Rugby - Who? Me, Sir? Offside?

[finbar]

Originally posted by Caligastia
I think it could still be just as popular, because as I see it, its main appeal is the fact that it is essentially a provincial and international competition mixed into one. Its a great concept, and I would hate to do away with the whole thing altogether.

You could well be right. I hope so. In that case, running a Test-level comp in and around it could be workable.

Even though it helps Australian rugby...he grudgingly admits ...because after all, its no fun when one team wins all the time, even if its the All Blacks...he even more grudgingly admits

The real bottom line is that S12 helps everyone's rugby because it is, by definition, a stronger comp than the respective domestic club comps (one or two of the easy-beat S12 teams aside, maybe). Exposing players to a higher standard of rugby will lift players' standards (providing the players are equipped to lift their standards).

[finbar]

Originally posted by Tamerlin
DoT : there are a few things you have to know.

This is a great post, Tamerlin! Good stuff!

1 - In spite of its heretic opinions about Rugby (as most of the SH representatives around here) Finbar deserves a massive respect because he has seen AC/DC live when the band was playing in clubs (it means he saw the band at the beginning of its carreer with Bon Scott, respect...).

You can add INXS - subject to your taste! - and a few others to the list. The loudest band I've ever heard was Rose Tattoo who, from memory, had some success in Europe. I couldn't hear for a week after the performance.

Poor old Bon Scott. Very interesting character. He'd spent his entire musical life battling along in various bands - in the mid-late 1960s he was often decked out in flared pants, polka dots, and with permed hair, believe me - and he finally hit the big time with AC/DC. It wasn't so much a case of him not being able to cope with the fame, but more that he actually - somehow - preferred the battling days to the successful days. He was always a massive, massive drinker and (soft-ish) drug taker whose only real ambition was to have a good time doing what he loved doing. Somehow, fame and glory and money took the fun out of it for him. Ultimately, ironically, I think he would have been perfectly happy with the way he died.

2 - The thread is mostly animated by Havak and Finbar which are displaying a delightful Anti-British / Anti-Australian bias mainly for the fun of it (they won't admit it but they like each other) which gives us the opportunity to read a spirited exchange of kind words in which we can from time to time "ajouter notre grain de sel" ("add our grain of salt") as we say in France.

I would make only one small addition. Havak has soccer in his genes and anything Havak posts must be read with that immensely disturbing proviso.

There are also a few things you can bet your shirt on :

1 - Each time the SH is concerned the chances Havak and I agree against all the others are pretty high. United we stand.

Funny how the equator, along with marking 0 latitutde, also marks the boundary between sense and nonsense (with the former the exclusive property of those south of 0 latitude).

2 - Each time the NH is concerned the chances all the others (to the exception of LDiCesare who is french) agree against Havak and I are seemingly high. Heretics are stubborn.

Only proving the point of my preceding paragraph.

3 - Each time Australia is concerned there is an exception to the above rules, Havak and Caligastia have great chances to agree against Finbar while I'am adopting a rather distant and neutral attitude (this has something to do with internal affairs within the Commonwealth).

Very funny stuff! I can't add to it.

4 - As far as traditions and Rugby are concerned, everybody here agree (at least most of the time) they should not be sacrificed on the altar of money and should be kept alive. Caligastia is, I can be wrong, the individual which seems the more prone to sacrifice tradition but he is living in the United States and might have been somehow spoiled.

Couldn't agree more. Along with the soccer genes lurking within Havak's body, Caligastia's worshiping at the altar of the Almighty Greenback is the greatest threat to the purity of these threads. I'm just waiting for him to have George Witless Bush add this thread to the Axis of Evil.

I think your survival kit to the Apolyton Rugby Thread is now ready, good luck !

I'm going to cut and paste this thread and save it. Add the Red and Yellow Card rules, and keep it for presentation to any others who wander in here and wonder what they've struck.

[Tamerlin]

Thanks for the compliment and your funny comments Finbar, I knew you would appreciate this kind of post.

[finbar]

No probs. Now go to bed. It's 2.30am! You need your beauty sleep.

[Tamerlin]

I'am not asleep ! I don't want to go to bed...

[finbar]

I can only hope that you're in bed by now!

[ravagon]

Crikey this thread grows quickly!
Take a snooze for a couple of weeks and you lose the whole train.

