The death of southern hemisphere Rugby

[gatso]

We are gathered here today to gloat at the humiliating Defeat of the South Africans by the Scots today and the French a week ago. The SUPERB VICTORY of the gutsy Irish   and the equally commendable victory of the Brave English over the Australians and the Crushing defeat of the dissapointing All Blacks by the English.

Southern Hemisphere Rugby is dead! Long live Northern Hemisphere Rugby!

 



Gatso

[Cobra]

Ouch....that's going to leave a mark...hehe

Cobra

[bounder]

Rugby's one thing, what about the cricket

[Vulcan]

Crushing defeat? a 3 point margin over a team of relative newbies first match? You call that crushing LOL?

Shortly followed by a draw with France because of a ref and line refs who obviously had money riding on France. Jezuz H Cheeerist I think its the first time ever someone has been sinbinned for 10 mins for a lazy running offside penalty.

The Southern guys are just warming up, its all the new teams. Give em a week or so and you'll be sobbing into your Guiness.

[-tronski-]

Bah...One off tests vs teams unable to field full strength teams...and even then hanging on for a victory over dissapointing Blacks is hardly a crushing defeat.
The All-Black back-line made your lot look like they were standing still most of the time.

Guaranteed these victories by the english wouldn't be had they been played in Sydney, Dunedin or Christchurch....

Just wait till next years world-cup when we'll all be waiting for the two best rugby sides to run out.... the Wallabies, and the mighty Blacks!

till then....just have to watch the cricket tests ...or should I say one-day'ers





 Tronsky

[gatso]

I'm a bit of a critic of the English team selection at the moment believe it or not. I've never rated Jason Robinson as a good natural full back - stick him on the wing fine. Putting Simpson-Daniel on the wing facing Lomu was just plain nuts, mad mad mad. He might be fast but he's a bit lightweight as proved to be the case. I think there's a few options we could explore at centre. We've got good selection problems at 6,7,8. Who to choose? I think Mr. Woodward probably got 2/3 right today. 4/5 he definatley got right.

Vulcan, I don't buy the 'bunch of relative newbies' rubbish any more than I'm sure you do. It's a cop out excuse. If they're not good enough they shouldn't have brought them. Remove a rather large individual (quite hard) who scored two of the All Black tries against England almost single handed and the score line would have been very different. England were a better team on the day. New Zealand were outplayed apart from a couple of very impressive moves that started in the backs.

Lets face it Ireland outclassed Australia and Scotland outplayed SA today. England were a bit luckier but I still think we played better overall games than NZ or Aus. Didn't see enough of either the France games to comment.

I have one thing to be thankful to New Zealand about. A chap you might have heard of called Josh Kronfeld did pretty well in the Leicester Vs. Gloucester game for us on Friday. 7 players lost to the England and Ireland games being held the day after and we stuffed em   So thanks for lending him to us.

Looking forward to England beating SA, Wales beating NZ and Italy beating the Wannabies next week. (OK maybe Aus might scrape a draw against the Azzurri )

Gatso

[gatso]

BTW. Cricket has no interest whatsoever for me so you can save those arguments for someone else.  

Gatso

[Maverick]

Pro sports. yawn. Like it means a damn thing.

[swoopy]

It does outside the US, Mav.

Besides, this is National pride we're talking about here.

[gatso]

Pro sports. yawn. Like it means a damn thing.

Pro-sport? I have no idea what a 'pro-sport' is or what constitutes a 'non-pro' sport. Money I would assume?

Course it means a 'damn thing' Just because the USA sucks at most international sports doesn't make them unimportant.

USA suck at Rugby Union

Gatso

[Mighty1]

The problem with Rugby is that most Americans quit playing it when they were in 6th grade.

We called it Smear the Queer.

[Vulcan]

All our rugby players have to play at club level. We've just come through the NPC (National Provincial Championship), preceded by the Super 12 (12 provincial teams from NZ, Australia and South Africa).

For instance, in the lead up to the NPC I could cruise over the park just round the corner from my house and see Lomu playing for a club team.

Please, do not judge our sports by your overhyped overpaid underentertaining yankee dribble

This is a true clash of countries, its REAL international sport. Where 'World Champions' actually means theres more than one country competing.

Originally posted by Maverick
Pro sports. yawn. Like it means a damn thing.

[Maverick]

For those who decided to read more into the post I made than was intended. Please note that I made no referance to ANY country. As far as I am concerned pro sports are a waste of time and money. I do not hold ANY sports figure from ANY sport in high esteem. They are all over paid for playing essentially a childrens GAME. Pro sports does not make a worthy contribution to life and society IMO.

Now please take your "national pride" and do what you want as I include all nationalities in my opinion, including the United States.

Sports figures are not heros. Those that place their lives on the line to protect others are heros.  Get the point?

[steely07]

This is a true clash of countries, its REAL international sport. Where 'World Champions' actually means theres more than one country competing.

 That's always been the thing that puzzled me about the "World Series" of baseball,no other country plays in the series......

[gatso]

Mav, can't speak for any other country but all the top flight rugby teams in the UK have a wage cap in operation to try and give everyone a fair chance of competing. Considering the work they put in and the entertainment they give it's not that great a basic wage for any but maybe 1 or 2 guys in the team. Hell RU, was an amateur game here until 5-ish years ago, the players were not paid anything at all. Rugby is still pretty inexpensive to watch over here at club level. Paid £200 ($300ish US?) for a full season ticket for my local club.

I'm not sure full contact sports with limited body protection like Rugby could be called a 'childrens game' The game I went to on Friday was a bit bad tempered. The two blokes that got stretchered off quite badly hurt and the bad feeling this caused were probably the cause of quiet a few of the fights that started on the field. We have a non-contact version of the game the kids play.

I'm obviously not going to convince you that sport and the supporting of a team is actually a lot of fun, just wanted address a few of your points, each to their own.

Vulcan, who's your local team down there? Lucky enough to be born in a city with probably the most succesful local team in the world in the last 5 years, Leicester 'Tigers'. Unbeaten in the league at home since Dec. 1997, 4 domestic championships on the trot and 2 European cups. Not bad really   I've missed maybe 1 home game a season a year on average since 1986. Love the game and the the whole ethos surrounding it.

Ribbing is all part of the fun. We all go into the bar after the game, home and away supporters and while both camps are rabidly biased we always manage to have a laugh no matter who won or lost. It's nice to be on the winning side for a change and I'll be making the most of it up until we loose  

Gatso