rugby is dead

[Ken Gargett]

the once great game of rugby is truly dead in australia. it has become a curiosity sport, less popular than netball and horseshoes. hard to imagine synchronised swimming won't overtake it very soon.

inept management (of commodes level), stupid and egotistical and selfish administrators, a drain of talent partly offshore and partly to league, and monumental incompetence when it comes to referee'ing the game, between the show ponies on the field and the dills in the video box. spare me. last rites will be administered this thursday. 

at a time when we are seeing an incredible level of skill, brutality and competitiveness in the AFL and League, and some incredible games, rugby limps along telling itself it is the game they play in heaven (possibly because a bunch of corpses could beat our lot). 

the venom between the interstate administrators and the petty spitefulness which has been exhibited by the nsw run rugby australia organisation is beyond repair. this year, the Qld Reds were the top side in Australia. again. and yet such is the bitterness of the tiny minds from nsw that that not a single Qlder has made the starting 15. and only two on the extended bench. rather than have Qlders, the coach, an incompetent blob from nz because better to go outside australia than to have a competent Qlder do the job, has dug up a bloke who was below bog average all his career when previous nsw coaches shoehorned him in, year after year. any wonder we've won nothing of worth pretty much all this century?

no Qlders equates, for our American cousins, to say picking a 'best of the NFC West' where not a single player from the team that won the division was considered as good enough to make it. so no likelihood of any political bias or state prejudice there. 

i keep hearing we can't play o'connor because he is out of form. well, how would you know? our work experience coach has played him for about 5% of the time he could. and if he is, hardly likely to get back into form if you don't play him. instead, we have gone for some dim-witted jellyboots who even left nsw to go off and make money playing christ knows where. although apparently not playing that much. not started a game since May. so how the hell do we know if he is in form? not that he really has ever been in form (he did have one good game against the poms about 11 years ago). disgraceful. 

the southerners have even dragged the dumber than soup kurtley beale back into the squad. still, we can tell that we have not hit rock bottom yet because he is not starting team. it can't be long. 

mcreight has been dumped - only came in because our captain decided that playing international rugby for a fortune was a tough gig and he needed to sit on a beach and gaze at the navel while collecting his millions. needed a rest from the dozen games a year. as someone said, not quite the courage we saw at gallipolli and not quite the bloke you'd want in the next foxhole. one mate did make the point that "McReight had a forgettable start: only scored two tries against the Boks and only got three turnovers. Typical bludging Queenslander. Not once did he lurk interminably on the wing. Nah, he has no future as a no. 7."

he also expressed his view on foley, noting that our 5/8 was - "replaced not by a specialist 10 who has a future but by Foley, whose form with the Kubota Spears in a second rate Asian comp (where you play against midgets and Kiwis over the age of 37 who can’t make the thirds in the Ranfurly Shield) has been, well, who knows? The double bounce pass is comin’ back to international rugby, you just watch." 

i say this as someone who did not miss a Reds game or a test in Qld if i was in the state for forty years. who has travelled interstate and overseas to watch the reds and wallabies numerous times. who has had 30 year season tickets on half way at the stadium, and never missed. but who, this season, even with those tickets, did not bother going to a single game and the few i watched on tv were all taped so i could fast forward through the interminable stoppages where the referees, because we all come to see them, hold their conferences and come up with ever more absurd interpretations of the rules to completely stuff up games. if they are losing fans like me, and i know of many more, what chance? 

there will likely always be interest in the world cup (but little else), but soon it will be similar to that with the soccer world cup. hope we actually make it and some optimism that if everything goes well, we can make the second stage but absolutely no expectation of ever winning the thing again. think of us as the Uraguay of soccer. won the thing in the early days but more chance of peace on earth than winning it again. 

and so to this thursday for the first game against the hated all blacks. for many years, losing was a disaster. to see a side like the one we have picked would once have left me incandescent with rage, beyond livid. now, i don't care. in fact, whereas once to say i would like to see the all blacks win would have been like saying you'd like to watch your sisters pack raped by a biker gang, now, i think i might have sunk to this. but not just nz winning - no point in that - they have to absolutely thrash us beyond belief so that it might finally get through to someone. 

sadly, saving australian rugby is like stopping climate change. it is simply too late. 

[99call]

On 9/13/2022 at 8:01 AM, Ken Gargett said:

no point in that - they have to absolutely thrash us beyond belief so that it might finally get through to someone. 

sadly, saving australian rugby is like stopping climate change. it is simply too late. 

