General Rugby Discussion 3

Loathe to regurgitate the Rassie stuff but world rugby have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here with the social media ban. Rassie the free speech martyr.

Is Rassie behind that YouTube account TASanalytics?

You have to make an attempt at goal, but in reality if you deliberately pushed it wide and a winger ran under it and scored it wouldn’t be possible for the ref or touch judge to really know if it was on purpose or not!

Toulouse scored a try against Leinster in the 2011 H Cup semi from a pen that hit the post

Robertson is contracted till the end of 2024. ROG is contracted till Summer 2024. Steve Borthwick is contracted till Summer 2023 but the Tigers board have indicated that they would be willing to release him for England.

I know the RFU probably have money to pay for release fees but I wonder how much of a difference contract status would have on this.

Furlong Beirne Van Der Flier and Sexton on the World Rugby Dream Team of 2022.

i have vague recollection of seeing a video from france (PROD2 i think) of someone teeing the ball up and then kicking to the winger to score, or something along those lines anyway. try was given despite it very clearly being illegal

i dont know how many times someone in a game has suggested i do that and when i would answer that it is against the laws, the standard reply is always:

'but you can do it in Rugby 05/06/08?'

Good article about the issues in Wales by Warburton in the Times.

Stone Age Welsh game needs cut-throat reforms – but I know it won’t happen

Farcical parochialism is holding us back and we badly need top business minds to enact seismic changes

The game in Wales needs the biggest reform in its history if there are not to be repeats of the unacceptable defeat by Georgia last Saturday. This situation has been brewing for some time both on and off the field. The system is just not working. The whole thing needs to be wiped clean and a fresh start made. Sadly, I know it won’t happen. I know I will say these things and we will be in the same situation in 12 months.

I genuinely want the best for Welsh rugby. I am a Cardiff boy but if the Scarlets ended up winning the European Cup I would be over the moon. It would be amazing for Welsh rugby. I want everyone in Wales to succeed. I would never let any bias towards Cardiff hinder my decision-making and that, unfortunately, is one of the problems in Welsh rugby: there is too much parochialism.

And the amateur game still has way too much say. Of the 12 directors on the Welsh Rugby Union’s board, there are eight community members. That is like having eight people on the board of a company that are contributing to just one part of the business. It’s just way too many. There should be one community member on that board. The community game is hugely important, of course it is, and most of the people involved are well-intentioned, but it should not have eight representatives on the board of a company with a turnover of £100 million. It is farcical.

It is a governance structure that is stuck in the Stone Age. Unless that changes, very little else will change.

I know a number of top business people who would love to help Welsh rugby — there is still huge passion for the game in all areas, I think, but they are just not interested at the moment because of the company structure. Some hugely capable people have already left recently for that very reason. They know that the changes required will never be made while the community game still has such an influence.

You need high-level people from the various sectors of finance, marketing and performance on that board and they need to make some savvy, strategic and potentially cut-throat decisions.

The goal has to be for a region to win the European Cup and for Wales to win the World Cup. They have to be the main priorities and then you can look at everything flowing down from that, from the academies down to the grass roots.

Do those people on the board at the moment know how an elite academy should be run? Do they know what an elite performance environment looks like at men’s, women’s sevens or under-20s levels? Do they know what level of expertise is required in staffing the regions?

The player pathway has been failing for some time now. Look at how Josh Adams had to go to Worcester to make his name and then had to be brought back to Wales. Three of our most promising young players right now are all playing in England: Louis Rees-Zammit at Gloucester, and Christ Tshiunza and Dafydd Jenkins at Exeter Chiefs. It is quite alarming.

Why have all these boys crossed the border? What are we not doing in Wales to keep these players? I don’t profess to know the answers but it looks like the problems at academy level are now being manifested in the national team.

I know there are big scholarships being offered by English schools but that has always been the case. I didn’t want to leave Wales. I remember Justin Burnell, who was in charge of the Cardiff Blues academy, sitting me down and telling me everything I wanted to hear: that they wanted to mould me into the next Richie McCaw, that they had a definite plan in place for me, with a range of targets to hit at different ages. They supported me from the age of 15, whether that was in terms of finance, training, nutrition or anything else. The attention I got was fantastic. They were constantly watching all my games. It was the level of detail that made me feel valued and that was the reason why I wanted to stay in Wales. I’m not sure if that is happening now.