Originally posted by Havak
It's worth checking this out - some very very upset people letting both O'Neil and also the English (in general apparently) have it with both barrels.
[/URL]

I'm not surprised. We do tend to take our rugby rather seriously. Wars, stock crashes, planetary-scale extinction events ... all come and go but rugby's important.

I particularly liked the

Have the NZRFU for example come up with any new plans for the sport recently?

comment though. ie: New = better. Doesn't actually matter whether there's any sense in "New" of course.

Not that I'm biased mind you but I do have to wonder whether the Brits reaction to the Kiwi outrage in this situation would be quite so "objective" were the roles reversed and, by analogy, certain high-profile English teams were to be excluded from the Champions league, er, for example.

After that thinly veiled reference to a sport played with a slightly more spherical ball I'll serve the duration of my ban catching up on the dozen-odd pages I've missed.

PS: Go Liverpool!

[ravagon]

I rather like the idea of a 6-nations tournament - with perhaps a few adjustments ...

I was thinking more along the lines of actually using the perceived NH/SH rivalry and playing in two parts - firstly in the NH - hosted by England/France - then in the SH by Aus/NZ perhaps?
Basically play a whole series of matches in a relatively small geographic area, with limited travelling time, then switch hemispheres and do the same. Do it all in two bursts basically, rather than the 3 in the current Tri-nations.

Throw in an aditional NH and SH team from whomever happens to be highest-ranked among the remainder each season.
It'd probably amount to a toss-up between Puma's/Boks for the SH place and ... I'll reserve judgement for the moment for the other NH place.

It'd probably be an absolute horror to organize and manage, and still a little elitist perhaps, but I think it might have potential ...

[Devil of Truth]

Originally posted by Tamerlin
Finbar, you have forgotten the last rule :

Rule #4 - In the case of a repetition of an offence, you will be tied to a chair and forced to watch figure skating for 24 consecutive hours.

So DoT are you ready to cheer for Australia now...

Let’s see … figure skating… Oz… figure skating… Oz…
Can’t wait to see whatever it is figure skaters do.

[Devil of Truth]

Originally posted by ravagon
It'd probably amount to a toss-up between Puma's/Boks for the SH place and ...

A toss-up between the Pumas/Boks? Have you been sampling some of Tamerlin’s “herb”?

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Devil of Truth

A toss-up between the Pumas/Boks? Have you been sampling some of Tamerlin’s “herb”?

So that's what it was!


Actually I was just trying not to write off the Pumas for all time. They'll have to come out of their current down cycle sooner or later.

Let’s see … figure skating… Oz… figure skating… Oz…
Can’t wait to see whatever it is figure skaters do.

I think you'll fit in rather well around here.

[Havak]

expose this England/Twickenman invincibility nexus as the fraud it is;

And I look forward to us doing the exact same to the Australians record against us at home – preferably in RWC 03.

I'd suggest a tad milder brew of coffee, lad.

Coffee, medication? I’m mortally offended. I’ve always felt I underplayed England’s chances against the tri-nations if anything?

Not by any chance falling into the trap of dismissing England are you Finbar and Caligastia? You are way too intelligent for that. With the weakened squads the tri-nations are bringing we are perfectly capable of winning all three games at HQ.

Finbar shoots, he scores. Thirty seconds later Caligastia does the same.

Exactly. Are the clubs likely to be won over by big cheques dangled in their direction?

My opinion on that is it’s unlikely unless the season is also radically re-structured to avoid domestic games when Internationals are on. After all the RFU already has to sub the top 12 clubs for 2 million a year from England TV rights and they still do not co-operate with them!

Eloquence? In this country? Only when someone with worse than the usual standard of enunciation greets a quince.

I was of course being ironic, and am also reaching for the thesaurus and colloquial dictionaries again.

See my earlier reference to the strength of your coffee brew.

Again it is only a matter of time before this happens to one of you at our hands. Again I begin to suspect you are stuck in the comfort zone of looking back not forwards?

Will you please stop quoting from Alice in Wonderland without citing your source?

That was my line surely?

They would certainly trump the existing Tri-Nations as fundraisers.

Your thoughts are definitely interesting. One keeps hearing rumours that TV money for the next tri-nations negotiation is likely to drop radically because viewing figures have not met forecasts – maybe you can comment? One thing you have to give English rugby is that it has started to really suss the commercial side of the game and the RFU has always known a lot about making money anyway. Whilst Sky were happy to throw the scraps of the six nations to the BBC they made very sure they retained the autumn rights – we can see that in a very new light following these proposals can we not?

