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ADDED SUNDAY 02/03/2008 Some awful rugby in Round 3, the pick of the matches to date being the Chiefs vs Hurricanes way back on Friday night. The rest, and I haven't seen the last two (Blues flogging of the Cheetahs and the Sharks mauling of the Bulls) yet, and may not watch them at all, have been ordinary to terrible, with the pick of the shockers being that drug free sleep inducer from Dunedin, the Waratahs vs the Highlanders. I thought the Waratahs were going to finish in the top four, now I don't know anymore, they were terrible. The most entertaining thing in this match was Murray Mexted, this is often the case, but without him last night we may all have fallen asleep. I thought the Waratahs scrum was pretty ordinary for most of the night, find it hard to be a Dunning or Baxter fan come scrum time. A comment here recently from one of the toughest guys I ever played against, and certainly a man that could scrum, he said this, "Baxter and Dunning, they should be lined up at the top of a cliff with a row of machine guns between the cliff and get away, and be told they have two choices, jump or be shot". You can trust me when I say there are some boys out here in the country that know a little bit about the craft. If the Waratahs were terrible, the Reds as a single team were absolutely woeful. At least the Brumbies played some entertaining football. Again the question has to be asked, who in the upper echelon of Qld rugby let Chisholm, Wallace Harrison and Chapman go. Do the comparisons yourself, hard running, try scoring, ball playing Chisholm vs serial offender Horwill and hard running ball playing backrower Chapman vs yet untested and untried Leroy Houston. Qld in actual fact has it's best players playing for other places, Sharpe, McIsaac, the aforementioned Brumbies players plus Fairbanks, James O'Connor, Scott Daruda, Angus Scott, Pelasasa, Rocky Elsom, Ben Mowen, Josh Valentine, and that is without looking overseas for younger blokes that have headed over for a life experience and a pay cheque, or in the ranks of rugby league, where locally we have Sammy Hannant who would easily be of Reds standard, Willie Tupou moving straight to the Broncos. There was a joke running through the house here last night, amongst the rugby followers anyway, that the Reds must practice "disappointed looks" as most of them do them and do them well. We think Turinui is the best at them at this stage, closely followed by Latham, but we would appreciate better camera work so we could see more. The Reds scrum, that I don't rate, gave the Brumbies scrum a bit of a lesson, says little for the Brumbies scrum, particularly their new tight head, he got a real bath. It seems the guys are trying to pack with the shoulders lower than the hips and then squeeze up out of the legs into a straight position. If this is the case, then I think it is complete rubbish. Simple laws of physics and mechanics tell you easily that if you are heading down, and that sort of force hits you will end up down, if that is in fact what they are doing. Already there are sides clamouring for bottom four or five slots, Lions, Cheetahs, Reds, Stormers, Highlanders, maybe the Waratahs after last night. The Brumbies too do look vulnerable with all those injuries. The Force are winning, but only just, and are yet to hit the Kiwi sides. Yet there are only two clear contenders for leadership, Crusaders and The Blues. I still maintain the the big South African sides have not adapted to the new laws, and are really struggling. The pick of Aussie centres was probably those two young guys from the Brumbies and Ryan Cross, the rest are awful. Our 10 stocks too are not good. Giteau is a great footballer, and athlete no question, but we will see how his continual drift and accelerate and straighten goes against some heavier defence and more highly rated sides. Beale does some good things occasionally, but not continually enough and he pulls out some awful stuff like that midfield pass to Tuqiri running at two defenders last night, on a kick return, with only two of them there and acres of field to kick and chase into. Berrick seems lost and the Brumby guy is working into the slot, plenty of problems here at international level. I noted also that Zipper got onto the field, and he may have previously too, one of the schoolboys from last year, a guy with a name that I always struggle to spell, so from here forward Zipper equals Taumoupeau, and the young guy, not the older, bigger guy that I am sure has to be his brother, also at the Brumbies. While mentioning Tuqiri briefly, does anyone know what he is doing, doesn't run much, when he does it is across the field, kicks more than a 10 and sometimes the kicks lack any purpose or direction. Every week I see him I just think how much better I could have easily spent and distributed that couple of mill. I expect heaps of flak over my comments here this morning, some just can't see the wood for the trees, because if anyone thinks things are rosy in Aussie rugby at the moment, or more particularly Qld Rugby, then a reality check is sorely in order. Jerry Collins looks to have re found some form with a big performance on Friday night, I have always like this guy and have watched him build his game from hitman to all round back rower. If the hurricanes can continue to hold the footy and play with just a little bit of structure, they will join their Kiwi buddies the Crusaders and Blues in the top four. Spot four, who knows, there seems to be a massive gap between them and the rest. Back on the Reds, not sure what new coach Mooney does now, it is going to be a long and hard season for him, not looking like, is going to be. Sides like the Crusaders and the Blues could both maul the hell out of the Reds, and post scores like the Bulls did last year. Tipping for the week here is going OK, only missed one, the first one where for some reason I inexplicably chose the Chiefs, but had some concerns over the way the Hurricanes were approaching playing. The Force gets to experience the Crusaders this coming week, and if they are ever going to be weak, it is on this mid journey Perth stopover/return from South Africa. They will feel pretty ordinary, and be semi out of it, so the Force will be in with a chance, a small one but a chance. Stormers will get their first win of the season in Brisbane and I think the Waratahs will end the euphoria of the Brumbies at home in NSW. |
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WE DON'T STOP PLAYING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD, WE GROW OLD BECAUSE WE STOP PLAYING. |
