Deal with it. Happyman spent Wednesday night at Reds v Lions galivanting around with those floozies RaWF and Sully. See Brisney’s review of the Reds v Lions game here.
Today’s other rugby news sees Mike Catt tell tour stories, retiring ref controversy, whinging from across the dutch and AI tools to block abuse.
Mike Catt tells Lions stories
The SMH reports some of the Lions touring stories of Waratahs assistant coach and brave attempted tackler Mike Catt, who played on two British & Irish Lions tours, to South Africa in 1997 and Australia in 2001. Regarding the latter tour:
“I missed the first three games but eventually played against Australia A, and tore my calf after 40 minutes. Dan Luger and Phil Greening also got injured that week, so we hired a car and did a road trip up to Brisbane. Stupidly they let us follow the tour, they said, “we’ve booked your rooms and stuff, so why don’t you just keep following”. Lawrence Dallaglio joined us as well. When we got to Byron Bay no one could decide if we would stay or push on to Brisbane, so we tossed a coin: heads we stay, tails we leave. It was heads. We ended up spending all our tour money. We all would have preferred to stay on the tour and play obviously, but that wasn’t to be.
One of the biggest things I learned on Lions tours is how guys who hated each other become firm friends. The English hated the Scots and vice versa, and being from South Africa (where everyone is nice I suppose?), I couldn’t understand this hatred and the disdain from both sides. It’s a game of rugby, lads. But there was this real hatred, they didn’t like each other.
Everyone remembers the Waratahs-Lions game in 2001 (when Duncan McRae was sent off for repeatedly punching Ronan O’Gara). And midweek games in South Africa, they were pretty old-school. They were some tough, tough games. You just had to survive them. It was a different mentality.
But that’s not in the game anymore, to be honest. Those days are gone. It’s too fast. You can’t get away with it. Which Lions star are you going to rough up anyway? They have so many good players so they don’t really rely on one person, do they?
Lack of ref support a wheelie bad look
PlanetRugby reports that a disenchanted Chris Busby has posted a picture of his IRFU retirement memento placed in his wheelie bin on the same day as his exit from professional rugby refereeing. The official announced in January that he would be hanging up his whistle at the end of the season, a development that emerged not long after his performance in the December match between Leinster and Connacht was heavily criticised.
Speaking after Connacht had lost to their Irish rivals in a United Rugby Championship game at Aviva Stadium that was refereed by Busby, winger Mack “MMMBop” Hansen described some of the officiating calls as “bulls***”. Hansen, who is currently on tour with the British & Irish Lions in Australia, received a three-match ban for his scathing comments. Issuing the classic non-apology for “any distress” that his outburst had caused to Busby and his team of match officials. The Hansen incident and the furore it caused, though, were described as the tipping point in Busby’s multi-reason retirement decision.
In a post on Busby’s social media, accompanied by a picture of his leaving memento from the IRFU in this bin, Busby wrote: “Today marks the end of my time with the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU). I was given a framed photo as a memento to mark the occasion. A gesture, I suppose. But what I really needed – and never received – from IRFU leadership was genuine support during the most difficult period of my professional life. I’ll be sharing more about that in the months ahead. For now, I’m grateful for the people I’ve met through the game, and looking forward to what’s next.”
Justin Marshall calls touring French squad ‘complete BS’
Stuff.bro.enzid reports that former All Black Justin Marshall says France’s touring squad that includes 20 uncapped players is “complete BS”. 11 of them don’t have a Wikipedia profile. The All Blacks are hosting Les Bleus in three tests and the series kicks off in Dunedin on Saturday night. But the strength of France’s 42-man squad threatens to undermine the credibility of the series. Almost half of the tourists have never played a test. The All Blacks, close to full strength but for some injuries, are sticking to the cautious, professional line of maintaining the utmost respect for a French team they’ve not beaten since 2018.
France have won their last three meetings (all in Paris) and are the reigning Six Nations champions. They toppled the All Blacks 30-29 when they clashed last November. However, most of their stars are at home, leaving a depleted line-up to face Robertson’s side. Superstar halfback Antoine Dupont is sidelined by a knee injury, and many familiar names have been given a break including Gregory Alldritt, Jean-Baptiste Gros, Thomas Ramos, Romain Ntamack, Thibaud Flament, Julien Marchand, Damian Penaud, Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Maxime Lucu and Matthieu Jalibert (a league surname surely!). From the French starting XV which beat the All Blacks last November, just two players, centre Gaël Fickou and winger Gabin Villière, are in the squad.
Former All Blacks halfback Justin Marshall gave his view on The Breakdown on Sky Sport. “To be honest, I’m really disappointed. The side that the French have brought is clearly underpowered, the average age of 25, the average number of caps is 9.3,” Marshall said. “This is a side that has a very little amount of experience, and then at the end of the day, there’s 49% of the players that have got no caps at all. So it’s a development team with a few senior players involved. In my mind, it’s complete BS the way that they’re treating this tour, the way that the French always seem to have come up with excuses to not bring their top players, I feel they disrespect the international window.”
Rugby Australia to combat online abuse
Reds Media reports that Rugby Australia has entered a partnership with Social Protect to make their AI-powered social media protection app accessible to all clubs, staff, volunteers and participants, from the elite level to community rugby. Social Protect automatically detects and deletes harmful, offensive and abusive comments from a user’s social media profile, posts or pages in real time. Deleted comments are recorded in an admin portal which can be accessed by Rugby Australia for law and policy enforcement purposes.
In a two-month trial across Rugby Australia’s national team social media accounts, Social Protect quarantined more than 1500 comments, with not even half of them from KARL. Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh said the partnership with Social Protect would set a new standard for how sports could respond to the issue of abuse on social media.
“This groundbreaking partnership is a significant step forward in Rugby Australia’s commitment to providing a safe and respectful environment for everyone involved in our game – from Wallabies and Wallaroos to grassroots players, volunteers and referees,” Waugh said. “Social Protect goes beyond safeguarding users’ mental health and wellbeing. By automatically and visibly removing abusive or offensive comments, it sends a clear and immediate message to offenders: moderate your behaviour, or your voice won’t be heard,” Rugby Australia Senior Legal Counsel, Head of Integrity Amy Thorp added.
