Rugby World Cup: And the Winner is...

[finbar]

Originally posted by Havak
Is Plank fit and playing? It's the last year of his contract there - such a waste of the lad to have languished in Ulster rugby for three years.

Couldn't find his name in the list last week. Whenever I've checked, he's either been starting or on the bench. Yes, a waste. He had a few more good years with the Wallabies in front of him. The ARU screwed his contract negotiations and he cracked the sh*ts. Silly, really.

Do you think that Aurelien Rougerie even understands the enormity of what he has probably done to the game with that civil case in France?

I haven't seen the incident but apparently the fend wasn't outrageous. So I read. I suppose there's a case for civil action if the offender is blatantly outside the rules and the injury is debilitating. Rougerie, though, seems to have suffered no ongoing effects. On that basis, it's a dangerous precedent.

Yep, I suppose some of those who got hurt suffered more from the grey with pink flowers thingy than from their wounds.

And what are your club colours?

[LDiCesare]

Rougerie, though, seems to have suffered no ongoing effects. On that basis, it's a dangerous precedent.

He actually had to be operated 3 times and spent 12 weeks in hospital. The social security joined the suit asking for 26000 euros, which is the price it reimbursed for the medical operations, so it was not exactly benign.
This said, I think it should probably have been settled some otherway, through insurances rather than such a lawsuit. In particular, I understand asking repair of the damage and treatment, but asking more for lack of match bonus and such seemed excessive. In fact, the court judged about 40000 euros of the 90000 asked by Rougerie.
A side note is that the player has been condemned along with his club (so the Wasps have to pay whether they want to or not).
The court judged this:

cette action est non seulement contraire à la réglementation du rugby qui interdit toute intervention au dessus des épaules mais dénote également une brutalité excessive et déloyale.

Il ne s'agit pas en effet d'un raffut (...) mais d'une véritable manchette traduisant un comportement dangereux

which means roughly:

this action is not only contrary to rugby regulations which prevents tackling above shoulders but also denotes an excessive and unlawful brutality.

Indeed it is not a fend(...) but a real manchette(?forearm hit to the throat) translating a dangerous behaviour

There may be consequences on rugby, but considering that the club was held liable, I don't think it will be that bad. If one club hurts another club's player, I don't think it's too bad to have the offender's club pay to heal the victim. Now I haven't seen the action (either that or it was 5 years ago and I forgot) so I don't know whether the hit was an agression or just something that can happen by accident.

[finbar]

Obviously the court decided it was more than a fend. I haven't seen it and I've only read that it was a fend. Of course I've forgotten where I read it and it could have been written by someone pursuing an agenda.

I also would have thought that insurance covered these kinds of things.

[Havak]

And one more important thing to remember - the finding was against Phil Greening himself.

Much as they might like to think they do French civil courts have no jurisdiction over English rugby clubs. Wasps are standing by their man which is where the confusion comes in perhaps?

Greening is not a dirty player - Rougerie is clearly a w*****. But then I knew both those things already.

[Joe Kick Ass]

Originally posted by Havak
However surely it’s a cause for concern when Blair and Rush were the two standout players in a side that needs to be providing players to Wales?

Why do the Blues need to provide players for Wales? They're not owned by the WRU. They're not given any financial incentive to do so.

Originally posted by Havak
And what has happended to Rob Sidoli - he is a shadow of the man he was three years ago.

He's picking up £150,000 for sitting on the bench, apparently.

[LDiCesare]

Much as they might like to think they do French civil courts have no jurisdiction over English rugby clubs. Wasps are standing by their man which is where the confusion comes in perhaps?

They do have jurisdiction against any person, be it moral or physical, about what that person did in France, and they did condemn both "solidairement".
As for Rougerie, I can't say I like him much either, but then again without seeing the game I can't say much.

[finbar]

I've found a new bandwagon. Croatia.

[Havak]

I was saying to the rugby boys last weekend Finbar that we would have four days of wildy optimistic soccer fans followed by crushing disappointment on wed night. Football gives the perfect example of what rugby must never be allowed to do - football players are underworked overpaid prima donnas for whom wearing the shirt does not engender the required passion anymore. "Golden Generation" my a***.

We should count our lucky stars that Union will never achieve the same critical mass as football enjoys in the UK.

As for the Greening-gate matter the person can be cited under French law LdiC - but they can't place the entire club in a French dock for an individuals actions on a french field of play. Only the indiviudal is culpable for his own alledgedly violent behaviour. At least that is how it is here and I can't imagine our European partners would be any different - one big happy Union and all that?

I haven't seen the incident but I am inclined to believe Greening's account. Partly because I've met Phil and his is a nicish bloke - but mainly because Rougerie's lawyer comes across as being an even bigger a*** than his client.


Oh and jka you need to check Blues annual report - you'll find quite a substantial lump sum coming from the WRU every year (it was part of the player release deal when the provinces were re-organised).

Shame about Sidoli - he seemed to be the coming man in the 2003 six nations.

[Joe Kick Ass]

Originally posted by Havak Oh and jka you need to check Blues annual report - you'll find quite a substantial lump sum coming from the WRU every year (it was part of the player release deal when the provinces were re-organised).

