It’s Top 5 time again and this week the anti-depressants are free! We have NRC featuring skills (yes – we do!!!) and tries (lots of them) and keep dusting off after being bombed with fertiliser by the Wallabies.
The Wallabies – oh dear …
I for one am sick of the hyperbole and the constant stream of excrement that is coming from the Wallabies.
ENOUGH!
Please, can we have one game, just one without hearing the obsessive and insanely repetitive “physicality” centric idiocy?
If there is a rugby god; PLEASE, just once can the Wallabies be focused on SKILLS and can any talk that comes from the Wallabies be based on reality?
Right now the Wallabies are a very poor advertisement the game. Take a good hard look at it beyond the smoke and mirrors. If this is what we are marketing to the public then we are doing ourselves a disservice.
So let us consider a few of the behaviours:
The eyes gouge; agree or not it is over. But can somebody explain to me why it was only a second thought behind not getting a meeting invite? So we will run to the IRB integrity unit because we feel left out of a meeting, but for a player welfare issue it’s an afterthought? It’s apparently so important that we will just leave it to someone else instead of reporting it ourselves? Really? This has to a joke right?
The attitude; it’s all about being the toughest. We are doing the NRL a favour with this physicality BS. The Wallabies have lowered the bar and dragged our game of skill and intelligence down to mungo fodder. We are seeing the missing skillsets that apparently don’t exist in the Wallabies, and Australian rugby in general on display in the NRC.
Have a look at what we are marketing to the public.
What parent would want their child to be a Wallaby right now? Beyond the “thug” centric game style that is devoid of skill what about other important elements that you need to market a game?
Role models – rubbish. Right now, the Wallabies are simply whiny thugs who can’t face reality. Skilled players – where? It’s not even part of the equation? Sportsmanship – rarely makes it on to the field.
Is it really that hard to work out why the game is dying and why participation rates are down? Spend 5 minutes watching the women’s 7’s on and off the field. The contrast is just astounding.
The Wallabies have been pumped up so much with hyperbole BS that they no longer know how to play the game or even focus on it. One thing we can also clearly see is that whinging and excuses are an ingrained part of the team culture.
But we the supporters might need to step back and look at what the general public is seeing. Are we just as bad as the Wallabies? Do we have that siege mentality, desperately trying to justify, make excuses and argue in the defence of this? Step back and have a look and ask yourself are we just a fanatical mob defending an ideology too scared to face reality? The truth is this runs deeper than the Wallabies, but you already know that.
So Nick, I am sorry it’s you but you are now the poster boy of what wrong with the Wallabies and rugby in this country at the elite level right now. Clearly, playing rugby is a second thought. Your actions clearly showed that playing the game is not the whole focus. Congratulations to the ARU for financing such a ridiculous and embarrassing endorsement of the game.
So here it is; the Wallabies – representing Australian Rugby. Are you proud, knowing that this is what the general public worldwide, parents and kids now see as the game you love?
So let move on to the real rugby and forget the other rubbish!
There ain’t no easy games anymore (by Nick Wasiliev)
Four games. Two upsets. 32 tries. As expected, it was a cracking first round of NRC! But while it is early in the season, it’s fair to say that there’s going to be no such thing as an easy win this year. Starting in Perth, The Melbourne Rising were expected to run out favourites against the Spirit, but the men from the west showed their true colours and prevailed over their more fancied opponents in a grinding war of attrition. What was even better about the win were the men from the Pindan Premier Grade stepping up to the plate. Over in Sydney, NSW Country brought an end to Tournament favourites Brisbane City’s 14-game winning streak, running out 22-12 victory in a similarly gritty affair.
By comparison to Saturday, where gritty defence and low scoring games were the order of the day, on Sunday it was raining tries. The Sydney Rays picked up their first victory in a thrilling game against a physical Western Sydney Rams, with the score line of 50-30 not reflective of how close the game was at times. From my personal perspective, the NSW teams are looking a lot tougher to beat this year. When NSW rugby is doing well, it bleeds out into everywhere else, so I hope this is a sign of things to come *touch wood*. The only thing unsurprising this week was that Canberra are looking like the team to beat this year. It was disappointing that QLD Country, despite a more imposing squad, didn’t leave much of an impression on their first game. But hey, it’s only the first week, and they have the talent to cause headaches to many of the teams.
