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

[frontrow]

Look to the north for super, entertaining rugger - rugbyheaven07.com.au


I read this article and was a little annnoyed at first but in the end i tend to have come to an acceptance that Gareths view is not too far off the mark...As a prop who relished the challenge i feel we are tending to cater more for the more "prettyboy" approach to the game, and not the international aspect as such...It is hard to digest the criticism, but unfortunately it is well grounded...

[Darren]

hehe - "Prop Idol"

[frontrow]

I like the concept...

[AndyS]

I reckon it would be great...I can almost see the list of weekly tasks..."supporting the backline", with the lessons in seagulling, hairstyling and talking it up...

[brokendown gunfighter]

the irony is that two of the teams with the most powerful forward packs,SA & Argentina,hail from the SOUTHERN hemisphere

[OzFUB]

...and they both did better than the Wallabies and All Blacks in the RWC 2007.

It isn't just the pack as the All Blacks have a great pack. As Gareth says a lack of intensity has a lot to do with it. That was the only reason England beat us. They wanted it more than we did and the same goes for the French

[James]

Its funny that the new ELVs came out of Stellenbosch in South Africa (holders of the World Cup) and yet they all call them the Australian laws. South Africa didn't even have to go out of second gear in that final and if England had come back with a vengeance there was so much more they could have done.

You can't compare the two competitions on the basis of two World Cup quarter finals. Being every four years it takes a back seat to annual rugby. Most people have already forgotten about most of it (some by binge drinking) and those English fans who were proud after their unanticipated performance will only be seeing Red after Saturday's abomination. Rugby is a 15 man sport and it showed on Saturday that England just didn't get that.

I agree with the point he was making about Australian rugby stagnating a bit but I think Robbie Deans will mix it up nicely. And as I recall we still hold the record for attendance to a Rugby event (2000 Bledisloe Cup match- 109,000 estimated).

[jazza93]

i forgot how perfect the NH rugby is.

i didnt like it

[GIGS20]

Gareth's no mug, let me get that on the table before I start. He knows his rugby and understands the importance of the forwards to this game, I don't dispute that....I do think however that when he started to dribble on about the value of NH rugby to the world (the planet?) he got just a little carried away.

He made one awesome point though....one which all the ELVs in the World won't cover Tight Five forward play is required in the game of rugby and if you can't do that....you WILL get you ass handed to you. I don't think this will change in the ELV era, Scrums will still feature, since they are the method of restart for dropped ball, and can be chosen from any free kick. Don't you think NH teams will figure this out once they've stopped bleating about this change that the South African union (who beat England at their own game) suggested.

Take that message from this and you've got the kernel of useful truth from this story....the rest of it is blatant jingoism being peddled by someone who got a little too excited when Wales had a win over an English team that (by reports, I didn't see the game) manged to suck more than them in the second half.

I hope Mitch understands that our boys will still need to compete against the best tight fives in the world on similar terms as they always have, since the extra space that will be afforded by the ball being in play more will work against the team that's being pushed around consistently. If we can't play in the forwards...that'll be us!

[James]

Neither team played well. England, as expected, could do nothing with their backs and when injuries hit couldn't do much with their forwards either. Wales will probably be happy with a win but it would be a bit of hollow joy. They were creamed in the first half and had England not been quite so incompetant they would have been creamed in the second. I won't lie- it was exciting to watch for a most part with a very nice comeback but neither coach will be happy with their teams performances.

[JediKnight]

He made one awesome point though....one which all the ELVs in the World won't cover Tight Five forward play is required in the game of rugby and if you can't do that....you WILL get you ass handed to you. I don't think this will change in the ELV era, Scrums will still feature, since they are the method of restart for dropped ball, and can be chosen from any free kick. Don't you think NH teams will figure this out once they've stopped bleating about this change that the South African union (who beat England at their own game) suggested.

Great point there GIGS20.

At the Crusaders v Force match in Melbourne, the attacking team chose the scrum option if they were awarded a free kick anywhere in the opposition half (unless they were able to take a quick tap before the defence had got set up 10m back).

It was pleasing to note that there seemed to be relatively few scrum resets too during the game.

[zimeric]

what a load of NH drivel!!!

poppycock, heresay & blasphemy.. its funny that he is comparing a national competition to a Club one... Im betting that the Crusaders and probably the Sharks, Blues, Brumbies and this year probably the Force as well, could hand England, Wales or France their Arses on a good day. And they all play 15 man rugby.

Im getting tired of all this talk of how crap Aussie & NZ rugby is just because they didnt make the finals of the world cup.
They lost due to poor game planning and a lack of flexibility in modifying those game plans to compensate. They also each lost by 2 points thats TWO points , one penalty would have won the game for either of them!

Both France and england had lost matches during the lead up to the final, they both had at least two matches with quality opposition.
NZ had none and Aus supposedly had one.

Its time people recognised that instead of saying "oh they simply lost", "they are crap", "they dont know what they're talking about when it comes to rugby", "the 15 man game is for losers".... yaddayadda blah blah blah!!

[AndyS]

I thought it was a little overblown, but also noted a couple of very good points. GIGS20 spotted one, but the other was:

"Can you imagine the competitive forces facing British sides with premiership football, where even ordinary players rake in more than $100,000 a week?"

There is a lot of bleating about competition from AFL, NRL and soccer, but how much more does soccer dominate rugby in the NH? Yet they seem to be getting on with it at the club level...in other words, organisations specifically set up to act professionally in a professional sport are expanding the appeal of the game. Compare this with the performance of most of the national bodies and you've got to think the administrators (and frankly, a lot of the historical supporter base) are still really struggling with the sport no longer being amateur. So, note to the ARU:

STOP MOANING ABOUT HOW EVERYTHING IS AGAINST YOU BECAUSE IT IS A PISS-WEAK EXCUSE. STOP LOOKING TO OTHERS TO SORT YOUR PROBLEMS - OUR PROBLEMS ARE NOT SHARED BY NZ OR SA. ADDRESS THE INEFFICIENCIES IN OUR EXISTING STRUCTURES, BALANCE THE BOOKS AND LOOK TO GROWING THE GAME - THE OTHER CODES SEEM TO BE ABLE TO DO IT, SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?

[innocent quokka]

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.

[GIGS20]

I see where you're going IQ, but I've never actually played the game, my knowledge of rucks and mauls (and scrums) comes only from watching the game and listening to (as well as participating in) discussion about the game. I really DO appreciate the current rules under which the game operates, and enjoy the cut and thrust of quality forward play. I don't believe the ELVs will make much of a difference to the way the game's played overall...Let's face it, after a couple of weeks, the ARC had settled into a familiar game, with a little more time on the ball that before and a little less kicking for touch.

I don't believe the average punter "needs" the game to change a whole lot to appreciate it, they just need to have the game played positively by sides that see a string to their bow other than a rock solid defence and a bloody good kicker. I want to see teams winn through endeavour, I want to see teams have a crack and get somewhere as a result, I want to see the efforts of those who grab the ball and actually do something other than kick the crap out of it and hoope your boot is bigger than thier boot!