Hhhmm I must confess to be a little bemused with your assessment.  I get that fact that it sounds (much like Welsh rugby) that you have a corrosive, blazer wearing, prawn sandwich brigade, of idiotic committee men, many of them never having played the game, but are now somehow empowered to steer the direction of the whole national structure.  it's madness......I get that rage, it's well placed and infuriating...........but....but.....

Australia have beaten NZ, England and the World Champions. and won a series against a scarily good, and resergent France. all in the last 2 years.  I realise as an Australian, much of your existence as a fan, would have been on a sliding scale of how much you enjoyed a victory, the margin, and how good the tries were,    but are things really that bad?      Naturally you want to return to a huge win ratio, and beating NZ, SA, ENG on a regular basis, but from the outside looking in,  supporting a team (Wales) that have had massive highs, and catastrophic lows,    I cant quite see that Australias funk is as terminal as you would suggest. 

I think it's worth while remembering just how bad South Africa and France looked a year or two ago.....they were truly awful.......so bad that I was struggling to enjoy watching Wales beat them. 

I think time wasted with Cheika, was hugely regrettable, and I'm sure the systemic selection, regional disparity you mentioned is not going to sort itself out anytime soon,   but when things change in world rugby, they usually change rapidly, and drastically. 

All I will say is a memory of Scott Gibbs touching down after a decade of total humiliating shit (for Wales).  My level of ecstasy was off the scale.  Is all this disillusionment not just going to make Australias return to winning ways, just that much sweeter?

[Ken Gargett]

4 hours ago, 99call said:

Hhhmm I must confess to be a little bemused with your assessment.  I get that fact that it sounds (much like Welsh rugby) that you have a corrosive, blazer wearing, prawn sandwich brigade, of idiotic committee men, many of them never having played the game, but are now somehow empowered to steer the direction of the whole national structure.  it's madness......I get that rage, it's well placed and infuriating...........but....but.....

Australia have beaten NZ, England and the World Champions. and won a series against a scarily good, and resergent France. all in the last 2 years.  I realise as an Australian, much of your existence as a fan, would have been on a sliding scale of how much you enjoyed a victory, the margin, and how good the tries were,    but are things really that bad?      Naturally you want to return to a huge win ratio, and beating NZ, SA, ENG on a regular basis, but from the outside looking in,  supporting a team (Wales) that have had massive highs, and catastrophic lows,    I cant quite see that Australias funk is as terminal as you would suggest. 

I think it's worth while remembering just how bad South Africa and France looked a year or two ago.....they were truly awful.......so bad that I was struggling to enjoy watching Wales beat them. 

I think time wasted with Cheika, was hugely regrettable, and I'm sure the systemic selection, regional disparity you mentioned is not going to sort itself out anytime soon,   but when things change in world rugby, they usually change rapidly, and drastically. 

All I will say is a memory of Scott Gibbs touching down after a decade of total humiliating shit (for Wales).  My level of ecstasy was off the scale.  Is all this disillusionment not just going to make Australias return to winning ways, just that much sweeter?

it is partly dismay at australia and partly at what rugby has become. the absurd refereeing and interminable officials conferences during games and cavalcade of idiotic decisions and convoluted rules (as i have said before, if a league game and a rugby game are on at the same time, if a scrum is called in the rugby game, you can switch and watch a full set of six tackles, often more, before the scrum happens - why wouldn't people watch a game where something is happening?). that is all making it near unwatchable.

there was a time when last night's game have left me truly incandescent with rage. now, couldn't give a toss. did not bother me a bit.

but we have a bloke sinbinned because he tripped over trying to get out of the way of a maul, which just went straight on over him. that chaotic nonsense at the end reversing the penalty and costing the wallabies the game. the way it stops and the ultra slow motion examines every tiny aspect of something that once would not even have registered and as soon as it goes slo-mo, you know they will find something and off someone goes. 

i know the players all talk about how much it means but three minutes after full time we have wallabies having a laugh with all blacks before they have even thought about leaving the field. i remember when mates and i lost a hockey semi final - i think it was 8th grade (yes, they had 8th grade) - and i was was livid for two weeks. seriously pissed at the world. these guys look over it in minutes. no one will convince me they have the same level of commitment and desire to win as we used to see. 

we had tim horan do the intro to the game last night on tv (still the greatest centre to play the game). the way he spoke about it, what it meant, what it still means, how some games are still burning with him. don't see anything like the same level of commitment or care. 

last night was against the worst all black team i have ever seen play. and we still lost. 

