Wednesday’s Rugby News sees the Lions trophy change, a Melbourne boy move to a place with grim weather, the Jake White Fan Club shrinking and Tackle School explained.
Lions trophy changes, Tom Richards Cup becomes a medal.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Tom Richards Cup, which has been contested between the Wallabies and the British & Irish Lions since 2001, has been retired and will be replaced next month by a perpetual trophy created by the Lions on their 2021 tour of South Africa. The B&I Lions apparently don’t want to play for a particular trophy against the Wallabies every twelve years, preferring to play for a perpetual trophy.
Richards, the Gallipoli hero and Olympic gold medallist who is the only Australian-born person to play for both the Wallabies and the Lions, will still be commemorated in next month’s three-Test series, with a new Tom Richards Medal to be awarded to the player of the series. The family of Richards have given their blessing, and three generations of Richards’ descendants last week posed with Rugby Australia boss Phil Waugh at the SCG with Richards’ war medal, Test caps and Olympic medal as a gesture of support.
Tom Richards was born as a son of poor gold miners in Charters Towers in rural Queensland, and made his debut for the Wallabies on a 1908 tour of the UK. That trip also saw Australia win an Olympic gold medal, with Richards scoring a try in the victory over a Cornwall side. The Times wrote that if a world team had to be selected to play against Mars, Richards “would be the first player chosen”.
Richards subsequently went to work in South Africa, and when the British Lions toured there in 1910 and suffered multiple injuries the flanker was drafted in to become a Lion, being eligible via a previous stint of playing for Bristol.
Richards enlisted as an Anzac in the First World War and was among the first to land at the shores of Gallipoli. Richards later served on the Western Front in France and was wounded twice in battle – for which he was awarded the Military Cross. He returned home, had a family and became as a journalist, but died in 1935 of tuberculosis, which was related to gas exposure in the war.
Australian Sione Tuipulotu’s path to playing for the B&I Lions.
The ABC tells the story of Sione Tuipulotu path from Melbourne boy to raising the Lions’ average talent level.
Two generations ago, Tuipulotu’s family was Scottish, Tongan, and Italian. His grandmother, Anne Thompson, moved with her parents and siblings from Greenock, outside Glasgow, to North Frankston. Her daughter, Angelina, whose father was Italian, met Fohe Tuipulotu while he was studying at RMIT in Melbourne on an AusAID scholarship from Tonga. They married and moved to Tonga before returning to Australia to raise five children: two girls, Kiesse and Keanna, and three boys, Sione, Mosese and Ottavio.
Sione was in his first year at the public high school Elisabeth Murdoch College when he decided to try rugby at Southern Districts, a family club in nearby Seaford. Private school St Kevin’s College Toorak awarded Sione a scholarship in Year 9 and his brothers followed him to that school. Sione played for the Australian Schoolboys and Junior Wallabies (Australia Under 20) for three consecutive years, 2015-17. He became the first Victorian to debut for the Melbourne Rebels.
In 2018 Sione accepted an invitation to play in Japan during the off season, which became a two-year stint. UK officials noticed Sione playing for Australia’s under-20s at the World Cup in Manchester in 2016, with the knowledge that his grandmother was a Scot. Five years later, Sione said yes to an offer from Glasgow Warriors. The big move into the Scottish national team came via a phone call from the coach Gregor “Pete” Townsend.
Sione made his debut for Scotland against his father’s homeland, Tonga, in 2021. Three years later he was made captain for a series that would include the Scottish debut of his brother Mosese, who had been following Sione through the ranks. The Tuipulotu brothers opposed Australia at Murrayfield Stadium, winning 27-13. Their grandmother made the trip from Frankston to be in the grandstands.
Sione made his British & Irish Lions debut in a loss to Argentina on Sunday morning in the midfield with New Zealand-born Irish champion Bundee “and coke” Aki.
The Bulls are revolting.
PlanetRugby reports that Jake White’s role as the Bulls’ director of rugby is in a precarious position.
Springboks duo Ruan Nortjé and Marcell Coetzee have reportedly led a player delegation to Bulls management and have expressed their dissatisfaction with White‘s leadership style. Some Bulls players have threatened not to sign new contracts, and even cut short or not extend existing deals, unless White is replaced.
Although the full reasons for the players’ dissatisfaction have not been revealed, some of White’s media statements about certain players have contributed to the unhappiness in the Bulls camp. A typical example was White’s comment late last year that highly rated Springboks outside back Canan Moodie “had eaten too much food at the buffet” while on tour with the Bulls.
White’s situation was exacerbated due to the fact that he has lost the support of two of his assistant coaches, Chris Rossouw and Andries Bekker, as well as the Bulls’ chief executive Edgar Rathbone. Bulls insiders revealed that White’s relationship with his assistants had deteriorated to such an extent that they didn’t communicate with each other during last weekend’s United Rugby Championship (URC) final defeat against Leinster at Croke Park.
Leinster cruised to a 32-7 victory in that encounter, and after the match, White reportedly worsened his relationship with his players and assistants by hailing the Irish province’s player depth and saying the Bulls could not compete with their opponents. Apparently former Johannesburg Lions head coach Johan “steering linkage” Ackermann is being lined up to take over the coaching reins from White.
What is ‘Tackle School’ anyway?
The BBC has looked into the magical suspension-reduction program known as Tackle School – the coaching intervention program designed to help educate players after they are shown a red card for a dangerous tackle. Designed by World Rugby in 2021 as a way to improve a player’s tackling technique, completing the program can enable players to reduce suspensions. Any player shown a red card that is upheld by a disciplinary panel is able to apply to attend ‘tackle school’, where they will be coached to make improvements to their technique to prevent further offences and injuries.
Tackle School is a bespoke, dedicated session at which the player will be coached by one of their club or international coaches. The session is recorded and reviewed by an independent expert, who will either approve the session or ask for more work to be done. Each session consists of a video review of the incident, discussing with the player what should have been done better, then a practical session to work on the skill.
A player is deemed to have passed once the independent reviewer is happy the session has been to the required standard to positively influence player behaviour. Although players do not receive a certificate upon completion, a record is kept, as individuals are only permitted to attend once in their career (call it the Kerry Packer’s Alan Bond of judiciary mitigation). The course has resulted in a low rate of players reoffending, and subsequent bans for dangerous tackles.
Gary Ringrose describes his involvement: “I was breaking it down into different elements, what I perceived what I could do better and what [Ireland assistant coach Andrew Goodman] thinks I could have done better. You go back over the incident and they designed little drills to break down the incident a bit into segments. That evolved into re-enacting, effectively, what happened and being acutely aware of what I can do differently in that situation. I was on the pitch doing it, to try to anticipate what I didn’t anticipate on the day in Cardiff to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again.”
Sir Graham Henry promotes herpes in New Zealand.
You can read the article and watch the video yourselves on this one.
