Welcome, once again, to the Weekend Edition.
Look, I love the Northern Hemisphere tours every July. But there’s one thing that comes with them that really frickin’ annoys me, and it’s their bastardisation of team sheets with their 15-9 then 1-8 then 16-23 set up.
It’d be no surprise to you that money was the original incentive for numbers on jerseys. In the late 1800s there was a big black market for counterfeit match programmes, so the Aussie and Kiwi club managements figured out a good way to get patrons to buy their official programmes was to put numbers on the players’ jerseys. From that point onwards, teams used various combinations of letters and numbers, including the 15-9, 1-8 used by Scotland, England and Wales in the 1950s.
In 1967 the RFU had had enough of the free for all of jersey numbering and standardised it to what we see today with 1-15 starting at loosehead prop and running through to fullback. The only changes since then have been the numbering of reserves. The only anomaly, as Happyman pointed out on Thursday’s podcast, is that while the starting front row are numbered 1,2,3 for the loosehead, hooker and tighthead, the reserves are numbered 16,17,18 for hooker, loosehead and tighthead. Something I’d never heard of until he mentioned it.
But I digress.
You’d think once the RFU gave players perfectly good imported Arabic numbers, the rich private schoolboys in charge of the member unions could figure out that you’re supposed to start from the smallest number and work your way up.
But no, some unions insist on starting with the least important players and working their way up. And, you know, normally I’d give these people a little leeway, but if I let the people who think that the backs are the most important people on the field do their thing then I have to let the people who think what ever the fuck that other team list is do their thing and I’m not going to do that.
So, I’m calling on World Rugby to standardise the way team lists are displayed. Make it 1-15! Let’s lose 15-9,1-8, 16-23 forever. I mean, if you’re happy doing things the same way rugby league does it, just keep letting them do that crazy shit.
Now That’s The Right Direction.
Watching the Wallabies last Saturday felt like a new beginning. Maybe not a foundation, but definitely a brand new cornerstone. What the new Wallabies coaching staff managed to do in under two weeks was exceptional. Yes, cut back the game plan to basics. Yes, the players are relatively talented athletes, but, they identified what the playing group was capable of and designed a game plan around that, and then trained the team and implemented that plan.
And for the most part, at least until fatigue made it a bit ratty around the edges, the team followed through. I was that happy, I nearly had to get the Wallabies jersey out Sunday morning and parade around the local farmers markets like I was personally responsible for their performance.
Over the next few weeks I hope to see progress on our game plan before the meat and potatoes of the international season begins and we start taking on teams well above us on the world rankings. So, if all goes well tonight I’ll meet you at the markets tomorrow for coffee, wear your jersey, or pull out that track suit you have from the John Howard days.
Well, that’s all from me this week. Have a great weekend, and I’ll talk to you in the comments.
Sully out.