as for rennie, he has coached us in 29 tests i believe, for 11 wins. that is a winning percentage under 38% (and given the next test is against the all blacks in nz, it won't get better -  then we finish the year with five tests through europe. the only one you'd have us as favourites for would be italy, and even then, who'd put money on it?). remember that france only lost here at our home 2-1, and they had most of their top team out, plus they got a heap of horror decisions against them. if we are relying on that series as evidence of anything, we are stuffed. that is third tier stuff. but it is where we are now.

previous two coaches, cheika and link, both had records of 50%, over 68 and 22 games respectively. even deans and the toxic hobbit had records in the high 50s%. and since the 70s, no wallaby coach had less than 60% plus.

so the decline has been consistent this century and it is showing absolutely no sign of changing. with the refs and administrators making the game such a near unwatchable mess, crowds and viewers will recede. less money in the game. more players going to league or offshore.

finally, a use for catholic priests - to give aussie rugby the last rites. 

[99call]

32 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

so the decline has been consistent this century and it is showing absolutely no sign of changing. with the refs and administrators making the game such a near unwatchable mess, crowds and viewers will recede. less money in the game. more players going to league or offshore.

I'd seen lots of league in the UK, and it was a lot better in the 90's, with the likes of Martin Offiah, Johnathan Davies.etc.   but still I'd not really realised how good league could be until my first trip to Aussie in 1999, it was like a whole different game.  I had no idea about State of Origin until I was in NZ around 2013,   that was like an epiphany moment, it was just electric, and almost gladiatorial.    That was the first moment I every felt like I sort of cheated on union, as my sport of preference. 

I get it, League in the southern hemesphere is pure box office, and whilst I still do prefer Union,  it has to be a form of union that makes sense to me. I can't blame you for having no need for it in it's current guise

I'm very much in the pro player welfare camp, and largely think the 'games-gone-soft" crowd are talking nonsense.  but the most frustrating thing about Union is that most of the law changes are actually counter intuitive to player welfare. 

I think a bigger problem that we have is styles of southern and northern hemisphere rugby have travelled in opposite directions of offence dominant, and defence dominant for so long, and international referees have really struggled to get a grip on whether or not there changes are actually going to be unfairly preferential to certain teams.   Currently all a team needs to do, is get to the opposition 22, retain the ball for 8+ phases, and there will be a 95% chance the defending team will give away a penalty. 

who knows how they are going to resolve it, but the current laws are all over the shop and need to changed ASAP, but critically none of it needs to be at the cost of the players wellbeing. 

[Ken Gargett]

4 minutes ago, 99call said:

I'd seen lots of league in the UK, and it was a lot better in the 90's, with the likes of Martin Offiah, Johnathan Davies.etc.   but still I'd not really realised how good league could be until my first trip to Aussie in 1999, it was like a whole different game.  I had no idea about State of Origin until I was in NZ around 2013,   that was like an epiphany moment, it was just electric, and almost gladiatorial.    That was the first moment I every felt like I sort of cheated on union, as my sport of preference. 

I get it, League in the southern hemesphere is pure box office, and whilst I still do prefer Union,  it has to be a form of union that makes sense to me. I can't blame you for having no need for it in it's current guise

I've very much in the pro player welfare camp, and largely think the 'games-gone-soft" crowd are talking nonsense.  but the most frustrating thing about Union is that most of the law changes are actually counter intuitive to player welfare. 

I think a bigger problem that we have is styles of southern and northern hemisphere rugby have travelled in opposite directions of offence dominant, and defence dominant for so long, and international referees have really struggled to get a grip on whether or not there changes are actually going to be unfairly preferential to certain teams.   Currently all a team needs to do, is get to the opposition 22, retain the ball for 8+ phases, and there will be a 95% chance the defending team will give away a penalty. 

who knows how they are going to resolve it, but the current laws are all over the shop and need to changed ASAP, but critically none of it needs to be at the cost of the players wellbeing. 

no argument about player safety but it has to come with common sense. they are playing a violent, contact sport. 

good luck with the rules. every change seems to make it all worse. 

[99call]

1 minute ago, Ken Gargett said:

no argument about player safety but it has to come with common sense. they are playing a violent, contact sport. 

good luck with the rules. every change seems to make it all worse. 

Yes, and I think (for instance) it should be a players right and option to sign paperwork to the reasonable risks of what they are involving themselves in.

The other part of it though is really basic stuff like, if a defending player knocks himself out by having shit tackling technique, the attacking player does not get punished for that.  thats just basic common sense.    The problem is they've tried to legislate the risk out of the game, which it idiotic,  much better to accept the risk, and work with it/minimise it. 

it should be much more led by newly retired ex-players not refs