A welsh slap in the face for SH rugby...

[AndyS]

And some positive and informed journalism - if the average neophyte reads that it was/is a boring game, that is how they'll view it. By all means identify negative gameplans as such, but quite often low scoring matches are the result of evenly matched sides exhibiting desperate defence in an armwrestle of a game. I suspect that a lot of the "journalists" writing about the game understand very little of union, actually prefer a different code and take the view that it was a crap match unless at least a half dozen tries were scored.

[innocent quokka]

we heart Amanda Shalala!

[travelling_gerry]

we heart Amanda Shalala!

First smart thing you have said all day

[innocent quokka]

gee ... I'm sorry

[AndyS]

we heart Amanda Shalala!

Bloody right - she's a lovely and it was a breath of fresh air during the ARC to read articles from someone who genuinely seemed to enjoy rugby.

[travelling_gerry]

gee ... I'm sorry

Tell it to the shout box in GTT

[frontrow]

I'm sorry, but I disagree with the Welshman.

In my humble opinion, Rugby is a very entertaining game if you've played it before as you understand much more completely what's going on in rucks, mauls and (if you're a forward) scrums.

Ever since our all star quokka team started training for the Super 14 trials, my appreciation for these elements of the game has grown.

However to the majority of the viewing public who have never really played before, and who are used to watching other forms of football, all they see is a bunch of fat blokes lying all over each other, interspersed with a few pretty boys kicking the ball into the crowd.

A few months ago I was sitting in the hot tub with mrs. quokka watching an All Blacks game. The only points scored in the first 60 minutes were from penalty kicks, and as a spectator who is kind of new to watching the game, it was BORING! Maybe Mr. Davies enjoyed this game because he's into that sort of competition, but to a spectator who at that stage hadn't played much rugby, it was really quite dull. Not much ball movement, lots of reset scrums, lots of kicking into touch, lots of stoppages. A very slow game.

I'm not saying that I think Rugby should turn into league or touch football (or, god-forbid, AFL), but I do think that the viewing public who haven't played rugby need something a bit faster, and a bit more understandable if Rugby is to grow in Aus.

I think about the amount of times the crowd is on their feet, cheering ecstatically - it's when tries are scored. From a purely entertainment perspective, think about that.

That is the most intelligent thing i have heard our Quokka friend say, great post...
ps... I would hate to be cleaning the hot tub afterwards....