General
Peter de Villiers was smeared, his family were put under intolerable political pressure and his one-time closest friends became his arch-foes, but he doesn’t regret a moment he spent coaching the Springboks.
Wellington – Dumped Samoa captain Mahonri Schwalger has called for the Pacific nation’s prime minister to be replaced as chairperson of the Samoa Rugby Union (SRU) and hit out at “arrogant” rugby administrators.
The Cheetahs will play the Cardiff Blues in Bloemfontein, on the 4th August 2012. The match is in memory of Sir George Gray, who would have been 200 years old this year.
Louis Koen and Pieter de Villiers were officially added to the Springbok management on Thursday. Continue reading
A new list of the proposed law changes has been released by the IRB. These will be trailed later this year.
The Barbarians Summer Series proper begins this weekend with the Killik Cup against England at Twickenham, and not much has been spoken about it here.
Cape Town – The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sport was reassured on Tuesday that the Southern Kings would participate in the 2013 Super Rugby competition.
Ireland and Leinster fullback Rob Kearney has been named as the 2011/12 European Player of the Year after helping Leinster to win the Heineken Cup on the weekend.
Former Springbok flyhalf Naas Botha has called for harsher punishments against fighting during school rugby matches, Beeld reported on Monday.
What, you may well ask has the headline got to do with this match. Let me explain.
Former All Black Stephen Bachop has changed his pleas to guilty on four charges relating to an incident on Rugby World Cup final night last year.
In Wellington District Court on Friday a charge of assaulting a female was reduced in seriousness and became a charge of simple assault.
The South African Rugby Union (SARU) has welcomed a compromise agreement on the kick off date for the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament as well on a new funding model to recognise impacts on unions in Rugby World Cup years.
The IRB Council on Tuesday reached agreement that the 2015 tournament will kick off on September 18, which represented a compromise between the organiser’s preferred date and that of the SANZAR nations, who will be engaged in the Castle Rugby Championship until shortly before Rugby World Cup kick off.
The International Rugby Board and its Member Unions have sanctioned a global trial of five aspects of Law amendments following an extensive process of consultation and evaluation.
The trial, approved by the IRB Council at its Annual Meeting in Dublin on Tuesday, will commence at the start of the next season in each hemisphere (August 2012 in the north and January 2013 in the south) and will be applicable to both international and domestic competition.
Rugby players from ten countries including three cap centurions have have been named in the Barbarians’ 33-strong squad for their three match tour.
The Brumbies will keep match-fit in the June Super Rugby break by playing a game against Six Nations champions Wales at Canberra Stadium on the 12th of June.
The whole Southern Kings and Super Rugby situation in South Africa has gotten me thinking and after discussing it with a avid rugby & Lions supporter in Francois Nell, the following transpired:
Why don’t we have teams playing in both Super Rugby, Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup? We have enough teams to do this and it should strengthen South African rugby. Here are a couple of options SARU might well want to consider in going forward in to the future.
The Aviva Premiership ‘dream team’ for the season 2011/2012 has recently been announced. On Tuesday evening, in London, various awards for this season were handed out with the accolade for player of the season going to Harlequins, and England, captain, Chris Robshaw.
VS
Last night, one of our Authors, Just for Kicks, mailed me regarding the spreading spat between the Pro-HSM (Highbury Safika Media) crowd and the Pro-Joffers crowd (Greame Joffe and like-minded parties), for want of defining the parties better…
… and thrust in the middle is the dillemma of involvement of the Southern Kings in Super Rugby in 2013 versus possible relegation of the worst performing South African Super Rugby franchise, the Lions, as well as SARU’s apparent woeful handling of Super Rugby participation.
The matter has now escalated to a seemingly FREE-FOR-ALL !
The contents of this Article is long and sometimes laboured, but the serious South African rugby supporter would do well to read and listen to all of it, and form his or her own opinion about the subject matter.
The RaboDirect Pro12 ‘dream team’ for the season 2011/2012 was announced last week. There is a fair mix of representation of players from Irish, Welsh and Scottish clubs with no Italian clubs having any players in the team. On Sunday evening, in Cardiff, various awards for this season were handed out with the accolade for player of the season going to Edinburgh try scoring machine Tim Visser.
Ruan Pienaar’s Man of the Match-performance against Edinburgh in Saturday’s 22-19 Heineken Cup semi-final victory has made the Ulster scrum-half the most talked-about player in European rugby right now.
A round-up of the latest news shorts from the weekend’s rugby.
This weekend sees some big rugby action up north. Firstly there is, as earlier reported on this site, the penultimate tournament of the 2011/2012 IRB Sevens competition in Glasgow. While on the ‘domestic’ front there will be the last round of the league stage of the RaboDirect Pro 12 and the Aviva Premiership.
