

And speaking of Sydney rugby, there’s more than just chat that Penrith Emus will rejoin the fold of playing ranks with a motion to come into Subbies with a couple of sides in 2025 after the recent Penrith AGM. For those not familiar, the perennial Shute Shield strugglers were pushed out of Sydney top flight rugby by poor results and even worse player numbers some years ago. And so they went to John Dent Canberra rugby for a few years before ingloriously exiting that competition last year for the same reasons. Clearly a population base as big and rugby-friendly as western Sydney (with +2million people and +700 schools largely untapped) needs and deserves a strong rugby presence. And to that end it’s good to see Emus re-entering the fray. But frankly, for mine, the rugby landscape in western Sydney is still in dire need of direct RA/NSWRU/SRU intervention to harness the oh-so-obvious potential on offer, if only on the basis of stewardship and good of the game reasons.

And lastly for this week, congratulations to the Townsville Brolgas squad who will make the 4hr and 15min trek northwards to Cairns next weekend for Round 6 of the FNQ competition. Yep, 4 and a quarter hours one way. So I think that settles things for a few of us city folk whining about a measly 30 minutes across town away game occasionally.

That’ll do for me today. I’m interested in all your thoughts regarding TotW, or rugby in western Sydney, or whatever else I have said to stir you up. So rip into the chat below and get involved. And don’t forget or neglect to reach out to me if you want me to highlight your club at some stage.

Have a safe and reflective ANZAC folks. And good luck to your team this weekend.