Horror-canes - The Fever Union thread

Nope, me too. I thought our loose forwards especially were awful. On the 20 minute period either side of half time I don't think we hit a single ruck first with or without the ball, and hence kept getting pushed back and have to try and scramble. Carter also very lucky we could score tries because his kicking was woeful.

In saying that, a win is a win, and good teams find ways to win even when playing poorly.

Otago must be looking forward to playing the likes of the mighty Thames Valley in the coming years.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/4072394/All-Blacks-star-Ma-a-Nonu-delivers-ref-bomb

What a f**kin idiot.

I HATE conference style competitions.

+1. Why the frick did we agree to this? Finals are automatically weaker because two aussie teams are garunteed to be there. As for the South African conference, the Cheetahs and Lions have 0% chance of qualifying anyway, and I hate this rubbish where you don't play everyone. WHY THE HELL NOT!?

My bad, I thought it was the top two from each. Still though, Im sick and tired of this conference crap and leagues where you don't play everyone. It doesn't help an average team improve if they've got the hardest draw the following year. The quicker they get rid of Super Rugby the better. Provincial rugby should go all year round, with a champions league type format and international windows in between.

Would probably be unsustainable. Can't see the NZ TV market being able to support full year professional NPC. I would rather see Full year Super 15, with club and NPC amateur running underneath.

Either way it's seems farcical having two separate competitions at each end of the year. But what they should do in that scenario would be if the Crusaders were in the Super 15 then Canterbury couldn't be in the league below it.

Then you'd have the NPC be considered second division rather than second league. It'd lower the standing and legitimacy of the NPC even further and basically screw over that competition. You'd also throw away some of the biggest drawcards - I support Bay of Plenty, it'd suck for us to lose the chance to beat hated rivals in Waikato and Auckland, while Canterbury tends to be a decent draw as well. As for the champions league format, the reason why the Super model was chosen was for TV audiences. Using the Bay as an example again - we're part of the Chiefs union. By having the Chiefs represent all their subunions, their television audience includes Waikato, the Bay, Counties etc. If it were a Champions league format and only Waikato got through, most people in the Bay wouldn't watch, which means less TV dollars, which means less sustainable.

So nine All Blacks have been "wrapped in cotton wool" and won't play for the rest of the ITM Cup.

Mills
Jane
Nonu
Smith
Whitelock
McCaw
Weepu
Read
Kaino

They're professional athletes, I'm sick of hearing "they've played too much rugby." If they're not fit enough, then don't select them for the national team, having them not turn out for their province is just nonsense. I know the NZRU are the ones paying them, but the provinces still do. One thing I would like to see is for the NZRU not to pay the players, but for the franchises themselves to foot the all of the bill.

 

Why is the new comp called Supe RugbY?

So wen they add new teams they don't have to change the name again