Wednesday’s Rugby News see’s Tupou facing the music, Horwitz heading overseas, Cheika happy with Super Rugby, Rugby Australia appealing for unity, and the latest out of Europe.
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Facing the music
The Tongan Thor had a disappointing end to his tour, after being being cited for a dangerous tackle in the Reds 25-19 loss to the Stormers in Cape Town.
It could get a lot worse for Tupou, with him being pulled before a judiciary hearing on Tuesday night, charged with contravening law 9.13: ‘A player must not tackle an opponent early, late or dangerously’.
Should he be found guilty, Tupou could find himself banned for at least one match. (As of 11:30pm on Tuesday night, the result of that judicial hearing has not been released).
Another player who is facing the music in a different kind of way down in Melbourne is Dave Horowitz. While yesterday saw Henry Speight stay on in Australian rugby, Horowitz is choosing to join the ranks of James Hanson, Jono Lance and Nic Stirzaker, and ply his trade overseas.
Sitting currently fourth in the pecking order for the centres below Billy Meakes, Reece Hodge and Tom English, Horowitz is yet to play a game for the Rebels this year, and so to get more game time, has decided to sign with Irish club, Connacht after the end of this Super Rugby season.
“I am really excited about my move to Connacht,” he said to rugby.com.au.
“I have enjoyed my time in Super Rugby and would like to thank the Rebels and their fans for my time there.
“Connacht are really ambitious about their plans for the future and I share that ambition and hope to contribute to bringing further success to the province.
“I am looking forward to focusing more on my favoured position of out-half with Connacht and joining my future team mates at the end of the current Super Rugby season.”
He’ll have plenty of other Aussies around him, with Kyle Godwin and Jarrad Butler also amongst the ranks at Connacht.
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Cheerful Cheika
Cheika‘s a cheerful chap at the moment.
While twiddling his thumbs for the Irish series to come round, he’s taken the time to look at the look at the Super Rugby results from the Aussie teams.
His thoughts? Not half bad.
“I’m pretty happy. I think they’ve all been showing different qualities of their own and a fair bit of resilience in some of their battles,” he said to Fox Sports.
“Teams have already shown comebacks from difficult situations or overcoming some logistical battle, like we’ve seen the Reds do over this last little bit.
“We’re getting some wins on the board and I think some of the players are standing up and putting their name up there.
“From a selection point of view, (they) are probably not the traditional ones we’ve seen before.”
Cheik even talked about some potential up-and-comers for the season, with Reds teammates Liam Wright, Taniela Tupou, Caleb Timu and Chris Feauai-Sautia, as well as Brumbies halfback Joe Powell and Rebels back Jack Maddocks catching his eye.
“I’m keeping a list turning around, of what we see as maybe that top 45 and there’s a few players started to move in there that have not been in our reckoning before.”
A real eyebrow raiser though, was when he mentioned Karmichael Hunt.
“If he (Hunt) gets that opportunity to play, he’ll have to strike form pretty quickly, because there’s a fair few guys playing in the No 12 or in the fullback jersey who are going pretty well at the moment.”
Considering how Hunt is reportedly viewed in Queensland at the moment, good luck to that happening.
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United, We Stand
Rugby Australia has announced a new community-focused campaign, named #partofmore.
Those of you who may think of it as just another piece of RA pap, stick around a bit, cause it actually looks like a pretty interesting little campaign that they’ve put together.
Raelene Castle, along with Wallabies coach Michael Cheika, launched the campaign on Monday, and at the release she admitted that this was an important project for the code.
“I think rugby hasn’t always done a great job of recognising that it is a sport that is played across the whole of Australia and that’s what this shows,” she said to rugby.com.au.
“It shows the essence of communities and often binds those communities together.”
It’s fair to argue that rugby, more than most games, is as much about the community as it is about the game. With many in the grassroots on all sides of the country feeling distanced and let down by the governing body, to see RA release something like this might suggest that maybe, just maybe, things might start to change.
Cheik was adamant too that the Wallabies are an important part of that connection for the grassroots, and in a week where the team culture of cricket has been called into question, has admitted that team themselves have become increasingly aware of the people they represent.
“Maybe we haven’t told ourselves enough that we’re part of something really good over the last few years,” he said.
“We’ve been told there’s all these things wrong and all this and I would like to think that all the people at club level, junior level, feel like they’re part of the Wallabies and we can feel like we’re part of them too.
“We’ve got a great group of players who have learned while they compete against each other on a regular basis, so they’re knocking lumps our of each other and week to week they’re still connected with each other, leaders of the team.
“They’re starting to understand as they get more experience how to balance being competitive with each other to being together and loving each other when they join in with the Australian jersey.
“Really liking what I’m seeing around that.
“(We need to) keep moving forward and keep maintaining high standards around that.
“If you don’t, people aren’t ensuring high standards then there won’t be high standards.”
Check out the Part of More campaign here.
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Meanwhile, in Europe…
It looks like things are really starting to heat up for Rugby Europe, as the governing body called for more information in the wake Spain’s controversial loss to Belgium last week.
In cased you missed it, Spain went down 18-10, and in doing so lost the chance to finish in second place in the European leg, which meant they would have automatically qualified for the World Cup. Their loss meant that Romania made it in instead.
Spain ain’t happy about that because the referee for that match, Vlad Iordachescu, is Romanian. And, during the course of the match, he pinged Spain 28 times, compared to pinging Belgium eight times.
World Rugby asked Rugby Europe last week for more information, and yesterday they announced that they were initiating further investigations into the goings-on around the game.
“Rugby Europe Board of Directors held a conference call this evening to share and discuss the elements related to the Spain- Belgium game, Rugby World Cup 2019 Qualifier,” Rugby Europe said in a statement, published on SBS News.
“Rugby Europe General Secretary recalled the facts and submitted the reports of the different people and groups who have been consulted.
“Board members unanimously requested additional information (in particular those provided straight ahead of the meeting to World Rugby) before taking an accurate decision.”
Many rugby fans have reportedly called for the match to be replayed, with a petition on change.org reportedly receiving over 44,000 signatures since the result.
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