17 September 2024 #011
Good morning again G&GRs, and welcome to Tuesday. The Wallabies had the weekend off after their last start in Argentina, but the Wallaroos and the Australia A women played against Ireland and Samoa respectively, so a bit of news and commentary on those games.
There’s still some action going on domestically with Super Rugby signings across the teams to cover, and the Super Rugby format for 2025 was announced on Friday.
And as Hoss pointed out on Friday, the Pacific Nations Cup semi-finals were played on the weekend.
Butz covered the Wallaroos loss to the Irish in the Monday news, and it was certainly disappointing that Australia weren’t able to apply more pressure and push Ireland closer than the 26 point margin. What’s more disappointing is the player turnover over recent years as outlined by Nutta in the comments section yesterday. Rugby, and women’s rugby, loses way too many players to both league and AFL because they are more organised and offer more than rugby.
Hopefully the newly minted Australia A team will help by providing more opportunities for emerging and fringe players to get international experience. You can read the match summary by Lachlan Grey over on rugby.com.au here. Samoa triumphed 20-17 over Australia A in Apia in a close game where the margin stayed within 7 points throughout. Samoa scored a try in the 76th minute to level the scores and then the flyhalf Siataga kicked a 43 metre penalty on full time to put them in front for the second time in the game and seal the win.
For Australia A teenage duo Waiaria Ellis and Ruby Anderson starred in their first international games. Ellis is 16 and hopefully has a bright and long future in the game. Other players to watch out for in the future are wingers Bishop and Urwin who scored three tries between them.
The Australia A team sheet is shown below, let’s hope that these ladies can stay in the game and star in a home world cup in 2029.
Reds player signings
In what is great news for the Reds and Wallabies, Liam Wright has signed until 2025 for Queensland for what will be his eighth year at the Reds. After a fantastic Super Rugby campaign Wright was rewarded with a Wallabies recall together with the captain’s gong in the first test of the year against Wales. Unfortunately, it was his only appearance in gold this year due to injury.
After a tough run with injuries over recent years, here’s hoping that Wrongaz can get a sustained period on the field for the Wallabies as I think his leadership will help the inexperienced Wallabies as they head north on the spring tour.
Other key Reds players to re-sign for 2025 include Hunter Paisami, Josh Flook, Ryan Smith, and Jock Campbell. With the addition of some of the Rebels squad, the Reds are looking the goods for 2025, time to get on board.
Super Rugby 2025
Super Rugby will kick off a week earlier in 2025, beginning on Friday 14 February with a new format. Unfortunately, we don’t get the full home and away season that we wanted to see (or at least I did). Each time will play 14 regular season games, 7 home 7 away, and there will be a 6 team final series played over 3 weeks.
There’s a full article explaining the format on rugby.com.au here, but in summary each team will play 4 other teams twice (with a focus on rivalries), and the remaining 6 teams once. In good news there will be more Sunday afternoon games on offer, which have been a rarity in recent years.
It’s a step forward for the competition and hopefully the extra games and tighter finals series will make it more compelling for the fans.
Pacific Nations Cup
The Pacific Nations Cup semi-finals saw Japan take on Manu Samoa and Fiji play USA. Fiji were too good for the USA and prevailed 22-3 with three tries to nil. Fiji’s last try in particular had all the hallmarks of the flying Fijians and is worth watching the highlights at the least.
Japan were much too strong for Manu Samoa and ran away with it 49-27. Both teams played fast attacking rugby with plenty of offloads, and again the highlights are well worth watching.
This weekend will see the USA take on Samoa in the third place playoff, and Fiji will play Japan in the final. Should be good match ups.
The power of team sports and positive impact on mental wellness
I was doing some research about some of the Wallaroos players that are missing from the squad for this tour, in particular Emily Chancellor, and Grace Hamilton, who were stand outs in the 2021/22 World Cup.
Through that I found a link an article with Grace Hamilton on the Athlete’s Voice, which you can read here. It’s a written article that tells Grace’s story and the struggles that she and her family have had. It describes really well how rugby has helped here through dark times, and credit to her for being so open about that.
I didn’t play as much rugby as others on here (Keith, AO, Nutta) but I did play soccer until I was 50 with great team mates, and certainly getting to put everything else aside and spend Friday nights with my mates was a wonderful thing to do. For me there were two aspects to the positive impact of it, firstly there was the physical element to it, which is positive and helps to reset the mind at the end of the work week. The second aspect of it was the depth of the friendships, which means that you can discuss difficult topics and be supported by your mates.
It’s a wonderful thing and I am grateful for it.
That’s a wrap for this week
If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time, that’s it for me this week, over to you G&GRs.
