Rugby World Cup 2007

The Rugby World Cup is upon us, so it’s time to have a look at the major teams in this tournament, I’ll start by listing them by world ranking and a quick thought on their prospects.

Rank 1: New Zealand – hot favourites, but aren’t they always

2: Australia – not the second best team in the world, but have a habit of over achieving

3: France – who knows, but they can beat anyone when they’re on

4: South Africa – not dangerous enough to beat the All Blacks, but structured enough to beat France

5: Argentina – higher ranked then I’ve seen before

6: Ireland – don’t think so have France and Argentina in their pool

7: England - not even Johnny Drop goal can win this one for them

8: Wales – easy pool, but can’t win the whole thing

9: Italy – the guys who can’t play soccor are in this team

10: Scotland - nope

11: Samoa – if your good you play for the All Blacks

12: Fiji – ditto above

13: Canada – a few expats

14: Tonga – if your good you play for the All Blacks

15: USA – they don’t know why they are here and their entire country doesn’t know they’re here

16:Your local subbies team would probably fit about here and be a chance of a top ten spot if they could keep off the drink!!

17: A country you never thought played rugby

18: A bunch of guys that shouldn’t play rugby

19: These guys don’t have boots

20: This team still use the orange peels from half time as mouth guards (come on we all did once)

So here are the pool breakdowns.

Pool A
ENG
RSA
SAM
USA
TGA

Pool B
AUS
WAL
FJI
CAN
JPN

Pool C
NZL
SCO
ITA
ROM
POR

Pool D
FRA
IRE
ARG
GEO
NAM

New Posts

I've copied all my posts across from my old blog, so they all appear as being done on the same day, but this is not the case.

I really should have listened to Greeny and moved over before I had written to much, I haven't brought them all across, only the ones that are worth a comment

Cheers

Soft Saffies

How soft is South African rugby, we're led to believe that these big hairy back behemoths are rough and ready always providing a stern test of physical combativeness. But what have they done on the tour of Aust. and NZ, left the best 20 players behind and the reason, they've played 5 tests in a row and a combination of injury and fatigue have taken hold of their squad! What a load of absolute rubbish, lets look at what is really going on here, firstly the 3 tests they played before the Tri Nations started were against the English B squad (lets be honest, England don't really have an A squad at the moment!) two tests and one against Samoa (another heavy weight opponent!).

These three tests were nothing better then opposed contact training sessions and really shouldn't have been classified with test status, neither should the first couple of tests played by Aust. and NZ against substandard opponents.The Springboks only had to play two more TESTS (real ones) before they would have the luxury of a two month break before their first RWC match against.....Samoa!

Surely that is more then ample time to recover from fatigue and any minor injury concerns! What I believe happened is as soon as they lost that game to the All Blacks in Durban they pretty much gave up hope of winning the Tri Nations and so thought it best to protect their players from possible injuries, but to quote Frank Drebin from the Naked Gun movies "you take your chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street or sticking your face in a fan"!

In short injuries will and can happen at any time and what the S.A rugby board has done is laughable and should be treated with disdain by the ARU and NZRU, who should be seeking compensation on the grounds that it isn't in the spirit of the contract and should then look to distance themselves from S.A rugby in the future, from super 14 to Tri Nations.
I was hoping that the Wallabies would hand out a thrashing last weekend but it was wishful thinking, hopefully the All Blacks can put 60 points on them this weekend!!

Don't get me wrong I know it's not the players fault, this sits squarely on the S.A rugby board’s shoulders.

Ahh, that feels better, till next time.

AFL Top 8

Here is my guess at the AFL top 8

Geelong 72
WCoast 60
PAdelaide 56
Kangaroos 56
Collingwood 56
Hawthorn 52
Swans 50
St Kilda 46

All these are purely guesses as i'm not a big follower of AFL but it seems to work!

Lote Tuqiri

So here is how I see it, John O'Neill (CEO Aust Rugby) signed Lote Tuqiri before the last World Cup, but his predecessor resigned him before the current World Cup to the biggest single contract of the ARU, supposedly $1million per season!!

Now we here that the ARU are going to make a loss this year of a couple of million, I think that O'Neill will try to have Tuqiri's contract torn up after his next alleged indiscretion, thus saving the ARU about $1m per year!! Tuqiri may not be the only one to go, but he is the highest profile and they'll site his off field problems which is directly linked to league culture and his failure to play up to his potential (linked back to off field behavior).

Lote, can you please do us a favour, when your out on the field pretend your still playing league and play with the instincts that made you the best winger (of both codes) in the world, the rugby coaches have turned you into a metronome of what they want in a winger, but not what they need!!

NRL Top 8

It’s approaching the business end of the football seasons, so I thought it time to give a run down of the most probable top eight finishing positions.
NRL
Melbourne Storm 44 points
Manly 40 points
Eels 32 points
Cowboys 30 points
Warriors 29 points
Bulldogs 26 points
Tigers 26 points
Broncos 24 points

There are obviously plenty of outcomes that could eventuate, but a lot of the teams vying for the last couple of spots either play each other or play a higher ranked team, thus the make up could be completely different.

The first three teams are pretty much set, but after that it does become interesting, the Cowboys have two away against the panthers (can still offer nuisance value) and Knights (capable of an upset) and two at home being the Dragons and the Dogs, no guarantees there. Warriors face the easiest draw, but as you know they can be unpredictable and could lose or win all four, but I think they’ll win at least three, they face Titans (home) Raiders (away) Manly (home) and Penrith (away).

