6 August 2024 #005, week 2 of the Paris Olympics, also the week before the Rugby Championship kicks off. Will we be seeing some of this in Perth?
Another quiet weekend of 15s international rugby
Good morning folks and welcome to Tuesday’s rugby news. To say it was a quiet week in international rugby is an understatement as I can’t find any international matches that were played over the last week. It’s OK to have no international rugby to watch as there’s always club rugby, or the Olympics, or maybe even trying to earn some domestic credit for when there’s too much rugby to watch.
No international team of the week this week as there were no games, but it’ll be back next week, and we’ll improve the formatting to make it easier to read.
Queensland Premier Rugby
While there’s no international team of the week, Queensland Premier Rugby posted a team of the week from Round 16 of the Hospital Cup, which was last week. A good initiative to recognise players’ efforts in the local games, and I hope that QPR is going to compile a team of the year.
This week in the Hospital Cup
On the Hospital Cup theme, the penultimate round had some high scoring matches with both Souths and Uni racking up half centuries to defeat Bond Uni and Sunnybank respectively.
Bunter Bowl
The win by Wests also saw them retain the Bunter Bowl. The bowl was introduced in the 2018 QPR season, and sees the holder of the trophy defend it at each home game throughout the season. As Wests have won their last home game of the season they will keep the Bowl until 2025. It’s a similar trophy to New Zealand’s Ranfurly Shield, and the NRC’s Horan-Little Shield, and it adds an element to club games throughout the year as well as recognising one of the legends of Australian rugby, Geoff ‘Bunter’ Shaw.
From the QPR website: “The trophy, named after Geoff ‘Bunter’ Shaw, is fitting tribute to the former Queensland (QRU no. 906) and Wallaby (Wallaby no. 526) centre, who has given more than 50 years’ service to the game of rugby as a player, administrator and volunteer.
While remaining involved at the elite level of the game as a coaching director and football manager after his playing career, Shaw has also been a selector of metropolitan and regional sides, sat on president’s, marketing and development committees, while also coaching his club side University of Queensland and assisting in Sunnybank’s transition from Queensland Suburban Rugby Union through to Premier Rugby”.
Queensland Premier Women
Round 17 of the QPR Women’s competition was played over the weekend with Sunnybank edging Uni in a close game. In the same format as the Hospital Cup, the regular season wraps up this coming weekend before 4 weeks of finals culminating in the Grand Final at Ballymore on 1 September.
Some sort of performances
Off piste for rugby, more swimming. If you haven’t checked out the exploits of Leon Marchand, do yourself a favour. Four races, four gold medals, and a couple of Olympic records to boot. At 22 years old, men’s swimming has found its next superstar, and who knows how long he can dominate. There’s a tenuous link to rugby, Marchand played some as a junior but found his home in the water.
Also need to mention Summer McIntosh, the 17 year old Canadan star who took out the 400 medley, the 200 medley, the 200 butterfly and finished second in the 400 freestyle. Three golds and one silver is an astounding individual return.
Back to the Rugby
In an article over on the Roar All Blacks legend Sam Whitelock expresses mixed feelings about his role as part of the leadership group that successfully petitioned New Zealand Rugby to retain Ian Foster in mid 2022, rather than switching to Scott Robertson. The All Blacks did go on to make the 2023 world cup final.
Some rule variations for the Rugby Championships
Courtesy of Ben O’Keeffe via Instagram here, the Rugby Championship will introduce law variations aimed to improve safety and the spectacle.
At a lineout if a team lifts and/or jumps for their lineout throw which isn’t straight it will only be called if the opposition competes. No compete = play on. I like this change, I assume that the jumping/lifted player also has to catch the ball.
From a forward perspective, this may be offset by additional protection for the 9. “Protection of acting 9 at scrum, ruck and maul • anyone part of the ruck or maul can’t tackle the 9 within 1 metre of that ruck or maul when they pick the ball up and play away with it. Onside players not part of the ruck or maul can tackle them”.
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.