Hello friends,
We have set up a SuperBru pool for the Winter Tours SuperBru Competition.
The details are:
Pool Name: Rugby-Talk Winter Tours 2012
Pool Code: wadsbops
Remember folks, to be part of a Rugby-Talk SuperBru pool, you HAVE TO BE registered here at Rugby-Talk.
The second last tournament of the 2011/2012 IRB Sevens competition is due to hit Scotland this weekend. In a change from previous editions in which the Scotttish leg of the sevens were held in the far larger Murrayfield stadium in Edinburgh the venue will now be the Scotstoun Stadium in Glasgow.
With 10 Weeks done and dusted in Super Rugby 2012 and having a fair idea of which players are performing and which players are injured, maybe it’s time for the Guru’s of Rugby-Talk to do the Following:
- Name their 15 Springbok starters
- Next to the above names to pen down 2nd choice players in the various positions
- Explain in detail why players are chosen as starters and why 2nd Choice players are chosen
In turn the Guru’s out there in the blogesphere, whether registered as bloggers or not, will have the opportunity to name their own side (with 2nd Choices) and take some swings at the Authors and each other.
Registered Bloggers just Login with their normal particulars, Non-Registered Bloggers will have to supply a Name (nickname is fine) and an E-Mail Address.
The rules are… there are no rules except to leave parents, wives and children out of the picture and to behave within the bounds of decent undecency.
At the same time, as this Article will be seen as fun and good natured banter, nobody is allowed to get angry… and by participating accept that whatever is said, written or inferred, is done so in jest and with the general aims and purpose of Rugby-Talk in mind.
Here we will go head to head, toe to toe… and get our frustrations out into the open.
Are you clear about all of that, muppits, moepels & mopkoppe… and friends?
A round-up of the latest news shorts from the weekend’s rugby.
A teenage Scottish club rugby player has made his international debut . . . for Pakistan in rugby league.
There are a host of international teams like Scotland and Ireland not even to mention second tier test nations like Canada, USA, Italia and Argentina who have never beaten the All Blacks.
Wales have beaten the All Blacks only three times, the last time being in 1953. In general the only teams really able to foster some occasional wins against the All Blacks are England, France, Australia and South Africa with the latter being by far the most successful in this regard.
The fact that Rhodesia (now of course Zimbabwe) have once beaten the All Blacks are therefore something really unique and says a lot about the state of rugby in Southern Africa at the time this occurred namely in 1949. The fact that South Africa also white washed the 1949 All Blacks 4-0 in the test series leaves the impression that it was a weak All Black side which is something most rugby scribes strongly reject.
Former World Cup winning Springbok and now Brumbies coach Jake White has fired a broadside at South African rugby as he prepares to embark on his South African tour.
Veteran Springbok flyhalf Butch James, a member of the Rugby World Cup winning team in 2007, has decided to retire from Test rugby with immediate effect.
Everything considered a really entertaining match with both teams leaving nothing on the park. The Crusaders was in the final analysis just that slight bit tactically more astute and probably a bit more desperate for a win.
All credit though to the Stormers for trying hard and one would hate to be critical after such a splendid effort. That said I was keen to see just how the Crusaders are going to counter the Stormers’ defensive system and there is much to be learned by dissecting just how they (the Crusaders) accomplished this victory.
Here are the Super Rugby Team Sheets as they were announced for Week 7 of Super Rugby 2012.
All the teams finally announced – Bring it on, and make it a happy Easter!!
This weekend that was I went to a coaching course with a group of players. The course was generally speaking very informative. We rotated through different stations doing basic handling, rucking, tackling and kicking drills with lots of feedback to players and coaches.
At the end we played a game (10 players on each side) called touch and ruck. It is a really nice way to enforce some basic skills at the young age groups. Players learn about maintaining the offside line, to go up in a line on defence and on attack, to touch with both hands (essential to learn that you need to punch through with the arms when you tackle), to rip and place and to clean-out at the rucks.
A while back I wrote an article on martial arts in rugby (see here). The focus of that article was more on the tactical side of things; strategic approaches in martial arts which can also be used (and are as a matter of fact) in other sports like rugby.
An interesting development in New Zealand rugby over the last two years has been the increasing use of martial arts techniques and training methods in rugby. One of my colleagues was heavily involved with the Manawatu Turbos last year playing under Dave Rennie. Rennie of course is now coaching the Chiefs and one can clearly see some of these techniques now being used by the Chiefs. According to my colleague, Rennie has acquired the services of a martial arts expert in Hamilton who is now working with the Chiefs.
An uncomplicated look at rugby.