So what is there to take away? Well, it doesn’t look like there’s going be any easy wins this year in the battle for the ‘Toaster’ trophy. God, that’s a good feeling! That is going to make the competition that much more enthralling!
Mixed crowd response (by Nick Wasiliev)
First off the bat, the Fox Sports coverage was fantastic. The coverage of all the games was top class, and there certainly was a club rugby atmosphere that was around. Additionally, the match replays also were quickly up on the Fox Sports website, and are available to watch for free for the next four months (http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/nrc/nrcondemand)
But I’m gonna be honest here. There’s always one glaring problem with the NRC. Whenever I turn up to an NRC game, the general lack of crowds is an absolute mood killer. But, judging from what I saw, there were some games that drew a decent crowd, and some games that would’ve got more attendance if they played in a graveyard.
First off, I tip my hat to the Spirit and the Rays. The Spirit are providing free entry to all home games in the west, and judging by what I’ve heard, there was a decent crowd there on Saturday. I myself covered the Rays-Rams game, and the admin at the Rays and Paladin Sports did a wonderful job, putting up a mini festival of rugby before the game that saw many kids and families come out to not only play rugby, but also hang around afterwards to watch the main event. While most of the stands were looking pretty empty, the hill was a wonderful sight to behold, and their presence probably doubled the overall attendance at the game.
But the NSW Country and QLD Country games looked empty (mind you, I’m only going off the broadcast, so correct me on these ones). And these aren’t big grounds. Quite frankly, the quality of rugby was deserving of a bigger audience. While I completely and utterly agree that the appalling lack of advertising is the biggest hindrance of that problem, word-of-mouth in the rugby community surely should do something to improve crowd numbers, even by a little bit… shouldn’t it? None of the teams (as of Monday), have released the final attendance figures for their games, but part of me is thinking that most wouldn’t have been lucky to get an attendance of over a thousand.
So, I’m gonna say it again. There ain’t any Rugby Championship games on this weekend, so go check out an NRC match. You will be pleasantly surprised by what you see!
NRC Highlights
Check out the highlights in from this week’s NRC games. Watch some really good skills on display from a whole bunch of guys.
Just remember, in between those Super Rugby contracted players, there are some real young and emerging talent. You also need to remember and appreciate that some of these guys have a day job usually, so if they look good now, think how good they could be given a chance to do it full time.
Highlights of Brisbane City v NSW Country can be found here
Los Pumas – heading in the right direction
Someone has let the cat out amongst the pigeons. That cat is a Puma that is now starting to stalk its rivals. Are they really the surprise package, or have we seen this coming with the improvement they have shown over recent years, added to this year’s Super Rugby experience?
Something that I don’t think many of us were expecting is the style with which the Pumas are playing. They aren’t playing the traditional forwards dominated game which we are accustomed to seeing Argentinian teams play. Instead, what we saw was running, passing and some incredible offloading. They kicked when necessary, but didn’t over use it. The Pumas really attacked the Springbok’s line, threatening the defence when they had ball in hand.
Sound familiar? It’s the running rugby we keep hearing about. And it appears to be working for them. I think the Wallabies could learn a lot from watching the Pumas play, they are walking the talk that the Wallabies keep spouting. Their stats back up the claim bettering the Wallabies in all but the scrum success.
But it isn’t only the way they play … the emotion shown by the Pumas players after the match showed 100% how much winning means to them. It wasn’t just back slapping and self-congratulation, it was pure elation. They have that pure desire to win and know how special it is when they do. I doubt that any of their players go into any match with the attitude of “we can beat these guys any week”. The reaction of Agustin Creevy sums it up, a captain who congratulates every one of his team mates, and does it with tears in his eyes.
Where is that passion from the Wallabies?