The Bulldogs have a tougher run up against Raiders (home) Broncos (away), that’s the two games they should win and then Storm (home) and Cowboys (away). The Tigers again have a tough one needing to beat the rejuvenated Roosters (home) Sharks (away) Bunnies (home) and Knights (home) only that they have three homes games give them the edge in. The Broncos are the team most desperate, being severely depleted with injuries and having a tough draw, it plausible that they may not win a game and could drop out leaving the Roosters and Bunnies to fight out the last spot, where that draw of last week could return to haunt the Roosters, the Broncos face Storm (away) Dogs (home) Raiders (home) Eels (away).

It really would not surprise me to see the Bunnies and Roosters in contention and maybe one or both slipping into the eight, its been one of those seasons where there never seems to be a certainty every week.

I’ll get to the AFL next.

Nathan Brown Syndrome

So Brad Fittler is the newest coach in the NRL, lets hope for his sake that the Roosters give him the chance to; 1 prove he can coach, 2 build a team to take them forward and 3 grow and mature as a coach.

There is a real similarity here to the Dragons appointment as coach a few years back, a few knowledgeable rugby league heads believed that Nathan Brown would make a good coach and would one day take the reins of an NRL team. The Dragons just couldn’t wait to get their former player in to the top job and he took over with very little senior coaching under his belt, which may come back to haunt him at season end if the Dragons don’t win a few more games. Ideally Brown would have served as an assistant coach for a few years, then been thrown the top job, but what transpired was that he took the job and the team underachieved, here was arguably the most talented team in the competition who really only needed a coach who could provide the final spit and polish to get them a premiership or two, and a more experienced coach most probably would have got them there. Unfortunately they got a young coach, coaching some of his former team mates and backed by a supporter base that are desperate for a return to the golden years (or at least their first GF win since the 70’s).

Fast forward to round 18, 2007 and the knives have well and truly been sharpened, having lost a host of big name players, the ones they’ve got left are injured, meaning Brown has had more debutants then your average deb ball, and you’ll see the red and whites near the bottom of the ladder. Hopefully the powers that be at the Dragons and the supporters can see the error of times past and get over it, I’ve no doubt that Brown is a better coach today and will be better next season and sincerely hope that he is now given the chance to: 1 prove he can coach, 2 build a team to take them forward and 3 grow into one of the best coaches in the NRL. Sound familiar?!

This brings me back to Brad Fittler, the biggest difference here is that the team is already looking to rebuild and move toward next season and beyond, they can’t go much further down! But there are certainly similarities to Nathan Browns appointment, the fact he is a former Roosters player (a very bloody good one), there had been some talk about his possible coaching in the future (pretty important word that one, not today, future), the Roosters tried to hold off his appointment by signing Chris Anderson, but they really wanted Fittler the whole time to be head coach, and he really doesn’t have much of an apprenticeship under his belt! Remember one of the leagues greatest ever players one, Wally Lewis tried his hand at coaching at this level and didn’t succeed, I hope that one of the modern day greats is given the chance to:

1 prove he can coach
2 build a team to take them forward
3 grow and mature as a coach!

I had written this the week leading up to Fittler’s first game as coach, the Roosters subsequently won that first game under their new coach but this is not uncommon for teams to perform like this after mid season changes, lets just hope that they can keep it up!

Ben Cousins, Junkie or Jerk?!

Where do you start with this guy and what are the WEagles and AFL thinking letting him play again this season. Okay, so we know what the WEagles are thinking, oh s^*t we might not win without him and since we pay him so much we better get our money's worth, but the AFL?! If ever there is a professional sporting organisation that rules with the complete lack of authority as this bunch, well I've not been informed of them.

Cousins, decided he didn't want to talk to the cops when apparently behind the wheel after having a couple of sherberts (probably swan light shandy's by the looks of him!), which is an offence by the way (so is drinking swan light!). Then comes the drug saga, which is denied and then refuses all advances of help, but the thing that really stood out is the way he left for his stint in rehab, he left the airport with the airs and graces of one with not a trouble in the world and a smug look on his dial, which I'm sure a line of people a mile long would have lined up to smack off, that's how I felt. But wait, that was nothing compared with his triumphant return, that line of people just grew to all the way back to AFL HQ!

Then only weeks before a probable comeback he’s sighted out and about at some nightclubs, now he wasn’t drinking or doing anything silly but the fact that he put himself out there in the spot light when he really should be trying to lay low and concentrate on a successful return to the playing arena, I think tells us a lot about the type of guy he is, to me it shows he’s learnt nothing from his previous escapades and deserves nothing in return. Again this shows a lack of leadership from both the WEagels and the AFL that he is practically throwing it in there collective faces.

The other codes at least are trying to show strong leadership traits to their players, how must Wendell Sailor feel, he got two years out of sport for one indiscretion, maybe he should play AFL!

It really does seem as if the AFL has some problems with their players in general, and i noticed that the news last night carried another AFL story concerning a former Lions player and what looked like a pretty serious brawl, if the AFL received equal media coverage across NSW and QLD then I think we’d find that the AFL players are making the other codes look good.

I must admit that all this stupidity has made the WEagles the team I now love to hate and I hope the Dockers take over as the dominant team in the west.

Cheers
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