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Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy
Jan 1970
time: 06:26
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Originally posted by Havak
In a way they did. The win against France, in appalling conditions, was pretty impressive. The lack of panic against Wales showed them great credit? |
Well, yes, but - not having seen the matches, only having read about them - they didn't seem to reproduce the quality they showed against us. Or maybe, and I wish them no disrespect at all, we made them look good.
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What a nice way of saying I am clueless.  |
Moi? I prefer to think you reached heights of subtely previously unknown to modern man.
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There are one or two things I would suggest. Firstly that the RFU helps it fellow home Unions (and that will never happen). There is hope ? the WRU is modernising so the hang ons will be cleared out in time and the silly wages paid to players (the 90s it depended on number of caps ? at one stage Neil Jenkins was receiving three or four times the appearance money of Jonah Lomu alledgedly!). |
Yes, business plans seem to be the go. That's one thing the ARU seems to be good at.
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And a radical idea. I almost hesitate to put it forward. Let the Lions play at home in a four test series. One test in each home nation (remember Ireland are combined for rugby). The Lions are a cash cow (ask the ARU) and it would be a huge injection of money for each Union. |
Lions -v- whom? It would be a cash injection, but it would be a pretty short term benefit if they p*ss it away again on ineffective and unprofessional methods.
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Another problem Ireland have is that hurling and Gaelic football dominate. Landsdowne road holds forty odd thousand. There?s a stadium in Dublin called Crowe Park, used for hurling, that is ultra modern and holds nearly ninety thousand. But hurling is all that is played there (age old rival sports you see). What the IRFU needs is to gain use of such stadiums and maximise their revenue. Easy for me to say I know.  |
I suppose that's one of the advantages rugby has here. In the rugby states, the only competition for the major facilities is from L*****, and the facilities end up shared. Because neither code actually owns the facilities, so there can't be any dog in the manger silliness.
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Could I just ask what you think the majority of the Bok or English roster do then?  |
They'd use glasses. Our pigs whack an axe into the keg and stick their mouths over the opening.
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I?m guessing then that the Irish and Welsh participancy is vastly more impressive too? |
I'll check it out.
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What you can?t hide from though is that you have much more meat to choose from than the Celts or NZ. Sometimes stats show the odd real fact like that. |
With a bigger population - we have roughly 5 times New Zealand's population - you must have a higher participation rate. The important point was that Australia's rate is something like 0.07% of possible participants, while New Zealand's is something like 2.2%.
The even more important point - made in my Bricklayers Co-Op Social Club XV example - is that the vast majority of our participants are basically social players. We have 3 S12 teams from which our rep teams are chosen, and at least a third of those players wouldn't ever be considered at rep level. That's why we're constantly struggling for quality back-ups to our leading players. As I've said before, if rugby can keep its profile - regardless of how we do in the WRC - we could encourage more talent into the game. There are 3 major winter sports - for males - in this country, and in only one of them - rugby - can you actually represent your country on the world stage. Ultimately, that sort of appeal has to mean something.
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Not so easily shot down unless you can convince me that 45K is less to choose form than 11K. |
I suspect you might be convinced if I sent the 44K bricklayers over to you to demonstrate their, um, rugby skills on you.
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Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy
Jan 1970
time: 06:26
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I've put together some comparative statistics based on those IRB figures. It's twenty past midnight and I had nothing better to do. The trouble with these stats, as with the Australian and New Zealand ones I quoted earlier, is that, in determining the potential participants, I had to settle for the male population between the ages of 15 and 64. That's because that was the only range available for all the countries. Something like 15 to 30-something would be more appropriate. Unfortunately, those stats don't exist for all the countries. Well, they might, but I couldn't find them. The end result would have to be that these percentages are somewhat diluted by the inflated size of the potential participants.
Anyway, for what they're worth, here are the IRB figures translated as a percentage of potential participants (with the above proviso):
Australia 0.07%
Wales 1.8%
Ireland 0.9%
England 1%
South Africa 1%
New Zealand 2.2%
France 0.4%
Tomorrow, or when I find the time, I'll trawl the net for a more appropriate age range available for all the countries.
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Bearcat
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Oregonia
Dec 1999
time: 05:26
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Eastside vs. Scappoose Preview
Tomorrow we're travelling out to take on the Scappoose rugby team for our fourth game of the year. I expect it to be a real "Clash of the Titans" type game. Both of our teams are undefeated, with Scappoose at 3-0 (I think) and us with 2 wins and a draw. Scappoose is a first year team, but they have a lot of American football players on their team and reportedly have a large and aggressive pack. Our team has a lot of athletic players, but we also have our share of kids playing for the hell of it (i.e. not very athletic, not very dedicated, and not in good shape). However we can field at least 11 players, if not more with prior rugby experience, while as I mentioned this is their first year.
Hopefully the weather will be nice tomorrow and we won't have to slog it out in the mud again, because that would give their forwards a real advantage, and our strength is in our backline. This week was a middling week as far as practice was concerned. Tuesday we had a good practice, and got some conditioning in, but on Thursday we only had 13 guys show up and practice was kind of a let down. Hopefully everybody will show up tomorrow and we can field an excellent Starting XV. If not, than don't expect a good post-game.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:26
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I catch up with the discussion about penalty tries:
A penalty try is awarded when the foul has prevented the attacking side to scoe a try which was almost certain. It is also granted when repeated fouls prevent from scoring, such as repeated scrums like in a half final in a RWC where it wasn't awarded... So if a team has committed several fouls the referee can consider the repetition of fouls prevents the attacking team from scoring a try. I didn't see the match, but wanted to point out that a penalty try can be given to penalize repeated fouls in some cases. I am not sure it is in the laws of the game, but I remember that referees had been given directions to referee in that way.
