Thursdays Rugby News 21/4/22

The Super Round is on this week and Club footy starts in Brisbane how good is life.

Harry Wilson is Putting Together a Decent Season

Harry Wilson has putting the disappointment of missing the Northern tour and doing what he was asked to do in the off season. His Stats for the Super Season to date are impressive against all comers

Carries 119 Ranks first

Metres Carried 539 Ranks seventh

Tackles Made 86 Ranks eighth

Full Super Stats Here

Hospital Cup (Brisbane) Starts This Weekend

The Hospital Challenge Cup is an odd name for a competition and dates back to 1899. The donation of the 100-guinea trophy was submitted to the QRU through the Royal Brisbane Hospital’s secretary, Mr Arthur Payne in July ,1898.

For those who dislike the TMO I would suggest getting down to your local club to consume some live rugby. Admission is usually free and the beer is cold. I can guarantee running rugby and an enjoyable game.

Games at the start of the year are difficult to judge as player turnover at this level is very high.

Games this week

Game of the Round

Brothers V GPS (Ashgrove) at Brothers.

Brothers by 10

University of Queensland (UQ) V Wests at UQ

(Wests Season Preview Here)

UQ by 10

Easts V Sunnybank at Easts

East Season Preview Here, Sunnybank Season Preview Here

Easts by 14

Norths V Souths at Norths

Souths by 19

Moana Pasifika has fourth Super Rugby Pacific game postponed due to Western Force Covid cases

Moana Pasifika have had a fourth Super Rugby Pacific game postponed with Friday’s clash in Melbourne called off after Covid-19 “impacts’’ in the Western Force squad.

The Super Rugby Pacific Medical Advisory Group made the decision to postpone the match, scheduled as part of Super Round Melbourne, due to a large number of the Force squad being unavailable for selection.

Super Rugby officials said in a statement they were “very disappointed to have to postpone another game this season and for it to be impossible to play all six contemplated matches as part of this weekend’s Super Round, but the decision was made with the best interests for the health and wellbeing of players and staff in mind,

These guys just cannot take a trick and one can imagine they will have to travel to Perth for a midweek game at some stage.

From Stuff Here

Irish Rugby what can we learn

Much has been made of the success of Ireland over the past few years and while much of the credit has been placed at the feet of successive Irish International coaches IMHO the real success comes from the back room.

The real structural reform has been headed up by a familiar name to us older heads.

David Nucifora (A man basically forced out of Australian rugby whose main fault as far as I can see is not being an establishment guy. The only Super Rugby coach to be sacked after winning the title. His Wiki is Here

As of 1 June 2014 he has been the IRFU High Performance Director.^[1] He is known in Ireland for his role in ensuring the supply of elite players to the professional pool, be they sourced internally or externally. In his time with Ireland, the men’s and women’s 7s programmes were relaunched, with the men’s team achieving some success at international level, qualifying for the 2020 Olympics. He has also been criticised for failing to foster more cohesive links between the professional game and the domestic and schools games in Ireland.

New Munster head coach Graham Rowntree has spoken about how the failed 2015 England coaching ticket is now a success in various roles in Ireland. Following the pool stage elimination from the World Cup seven years ago, head coach Stuart Lancaster and his three assistants – Rowntree, Andy Farrell and Mike Catt – were all released by the RFU to accommodate the new broom under Eddie Jones. The changeover left the ousted four coaches seeking out work elsewhere and the irony now is that all four are working in Ireland in jobs they are highly respected for.  He spoke further about how the IRFU is structured from the top down and he is appointed by the IRFU. He can appoint his own men and play his own way however they all talk to each other.