Good Morning G&GRs and welcome to Tuesday. Hopefully you had a fantastic Easter weekend catching up with family and friends, and enjoyed some great April weather. If you spent Monday in a diabetic coma after eating eating too many of your kids/grandkids Easter eggs then make sure you catch up on Bris’s excellent summary of the weekend in Monday’s news here.
The Reds had the bye over the Easter weekend, which they looked like they needed the week before the Brumbies, so I watched less rugby than usual. But as always, there’s plenty to cover including a brief discussion about golden point, an update on my question about a clubhouse for the Reds and a potential Wallabies team of the week.
Golden Point
When is golden point, not golden? In Perth on the weekend of course. The Western Force hosted the Hurricanes on Saturday afternoon, and after an absolute slugfest, the game finished regular time at 17-17. After 10 minutes of extra time, they remained locked up at 17-17. Both teams had chances to win it, Ben Donaldson missed a long range penalty, and Rueben Love hit the post with a drop goal to end the game. Both sets of players have expressed some disappointment about not playing until there was a winner. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but if two teams are equal after the original 80 minutes, and then still equal after a defined period of additional time when all they need to do is score a single time (I was going to write a a single point, but it is rugby, so has to be at least 3 points) to win the game, then maybe they deserve a draw. Is it reasonable to keep playing for more time to secure a win, or should the teams just take the draw an move on to next week? What do you think G&GRs?
You can read more about the captains’ reactions here.
What about a clubhouse for the Reds
I posed the question last week about whether the Reds missed an opportunity to have a clubhouse, with food and cafe, etc. when they created Super Rugby back in 1995. There was a lot of interesting discussion about it, and some good insights from Nutta and Yowie. The overarching theme I picked up is that the clubhouse with reduced price meals is likely to be funded by pokie revenues, and those machines have a big negative impact on vulnerable, disadvantaged members of our society. Having thought about it a bit over the last week, if the cost of having a Qld rugby clubhouse is having poker machines with all of the negative impacts, then I think that I’d prefer to carry on as we are.
On a related note, I go past the Wests clubhouse most Sunday afternoons on a weekly run/catch up with a mate, and there’s always activity there, so maybe there is a non-gambling way to make something work.
Wallabies watch – a team of the week
There were only three Australian teams in action on the weekend, and the Waratahs were poor in their loss to Fiji, so let’s have a look at my version of the team of the week.
- James Slipper – came off the bench and got stuck in, his try saving effort to hold up the Moana player over the line was important in the context of the match.
- Billy Pollard – got a pair of tries of the bench to extend the Brumbies lead.
- Tom Robertson – I might be on the between two posts bandwagon, is T-Rob doing enough to earn a call up?
- Nick Frost – even in the mini-match, the big man big Tom Frost was prominent and did the hard work.
- Jeremy Williams – another no nonsense performance by Williams, with a 90 minute effort.
- Bob Valetini – Bobby V has been super impressive since returning from injury, and looks certain to be called up for the Wallabies.
- Carlo Tizzano – another strong performance by the Force #7, made breaks, ran hard, tackled hard, and pilfered.
- Langi Gleeson – the sole Waratah in the team of the week. Made an impact off the bench with the rest of the team already having the week off ahead of the bye.
- Nic White – went off injured after getting smashed by the Hurricanes winger Fineanganofo. His vision and execution of a cut-out pass for Grealy’s try was top shelf.
- Ben Donaldson – kicked an important penalty to get the Force into golden point, looked dangerous when he ran the ball, but maybe didn’t take on the line enough. Then again with Du’Plessis Kirifi playing #7 for the Canes, that might have been wise.
- Corey Toole – the speedster is making an impression this year in attack and defence, his two tries on the weekend were pace, pace and more pace. Makes a lot of covering tackles as well.
- Hamish Stewart – continues to rack up good games for the Force.
- Ollie Sapsford – played out of position at #13 but was part of the backline that shut Moana out of the game.
- Andy Muirhead – has been super consistent this year, his kick chase at the end of the first half put Corey Toole away and got the Brumbies moving.
- Mac Grealy – has flourished after moving to the Force this year. Is elusive with the ball, scores tries. May miss out for the Wallabies if they go with incumbency (Wright), and money (JAS).
- Lachlan Lonergan – got a rare start for this year, and was busy in his time on the field.
- Marley Pearce – going with the opposite of the starting front row with the Force loosehead and
- Allan Alaalatoa – at tight head.
- Darcy Swain – Could also go to Tom Hooper, but Hooper did cop a yellow card.
- Nicholas Champion de Crespigny – the bloke with longest name in Super Rugby was busy again.
- Ryan Lonergan – a good performance from the Brumbies half back.
- James O’Connor – made a difference with two pressure penalty kicks for the Crusaders.
- Tom Wright – Harry Potter had a good game, but two defensive mis-reads led to two tries to the Canes.
That’s a wrap
As always, thanks for reading this far. Let me know what you think in the comments.