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Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy
Jan 1970
time: 06:26
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Waratahs 34 -d- Crusaders 31
Talk about a weekend of upsets. First, the Highlanders roll the Blues, now the Waratahs roll the Crusaders. I only saw the last 15 minutes of the Highlanders -v- Blues, but it seemed the Blues took some very wrong options, and Carlos Spencer, for whatever reason, wasn't the force he was in earlier matches. That aside, though, the Highlanders have been playing some very good rugby recently, so maybe the upset wasn't really that much of an upset.
As to the Waratahs - what a schizophrenic bunch they are. Boiled lollies to chocolates in the space of a week, and, against the Crusaders, missing both Matt Burke and Matt Rogers from the starting lineup. For the last two weeks, they've lacked organisation, they've coughed up the ball, they've looked very ordinary. Last night they jumped the Crusaders from out the ouset, playing quick, rhythmical, attacking rugby and, with exceptional handling, had two tries on the board before the Crusaders knew what had hit them. The cleanouts were exceptional, driving the Crusaders backwards, and the pick and drive option, very well executed, kept the Crusaders going backwards. When they weren't picking and driving, the great cleanouts provided quickly recycled ball, giving half back Whitaker time and space to work his moves.
It was especially good to see Phil Waugh in absolutely top form at the breakdown, winning a number of penalties with his strength and tenacity. I think he's playing himself back into a Wallaby jersey. And David Lyons, the baby giant at #8, is also going to threaten for a Wallaby jersey. He's having a terrific season in a team that hasn't always been terrific. For such a huge man, he's astonishingly quick and creative, a terrific back up to his sheer strength. I've always had high hopes for him.
Of course the Crusaders fought back, but the Waratahs, instead of falling in a heap as they've done before, stuck to their guns, reverting to the pick and drive and keeping the Crusaders going backwards.
The end was pure Hollywood. Scores level with 20 seconds to go, and a penalty to the Waratahs 45 metres out, just short of halfway. 5/8 Shaun Berne, who had been kicking eratically all night, stepped up and slotted it, the ball just making it over the bar.
BTW, Havak, I think Shaun Berne had a season - or part of a season - over your way. I seem to recall he broke his leg and came home. He started this match in place of your mate Duncan Macrae. He's a solid #10 rather than anything outstanding. But he can sure kick a distance under pressure.
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Bearcat
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Oregonia
Dec 1999
time: 05:26
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Eastside-Scappoose Post-Game
Played the match at Scappoose Middle School which is about a forty minute drive from Portland. The weather was fairly cooperative, the skies were overcast and it was cold out but it didn't rain during the game. Scappoose came out very aggressively as our coach had warned us they would. Our rucks just disintegrated and they kept coming through and picking up the ball and driving forward. The coach stuck me in at second row, not a very enjoyable experience. I also happened to be consistently one of the first forwards at the breakdown but I was constantly overpowered by the sheer size of the Scappoose forwards as I only stand at 5'10'' and weigh about 72 kilograms. The whole first half was scoreless as they kept driving forward, but we managed to stop them every time.
I got pulled during the second half and was replaced by a larger forward, and I watched the rest of the game from the sidelines. The second half started well for us, as we drove up the field in good fashion and managed to finally start rucking well, and holding them off the ball. Part of our earlier problem with ball control, had been their habit to constantly come in from the side and it wasn't easy for the referee to see, since the rucks were quite crappy. We almost scored but somehow lost the ball and they started up the field. It turned into another back and forth affair for pretty much the rest of the half, but in the last quarter of the game we finally got inside their 22 and with a series of penalties on them, we were able to put a try in to make it 5-0 and we held them off the rest of the match.
I have to give them credit for playing agressively and together and for their constant offensive pressure. We were never able to get things going offensively, and we had far less time in their 22 than they did ours, so we didn't really deserve to win. They also played somewhat disorganized too, as their backline tended to dissapear a bit after the first couple rucks or so, and their offense became an affair of "who wants it?" with the ball. Our major weakness was lack of preperation as many people hadn't attended practice this week and we are missing our starting flyhalf (vacation) and eightman (injury), so that degraded our game.
I think if we can get more people to practices and work on fitness though, we will have a much better game next week, as we are playing Lincoln a team we beat 10-5 last year, and they beat us as the pre-season tournament so we have a chip on our shoulder and will be motivated for a win. Also, the coaches need to put me back at openside flanker, no more of this locking crap 
FINAL SCORE
Eastside - 5
Scappoose - 0
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Bearcat
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Oregonia
Dec 1999
time: 05:26
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Well it's not like a want to be a lock, nor am I fit to be a lock. I think they need to put the current opensider at lock or eightman instead.
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Apolyton Time is 00:26. |
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03-04-2003 13:38
).
All of those things – and a worrying new addiction to Guinness.
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