Tuesday’s Rugby News has Michael Cheika hitting back at Eddie Jones, Jones wanting to have a chat with the ref, a bigger voice for Super clubs, and rugby playing numbers on the up.
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Jones Biting Feeding Hand
Eddie Jones has been broadsiding Australia in the last week, and Michael Cheika’s having none of it. What’s more, Cheika reckons Jones is being a bit of knob.
“There was a lot a vitriol about Australia – his home nation where he coached – and opportunities were given to him to grow up as a coach and play,” Cheika said to the media. “Personally, if you want to leave a legacy somewhere, you don’t hit back at it do you when you leave?”
The Wallabies coach also mused on media strategy. “In June maybe I gave him the opportunity to be like the goalscorer who scores against his old team.
“It’s always difficult when you go back into a tournament against teams you have coached before and you don’t know how to play it. Do you go reserved or get stuck into them? I know what I do… but that is the choice he wants to make and thinks that is the best for his team.”
Cheika also added that his calls to Chief Referee Alain Rolland have gone unanswered.
“I made my calls the other night, the ball is in their court now,” rugby.com.au says he said. “If they do want to get back to us, I don’t know. We’ll just see what happens. I’ve got to think more about this weekend than what happened last weekend right now.”
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Eddie Wants In
Jones also wants in on referee meetings, telling the press that he would like a bit of chit chat with referee Jaco Peyper on the topic of the Wallabies scrum.
“I am very keen to have a chat to the referee about the Australian scrummaging,” Jones said. “They have got some issues with the way that they scrum so we need to have a meeting with the referee and we will invite the Australian coaching staff to come along.
“We will submit an agenda and make sure that everything is above board. They were penalised four times in a row against France so they have got some technical issues.”
“I am not going to sort them out for them. When you get penalised four times you have to look at something. I am not going to fix their problems,” Jones added.
Jones also went on to say beating Australia would be “the best win of the year.”
Cheika, when asked to comment on Jones’ comments, said:
“Our scrum got penalised everywhere tonight so they [England] should be pushing us around no drama I’d say. “I don’t know why he’d be worried about our scrum. I’m not sure what we’re doing wrong, but maybe that’ll be a conversation for next week perhaps when we get to England.”
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Hore Wants More
Waratahs CEO Andrew Hore wants Super clubs to have a bigger say in the running of Super Rugby, and also would very much like the ARU to do a bit more listening, reports the SMH. These comments from Hore come on the wave of angry NRL clubs demanding the resignation of their boss over similar funding concerns.
Hore didn’t specify what his solution was, but it would probably no doubt involve Super Rugby clubs not always having their national union to act in their interest at SANZAAR meets, as is currently the case.
“I think our union is still looking at it as international rugby being the be-all and end-all, where I think the rest of the world has moved on a bit in their mentality,” Hore said.
“They know we can get money in to feed our game through professional rugby and also through the international game. I think there’s an opportunity there for us to collaborate far more effectively and look at our governance model – we’ve said this quite openly – to make sure that we can continue to grow the competition.”
Hore, who has previously run Welsh side Ospreys, also talked up the European club rugby models.
“In France [the Top 14] the clubs basically run the competition and the union stays out of their affairs and vice versa. In England [Premiership Rugby] it’s closer, they have a pretty solid commercial agreement between the two parties and although the relationship is tense, by and large it works,” Hore said.
“The Pro12 [Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Italy] are a little bit different again. On their board they have one club/provincial representative, representing the provinces or regions of the country, and they have one union representative. Between the parties, they’re able to figure out what is what.
“We’re not that far off the money at the moment, with regard to the number of games played and the revenue we generate, but the simple fact is they have a lot more content over there and they’re working a lot closer together with the unions.”
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Participation Up
Good news now, GeeRob is saying “rugby’s non-contact format rocket up the coveted Australian Sports Commission (ASC) rankings into eighth position, ahead of rugby league and netball”.
This is due in no small part to the impact of the women’s team romping to gold in the Olympics, and the implementation of a five-week program run in 5160 primary schools with the ASC’s help. In fact, the program exceeded the ARU’s own projections.
“The 2020 ARU strategic plan mapped out a target of 50,000 Game On participants,” Robinson writes, “But the success of the program on debut last year and the Australian women’s sevens team’s stunning campaign, mean that target will be reached this year, according to ARU projections.
“Game On appears to have spurred a 3.5 per cent rise in junior club participation across the country, as Game On development officers funnel keen school students into their local club to play Viva7s or contact rugby.”
The article goes on to say that rugby participation numbers have, on the whole, generally improved across the country. There have been small increases in country NSW, with participation in adults’ rugby and juniors’ rugby rising by 4% and 2% respectively, while junior and subbies rugby in metro Sydney have seen a 1% rise.
While the mining boom has had a negative impact on numbers in country Queensland, the QRU reckon they’re still going to see a statewide increase in playing numbers.
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