Come on Havak, don't let Finbar and Caligastia fool you, the SH teams will loose all their games against England and France..

Haven’t I always said what an Intelligent and truly nice guy Tamerlin is?

I have to let the boys wax on about how great the tri-nations are as they have to keep trying to forget the gap has disappeared these days to make themselves feel better.

I've seen Havak's Christmas wish list, Tamerlin. It amounts to a pint glass with a prescription lens in the bottom to allow him to watch televised rugby through the bottom of the glass.

Sometimes it really scares me how completely inside my head you get.

oooohhhh...I think Im gonna be sick....

And you think I need medication?

[Havak]

This is a great post, Tamerlin! Good stuff!

I would echo that – it was superb stuff Tamerlin.

I would make only one small addition. Havak has soccer in his genes and anything Havak posts must be read with that immensely disturbing proviso.

Do you ever wish you had not mentioned something?

Naturally I respect Finbar’s intelligence and wit – and lament his support of the Wallabies and Gloucester.

And surely I’m never anti-Australian? They make the best bar staff in the UK (bar none) after all.

Funny how the equator, along with marking 0 latitutde, also marks the boundary between sense and nonsense (with the former the exclusive property of those south of 0 latitude).

Once again you seem to have this entirely the wrong way around.

Only proving the point of my preceding paragraph

Proving the fallacy of it maybe.

I do have to wonder whether the Brits reaction to the Kiwi outrage in this situation would be quite so "objective" were the roles reversed

Ravagon that is a fair point. But please understand the ‘Brits’ have gone to great pains to make it clear the ABs are not being excluded. The initial proposal was based on the fact, as Finbar has already pointed out I think, that the Boks and Wallabies already had plans to be up here at that time in 2004 and the ABs didn’t. Nothing more sinister than that.

The other stark reality is the English won’t be frozen out of any such suggestion because the whole concept is to tap into the revenue English participation would generate. The English audience may be the most lucrative market in the current game (it’s a simple case of numbers really).

I have to say as well I like your idea of the home and away phase of a six nations tourney but I think the logistics will prevent it ever happening.

Tigers are at home to the old enemy Bath tomorrow, and I am hoping we show Gloucester exactly how to put them away (or my weekend will be a sad one again).

[finbar]

Originally posted by ravagon
After that thinly veiled reference to a sport played with a slightly more spherical ball I'll serve the duration of my ban catching up on the dozen-odd pages I've missed.

PS: Go Liverpool!

Looks like we need a penalty for mentioning a s****r team by name!

I hereby call a meeting of the Thread Judiciary Committee to decide on an appropriate penalty. I'll start the ball rolling with - having to carry Havak's empties out to the recycling bin. Mmmm. A hernia ought to teach the offender a lesson.

[finbar]

Originally posted by Havak
And I look forward to us doing the exact same to the Australians record against us at home – preferably in RWC 03.

Look forward? Here, borrow my binoculars.

Not by any chance falling into the trap of dismissing England are you Finbar and Caligastia?

I never dismiss anyone.

[quoye]My opinion on that is it’s unlikely unless the season is also radically re-structured to avoid domestic games when Internationals are on. After all the RFU already has to sub the top 12 clubs for 2 million a year from England TV rights and they still do not co-operate with them! [/quote]

This might be a naive question, but who actually runs rugby over there?

Your thoughts are definitely interesting. One keeps hearing rumours that TV money for the next tri-nations negotiation is likely to drop radically because viewing figures have not met forecasts – maybe you can comment? One thing you have to give English rugby is that it has started to really suss the commercial side of the game and the RFU has always known a lot about making money anyway. Whilst Sky were happy to throw the scraps of the six nations to the BBC they made very sure they retained the autumn rights – we can see that in a very new light following these proposals can we not?

I'm not sure how the TV money is negotiated for the Tri-Nations. Whether SANZAR does the deal with the various telecasters or the Unions do it separately. I would imagine that the WRC will create massive interest next year, but whether it flows on till re-negotiation time is another matter. In short - I have absolutely no idea what will happen to the TV money.

But if anyone has a nose for a dollar it's Mr O'Neill.