30 July 2024 #004. Week 1 of the Paris Olympics
A pretty quiet weekend of 15s international rugby
Good morning folks and welcome to Tuesday’s rugby news. No team of the week this week, I didn’t watch enough of the men’s 7s to do that and, to be honest, I don’t know enough about it to try and do it justice. Karl did a bit of coverage on the men’s 7s on Monday, I’ll only add a little to the discussion, then a bit of coverage of the Aussie women’s games, and a general round up of news around Australia and the globe.
Then I’ll happily pass the baton over to you guys to debate the news of the day, and whatever other random stuff comes up.
A peerless performance
This is a bit off-book for a rugby page, but if you love sport in general, and haven’t seen it, please have a look at the the performance of Frenchman Leon Marchand here in the 400 individual medley final in the pool. It has to be one of the more dominant individual performances you will ever see. Shades of Tiger Woods lapping the field in his first Masters victory, or Kelly Slater in his prime. The introductions start at 4:30 in, and the race starts at just after 8 minutes. Interested in your thoughts, again, it’s not rugby, but wow it’s impressive.
The Olympics men’s 7s
The Aussie men put in a great performance to get to the semi-final, and as discussed by Karl on Monday, it probably exceeds the standard of their season overall. It was great to watch, and a heroic performance in the bronze medal play off after the captain Malouf was sent off. It was a fair call, and credit to the team for getting stuck in afterwards. Some interesting commentary by the coach about funding for the 7s program, I don’t know how much funding they get compared to their competitors, and compared to the women’s team. This might be worth some discussion today.
Last week I asked the following question “One of the big questions is whether Antoine Dupont can lead the French deep into the tournament on home soil?” – It turns out the answer is an emphatic yes, and while it was a team performance, he was exceptional in the second half. Let’s hope the photo is prophetic for the Women’s team as well.
Olympic women’s tournament
The Aussie women’s team got off to an absolute flyer against South Africa with an early score off the kick off, and they just went on with it from there. Madi Levi got four tries, and the final result was 34-5 to Australia, with the only downside being that the Aussie number 8 Caitlin Shave was injured in her debut match, and is out of the tournament. Hopefully it isn’t too serious, and to add insult to injury she was yellow carded for a high tackle while trying to defend on one leg.
The second game against Great Britain was another dominant performance by the Aussie women, another hat trick to Madi Levi to lead the team to a 36-5 victory. A genuine team performance, and the squad is showing plenty of depth with a number of frontline players out injured.
There were plenty of tries by the Aussies in the first two games.
The final pool game was against Ireland and it turned out to be a closer contest than the previous games. A bit like the game the two teams played in Madrid, it was a tussle. Faith Nathan got the team off to the best possible start, splitting the Irish defensive line, and running 60 metres to score under the sticks. 7-0. Then there seemed to be a minute taken for a scrum to be formed and won by the Irish. Much like the 15s game, scrums do seem to take a lot of time in 7s. The Irish controlled possession for the next 4 minutes, and after being denied in the corner, they scored next to the posts and with a successful conversion made it 7-all. The Aussies took the restart, and controlled possession for Teagan Levi to score a try 45 seconds into extra time. The conversion was unsuccessful, and Australia led it 12-7 at the break.
The second half was also an arm wrestle with a try to each. Madison Levi scored for Australia after making a try saving tackle at the other end to take Australia out to 19-7. After an injury to Stacey Flood, the Irish controlled territory and possession, and then after losing some precious time by choosing scrums rather than quick taps, they finally scored under the posts with 30 seconds to play and it was 19-14. That’s where is finished, with Australia securing the kick off and putting the ball into touch. A good contest and entertaining to watch, Australia’s ability to create space and beat defenders was first class, and their defence was solid, even with a yellow card.
There’s plenty to look forward to in the quarters and further into it.
All Blacks going back to the future
It’s a couple of weeks until the Rugby Championships kicks off, but there’s been movement in the All Backs camp with coach Scott Robertson recalling former captain Sam Cane to the squad, along with Will Jordan and David Havili. Scott Barrett looks likely to miss the opening games of the TRC after having surgery for a finger injury sustained in their win against Fiji. You can read more about the changes to the squad here.
A French revolution
Courtesy of rugby.com.au, there’s an interesting article here featuring comments by Alan Gilpin that World Rugby needs to rethink its calendar to allow more players to play 7s and 15s following the success that Dupont has had this year, with a world series victory, and now Olympic gold medal to his name.
That’s a wrap for this week
I’m sure that there’s plenty more to cover but I’ll leave it for Yowie, Karl, Happyman, and of course Hoss later in the week.
That’s it for me this week, over to you G&GRs.