The regions and the WRU are at loggerheads. I have heard that the financial deal being offered by the WRU is nowhere near what the regions want. They do not feel that it can make them competitive at all, mainly because they are still in debt after Covid. In that 2020-21 season the regions were due to be paid a total of £26 million, and the WRU only paid them £3 million, so a £20 million loan was negotiated with the Welsh Government, which the regions have to pay back, and they cannot afford to do so. As a result of all this, the regions are not able to negotiate player contracts for next season at the moment, which is probably playing on players’ minds.

It is such a mess. There is little trust on either side. I don’t think the WRU trust the regions with their money and then the regions don’t want to be owned by the WRU because their governance is so old fashioned and they do not trust their decisions.

I really do fear for Wales in the next five years. They are simply not going to have the pool of players to compete, especially once the core of experienced players retire.

When I was in the Wales coaching set up a couple of years ago and I was looking beyond the players I played with, such as George North, Taulupe Faletau, Justin Tipuric, Alun Wyn Jones, Dan Lydiate and Dan Biggar, there was obviously a lot of talent but there was nowhere near as much as there once was. Yes, the likes of Rees-Zammit, Tshiunza, Jenkins and Jac Morgan will be great players, but you put that alongside the depth in the squads of France, Ireland and England and there is no comparison. That was proved with how the game finished on Saturday. That front five was so inexperienced. It was no wonder that the scrum was trounced.

I know that some of my comments on Amazon Prime after the match have caused a bit of a stir. And the first thing I want to say is that I have been that player. We lost to Samoa in 2012. We were trying our best. We were not being negligent. So, I don’t want to attack anyone personally. Everyone is trying hard. Everyone is human and has feelings. It is a privileged position to be involved in international sport, but it can also be a horribly pressurised and suffocating position when things are going badly. It is important that you still give people respect.

I said this on Amazon Prime: “I wonder if there must be some kind of deeper, underlying issues. The players — why aren’t they motivated? Why aren’t they desperate? I don’t know what the answer is. I’m not challenging the players. There are some tough, great competitors out there, some of the best players I have ever played with. But, for some reason, it’s not translating on to the pitch and there’s something that we perhaps don’t know, which is why they are perhaps not fully motivated at the moment.”

What I meant there was that there could be a few reasons why the performance was so lacklustre. Maybe you have got the training week wrong and have worked the players too hard. That certainly happened when I was playing, and we were very flat. That is the coaches’ mistake.

Another reason might be getting the tactics totally wrong. That lies with both players and coaches.

Or it might just be lack of technical ability and that lack of depth in the squad that I have mentioned or, lastly, of course, it could be lack of motivation. And that does happen. I thought we saw it in the Gallagher Premiership last season when Bath’s players seemed to be making a statement that they wanted change. It may not necessarily be the coach they want out, it could be anyone in the environment.

But when I saw that Wales performance on Saturday there was obviously something that was badly wrong. Only those in the camp will know what. I can only guess.

I’ve always thought the hardest job for a coach is to get the players to run through brick walls for them. I think of coaches like Andy Farrell, Shaun Edwards, Warren Gatland, Danny Wilson and Steve Borthwick to name just a few, and I would do anything for them.

I have seen these current Wales coaches in action. I like Jonathan Humphreys as a forwards coach. He talks about the players being brutal in contact and being physically dominant, but I’m just not sure that he has the players to deliver what he wants. I feel sorry for him. I would never look at the scrummage and think he is not coaching them properly.

I have always thought that Gethin Jenkins was destined to be a top defence coach. Neil Jenkins was obviously coaching when I was playing and everyone knows how good he is.

There needs to be a very honest review now. If I was in charge at the WRU — and believe me, I am not touting for a job — I would be going around to speak to everyone in the Wales set up and at the regions. I would be saying: “Anonymously, please tell me everything that is good and bad.” It needs to be brutal across the board to find the answers.

Bizarrely, I think Wales will do well against Australia on Saturday. This Wales side seem to respond to being challenged. They are a resilient bunch.

But you don’t want to be a team that just peaks emotionally now and then. That is the heroic loser mentality that I always so hated. It is about excellence. It is about creating an environment through winning. It is about saying: “We are not here to take part, we are here to take over.”

Sadly Wales are miles away from that point right now and only seismic changes can alter that.

The problems in Wales (and to a lesser extent Scotland and England) really make you appreciate how comparatively well the IRFU have handled things since the 1990s here.

Hopefully the WRU engages in some big reforms after this world cup but it sounds unlikely to happen.

Is this a match day ban or a ban from all rugby activities.

any info on what actually happened or what he said?

Shocking for a future England coach.

Smiley........