There's nothing dependent on producing Wales players in there. The WRU haven't got any money, and can't afford to do that.

Cash coming through the WRU doesn't mean it's WRU generated income.

[finbar]

Not that I follow it, or that I'm remotely interested, but it seems to me that when the top English s***** teams can take the field without a single Englishman - or at least someone eligible to play for England - you're ultimately asking for trouble at the national level.

English rugby take note.

[Havak]

A fair point Finbar. The explosion of foreign players in footy coincides directly with when Sky TV income into the game started to go through the roof - that might be a coincidence of course. Plus there is that tricky question of "restraint of trade". If your grandparents ever ate Pizza or drank French wine call yourselves European and no one can stop you working in the UK in football or any other (legal) trade.

But ultimately - and I mean this quite sincerely - I wouldn't care if every football club in England went bankrupt. The greed in football is reaping it's own rewards.


jka - It's Celtic League and Millenium stadium (WRU) TV money I suspect - it is distributed to the clubs by the RFU in England in exactly the same way. Except under the new agreement clubs like London Irish that have neglected developing English players will get a smaller piece of the pie.

Consider Finbar's point though - Wales rely on their few provinces to produce players so if Blues don't pull their weight on that front who takes up the slack? Eventually you end up with a terribly average Welsh side and Provinces doing quite well with their imports. Like now.

[Joe Kick Ass]

Originally posted by Havak
jka - It's Celtic League and Millenium stadium (WRU) TV money I suspect

Yeah, Magners, EDF and Heineken participation and TV money. That's generated by the clubs, which the WRU don't own. The WRU can't really use that money in any other way; the clubs won't agree. It's a bit of misnomer to call it a subsidy or anything of the like.

The WRU are £60m (?) in debt, remember.

Originally posted by Havak
Consider Finbar's point though - Wales rely on their few provinces to produce players so if Blues don't pull their weight on that front who takes up the slack?

The thing is the academies seem to be doing okay, apparently. The problem comes at senior level where players often just stagnate. The club standard, for four "superclubs", isn't that high.

The clubs need to provide a high standard as to produce players of said standard, but at the minute, we're looking to the academies to produce players to increase the club standard, so that the clubs can produce better players...

We need at least temporarily, an outside injection of quality into the system to get our youngsters and players in general, playing to a higher standard.

Originally posted by Havak
Eventually you end up with a terribly average Welsh side and Provinces doing quite well with their imports.

We can't afford to go on paying over the odds for Welsh journeymen. The Magners, and the regions, are just not profitable enough.

In a couple of years, you'll start to see the top Welsh players disappear to the GP/T14, and we'll eventually be left with 0 regions and 0 Welsh qualified players over here to pick from.

We just can't afford to subsidise some "Team Wales" orientated league; neither on the pitch, nor off it.

No regions. No Welsh side.

à la soccer.

[finbar]

Interesting to see G. Henry reapplying for the ABs' job. Not, I suspect, that he has a hope in hell. Particularly when bullsh*t like this is being published:

Some startling statistics reveal how Graham Henry's controversial reconditioning and rotation policies left his All Blacks squad severely under-done for the rigours of a World Cup.

The starting XV who lost their quarterfinal to France averaged just over 12 games each for the entire year.

Henry decided to go down a different track to the previous four failed cup campaigns and produced a programme where emphasis was placed on keeping players fit and fresh rather than wearing them out on the playing field.

But a combination of keeping the bulk of his players out of the first half of the Super 14, constantly rotating them through the year's tests by selecting others who had little action through injury (Greg Somerville, Conrad Smith, Mils Muliaina, Ali Williams and Keith Robinson) meant Henry ended up with a squad severely short on match-hardening.

That became apparent as they failed to overcome the physical French side on their first serious examination at the cup and suffered the embarrassment of New Zealand's earliest exit at the tournament.

The loss had nothing to do with conditioning or rotation. The bottom line was that they because they were tactically incompetent in a situation they'd rarely faced before. Robbie Deans will probably get the gig. He can't improve the team. Apart, perhaps, from educating R. McCaw in the basics of rugby tactics.

We have the painters in, so the plasma was wrapped in eight sheets of plastic for the Wales-Boks outing. I caught about ten minutes of the replay. The Boks looked comfortable even missing about half of their best players.

Glorious weekend in Australia. The Thatcher-ite Conservative coalition trounced in the election. Best of all, the Little T*rd of a Prime Minister, who ultimately drove me from the country, lost his own seat in the process. Thus ends the most divisive, cynical, morally bankrupt period of government in the country's history. Now, friends and family are wondering whether that's enough to lure me back to Australia. No. Ultimately, that government was only a symptom - albeit a big one - of Australia's problems.

[Joe Kick Ass]

Originally posted by finbar
The loss had nothing to do with conditioning or rotation. The bottom line was that they because they were tactically incompetent

IIRC, when they beat France by 40-odd last year, the ABs setup 40 rucks and scored seven tries; in the QF, they setup 160 rucks and scored two tries.

Lesson kids: forwards don't win matches, they lose them.

[finbar]