BLL couldn’t make it today so sorry you’ve got me 2 weeks in a row.
The view from a Waratah lover
Demonstrating how singularly out of touch focussed on NSW players some Waratah supporters can be, professional shit stirrer journalist Gorgina Robinson stepped up the pressure on the Northern tour – as if it needed more – with a nice little article saying that Skelton coming into the team would resolve all the issues of losing players back to Japan. Gorgina says that this years tour will be a Spring tour with “Spice” and “heralds the return of a singular player to Australian rugby and on the other it could be the end of the road for the man at the top of the tree.”
Talking up Will Skelton she notes that the wrecking ball second-rower who has earned the nickname “Eclipse” (whatever that means) and who barely scratched the surface of his talent when he was last in Australia has the power to put Dave Rennie’s first tour back on track after the messy exits of Cooper, Kerevi and McMahon.
To be honest I do actually hope she is right and Skelton is the saviour that so many are predicting. I’m just not so sure how a lock, no matter how good, can take the place of a 10, 12 & 7. I will be very happy to be eating humble pie on this but I haven’t seen enough in either Youtube clips or his previous play to be more than hopeful and I’m still not sure how a non-jumping lock can provide so many benefits in other areas that the loss of his core skill is acceptable.
Eddie Jones defends “brutal” coaching style
Eddie Jones has defended his coaching methods and high turnover rate of backroom staff in response to criticism of his England regime. A report in The Times last week, drawing on testimony from past and present players and staff, often anonymous, painted a picture of a tense and demanding environment lacking in enjoyment.
Jones has finished rebuilding his coaching team for the 3rd time with John Mitchell the most recent departure in a management team with high churn and turnover of both coaching and supporting staff since Jones took over the role of head coach. “These things happen. Everyone has an opinion on how you operate. I can’t say it’s right or wrong, I try to be a reasonable person,” Jones told BT Sport. “Brutal” was one of the words used to describe the way Jones treats his staff, but the 61-year-old said: “I think the fact that I’ve been coaching for this period of time would indicate that that’s not the truth.” He maintained that some of his so called old-School coaching was the best coaching and that he is excited where he believes the English team is going to go.
Having never been coached by Jones, or watched any of his training runs I can’t really comment on his style. He certainly has had some successes over the years that indicates he certainly has some coaching skills and that players have reacted well to his style at times. However, I am also in the belief that people don’t quit jobs they quit managers and if there is a high turnover in any organisation the leadership of that organisation holds a large part of the blame.
I just hope the Wallabies win against the English in two weeks.
Black Ferns lose to England at Rugby
A statement to make everyone – except NZ – happy the New Zealand Woman’s team has had a serious thrashing at the hands of the English losing 43 – 12 in England on Sunday.
The game against England was the 100th match for the Black Ferns. A milestone match that finished with their heaviest defeat in history will not be remembered fondly but will be one they will hopefully use to make the changes they need to return to the top of the table in the future.
Not having played together since 2019, unlike the English and French who have played regularly against each other despite COVID issues, New Zealand failed to make an impact on the game where England put on four tries in the last 25 minutes just to show Kiwis how the Welsh felt on Saturday.
While this game was a big loss I am still glad it went ahead. I watched the match earlier before writing this piece and despite the big difference it was still a good game with lots of skills shown by both teams. NZ did look out of sorts and made a lot of mistakes with poor options under pressure that showed their lack of game time. England played very well and deserved the win.
‘We’ll have to be at our best’: Scotland coach’s main area of concern ahead of Wallabies showdown
Scotland coach Gregor Townsend says his team will need to better in defence against the Wallabies on next week after a 10-try defeat of Tonga on Sunday. Despite winning 60 – 14 with an understrength team depleted by players not available outside the official test window, The Scots were under pressure with missed tackles and giving away a simple try to the Tongan team.
Townsend said that “Australia have shown they are a good attacking side and they are full of confidence. They’ve won five Test matches in a row and they’ve beaten the world champions twice, the No. 1 team in the world.” Scotland needs to be better than they were at times against Tonga.
Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell, Duhan van der Merwe, Chris Harris, Adam Hastings, Rory Sutherland, Huw Jones and Sam Skinner will return to the Scotland squad for the Wallabies match. but Townsend feels the integration of these players into the team in such a short time is an issue that will require a fair bit of work to get right.
This is fast looking like a tough game for both sides. Both teams have had disruptions and have had to make forced changes to their team, albeit with Australia losing key players and Scotland bringing key players back. I think the Wallabies definitely have the players to win this match but I think they need to change their game plan to suit the players they have better. I also think this game will be a real call on Hooper’s and his leadership team as they can’t afford to keep playing a game plan that isn’t working, or get caught up playing Scotland’s game the way they got caught up playing Japan’s game last week.
