The Tuesday Top 5

Well after a miserable weekend for Australian Rugby, we delve into what went wrong, peek at the Good, Bad and Ugly and take a look at some other tournaments taking place around the traps.

Where did it all go wrong?

Was it the selections? Was it the game plan? How about the skills of the players? What exactly was it that went so wrong on Saturday afternoon.

On the whole people seemed pretty happy with the team before the match. We all knew the breakdown could be an issue with no real threat in there, the back 3 are all of a very similar mould in the way they play and are more attacking forwards. Nabuli’s selection may have been a bit of a surprise, but I don’t think the blame can be placed on that. Hunt and DHP were both playing out of position, but that didn’t seem to be an issue in the last match. Was this the strongest team available? On paper it seemed to be.

Let’s look at game plan. Ok, so I’ll admit, this one if one that has bugged me for a while. “Running Rugby”. “Entertaining Rugby”. “The Australian way of playing”. Is that what we saw on Saturday and have been seeing in recent times? Not so much playing for territory but rather trying to break through the defence. At what point do we start asking for winning rugby rather than entertaining rugby? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d take a win however we can get it at this point. Yes, we beat Fiji and ran the ball over the place in the process. But clearly that doesn’t work against all teams. People were very critical of the style of rugby Jake White had the Brumbies play, but it worked. They won matches. It wasn’t the prettiest rugby to watch, but fans of the winning teams don’t usually care about that! Is running the ball the only game plan in place? Is box kicking being used as a legitimate attacking weapon as part of the game plan? If the players were simply following the game plan, the next question to be asked is do they have the skills necessary to execute the plan?

Judging by what we saw on Saturday you would have to say no. Players were throwing poor passes, getting into trouble at the breakdown or lacking support if they did happen to make a break. And I have seen little from any Australian number 9 to show that they have the skills necessary to pull off a box kick as part of a successful game plan.  At this point kicking isn’t probably a good exit strategy as more often than not the ball goes straight to an opposition player rather than empty space. Are the backs being drilled on how to kick for open space and then CHASE kicks?

Saturday afternoon was a combination of things that led to the defeat. The players need to take a lot of the responsibility, but so does the coaching team, after all it is their job to make sure the players are prepared, both skill and fitness wise. Instead of making sure the players bring mongrel into the game, how about making sure they bring the skills of passing, catching and kicking.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Good 

Bad

Ugly 

Women’s Rugby

Over the past 2 weeks the International Women’s Rugby Series has been played in Rotorua. Did we know about this? It hasn’t really been talked about much so it’s doubtful.

Anyway, these matches were a last chance hit out for teams before the Women’s World Cup which is being held in Ireland from August 9  – 26. The teams involved were Australia, Canada, England and New Zealand.

Sadly the Wallaroos lost all of their matches, going down 53 – 10 to England, 44 – 17 to New Zealand and 45 – 5 to Canada.

All results:
AUS 10 – 53 ENG
NZL 28 – 16 CAN
CAN 20 – 27 ENG
NZL 44 – 17 AUS
AUS 5 – 45 CAN
NZL 21 – 29 ENG

The Red Roses (that’s the English women’s team for those who didn’t know), the defending World Cup Champions, look to be in a very good position come the World Cup. Their win over the Black Ferns saw them take top spot in the World rankings and they are looking very strong. Of course in the Northern Hemisphere they have the Women’s 6 nations and have just introduced a new 10 club Women’s Super Rugby competition, so they are well ahead of the Southern hemisphere in terms of the amount of Rugby they play. In New Zealand the women play in the Farrah Palmer Cup, which is the equivalent of the provincial Mitre 10 cup. In Australia we have a 3 day national tournament. Unfortunately lack of high level competition could be having an impact on the Wallaroos chances at the World Cup. Was Buildcorp on to something?

Under 20’s

On Sunday night, the Under 20 championships from Georgia wrapped up, with New Zealand taking out the title over England with a very convincing 64 – 17 win. The Baby Blacks were a dominant force throughout the tournament with other teams barely able to get close to them, averaging 56 points per match and with an average winning margin of 38.

The Aussies didn’t fare as well, losing to Scotland (of all countries!) in the 5^th place playoff after a late try put the Scots ahead. All of the results were fairly close for our boys. They finished second in the pool with wins over Wales and Samoa and a 1 point loss to the undefeated England.

With only the 3 pool winners (England, New Zealand and South Africa) and the next highest team on points (France with 11, the Aussies finished with 10 points) going through to the semi finals, Australia played Italy in the 5^th place semi, coming out big winners, 42 – 19. In the 5^th place playoff they played Scotland, who had defeated Wales 29 – 25 in their 5th place semi. The match against Scotland was neck and neck right until the end, when reserve scrum half Charlie Shiel scored the winning try for Scotland.

Australian results:
AUS U20 24 – 17 WAL U20
AUS U20 33 – 26 SAM U20
ENG U20 20 – 19 AUS U20
AUS U20 42 – 19 ITA U20
(5th place playoff) SCOTLAND U20 24 – 17 AUSTRALIA U20

World Club 10’s

In what has been a ridiculously busy time for Rugby, the World Club 10’s were held in Mauritius over the weekend. From Australia, the Brumbies and the defending champions of the event, the Western Force took part, along with teams from England, South Africa and Japan.

The Brumbies pool contained the Bulls and Cheetahs as well as French outfit Tsunami Pyrenees. The Force avoided the other Super Rugby sides and were in a pool with Harlequins, Japan’s Kubota Spears and a combined Africa Pacific Dragons.

The Brumbies sent a very young, inexperienced team and lost all of their pool matches, finishing bottom of the pool. The Force had more success, winning their 3 matches and topping the pool. That meant there would be a quarter final match between the Force and Brumbies, which the Force won 33-0. They went on to play the Bulls in the semi-final, but lost 33 – 14. They then took on the Africa Pacific dragons in the plate final, with ADP winning 17 – 12. The Brumbies, meanwhile, defeated Harlequins in the Bowl semi-final before losing to Tsunami Pyrenees 21 – 12.

The Bulls and Cheetahs played the final, with the Bulls running out winners 26 – 7.