NH club rugby
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Hartley
'If it looks like a duck, it walks like a duck,'You know the rest.
Dirty fuck. Always has been, always will be.
You have these English mums bleating about how dangerous rugby is and wanting to stop full contact.
And then you have Hartley as England captain.
Doesn't make sense.
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@mikethesnow I blame his English Mum.
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@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@rapido While you can never rule out intent/stupidity with Hartley, you can clearly see that the guy he was aiming to clear out stepped away, leaving him with thin air to clear. The flailing arm leaves him open to criticism certainly. On viewing from in front of Hartley it hardly seems to make contact with Slimani but from a different angle you can see it catches him under the nose, so he cops some septum shock. Not nice.
Still pretty debatable though. DH doing plane landing instead of plane taking off to start with. His arm doesn't look to be aiming at the player that backed off, unless he was going for the ankles (IMO if he was clearing out he would be aiming higher). He appears to tense and swing his arm at the player at full reach.
Looks like sly deliberate niggle that was more exposed than he thought it would be (assuming he thought at all)
The commentary makes me laugh though. In the second incident they are claiming that because it was head contact it should be red, but no such claim when DH made head contact with a fist? -
@crucial It's Hartley so it will always be debatable. I'm certainly no Hartley apologist but in this instance I see it as accidental. Clumsy at worst. Thought it worthy of a penalty at the time with a yellow being a bit harsh. Any further sanction would be over the top IMO.
But and there is always this but in these instances, we often see what we want to see.
Which is the position I am assigning to you.
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@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@crucial It's Hartley so it will always be debatable. I'm certainly no Hartley apologist but in this instance I see it as accidental. Clumsy at worst. Thought it worthy of a penalty at the time with a yellow being a bit harsh. Any further sanction would be over the top IMO.
But and there is always this but in these instances, we often see what we want to see.
Which is the position I am assigning to you.
As you say, with DH there is always the problem of bias due to reputation, but I cannot workout what he was actually trying to do with that wide swinging arm down at ground level. To be accidental it would need to look as if he was actually trying to enter and bind correctly at the ruck. The accident could be that he got the head instead of just a smack to the body, but in that case it is reckless contact with the head.
No big loss for England if he is gone. George is a much superior player. -
29 unavailable, 23 remaining.
Squad size is 52!
My holy shit moment is not 'wow, they're missing 29 players'. My takeaway is 'what morons organise a comp that for 7 weeks out of approx 39 weeks clashes with the international window'.
Squad size of 52! Carrying all those extra bodies.
Does that 7 weekends of domestic action with b-listers (3 to 4 homes games each, plus tv revenue) make enough cash to cover having to have a squad about 30% bigger than a typical SR squad?
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@rapido said in NH club rugby:
29 unavailable, 23 remaining.
Squad size is 52!
My holy shit moment is not 'wow, they're missing 29 players'. My takeaway is 'what morons organise a comp that for 7 weeks out of approx 39 weeks clashes with the international window'.
Squad size of 52! Carrying all those extra bodies.
Does that 7 weekends of domestic action with b-listers (3 to 4 homes games each, plus tv revenue) make enough cash to cover having to have a squad about 30% bigger than a typical SR squad?
Number of matches played is a factor in determining squad size. Super rugby regular season is, I think, 15 games? Pro 14 regular season is 21 games and then you must add the European Cup games as well, which is a minimum of a further 6 games. then there are the lesser competitions such as the whatever it's called Anglo-Welsh cup (used as a development competition by most - until they're in with a chance of winning)!
Nonetheless the injury lists at Pro14 and Aviva Premiership level is getting ridiculous this season.
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Premiership: Extended season will be 'more balanced' for players
Premiership Rugby's plans to lengthen the domestic campaign by a month from 2019-2020 have been opposed by players, with strike action not ruled out.Part of the rationale behind lengthening the season is to reduce the overlap between the international and domestic game. But leading players have voiced their concern at the prospect of a longer campaign and a shortened pre-season. Saracens and England number eight Billy Vunipola, who is sidelined by a knee injury, told the Rugby Union Weekly podcast in September that "something had to change" to reduce the burden on players. "As a contact sport, there is no other sport in the world that plays a longer season than we do at the moment, so why would we go longer?" says the Rugby Players Association (RPA) chairman Christian Day. "This is the first time I've seen a proposal with no positives for the players, so why would we agree to it?" However, Rowe says spreading out Premiership fixtures would allow for more frequent rest periods during the season. "The reality is that at the moment a guy could start playing on 1 September, and play right though until May with no breaks," he added. "The idea of the extended season is putting breaks in so you can rest the guys. "If you had a break in November when you could give someone a week or two off, and a break in March when you could give someone a week or two off, it's a bit more balanced out than going right the way through." The RPA have stressed the need for a proper pre-season to allow players time to recover mentally and physically. English rugby's Professional Game Board is now under pressure to seek an urgent resolution, with the new chief executive of the Rugby Football Union Steve Brown expressing his concerns.This article is one of the response to Premiership Rugby’s response to Global Calendar announcement
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@stargazer The idea of extending the season seems to have some merit on the face of it but the reality is that while it may give players a break from actually playing it will not give them a break from training. ie no real down time whatsoever and then shorten the break between seasons where they can get down time. Even disregarding that, does anyone really think that an under pressure DOR or coach will not be putting pressure on a guy to play in times of need, mid season break or not?
To my mind it really has little to do with player welfare and more about getting a longer season to bring in more dosh.
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The only way they will be able to do that is to play friendlies (against opposition that will bring in a big gate take) during the break periods! Not sure how the TV rights holders will go given that they will have no championship matches to screen during these break weeks.
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@higgins said in NH club rugby:
The only way they will be able to do that is to play friendlies (against opposition that will bring in a big gate take) during the break periods! Not sure how the TV rights holders will go given that they will have no championship matches to screen during these break weeks.
The cynic says that they will find a way to fill in these barren weeks if that is the way things go. Another proposition was not for the clubs to have break weeks just the players, albeit spread out across a longer season.
I don't think either option has real merit.
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@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@higgins said in NH club rugby:
The only way they will be able to do that is to play friendlies (against opposition that will bring in a big gate take) during the break periods! Not sure how the TV rights holders will go given that they will have no championship matches to screen during these break weeks.
The cynic says that they will find a way to fill in these barren weeks if that is the way things go.
At the moment whenever there is a gap they seem to replay the last time England beat the ABs. It seems to be on whenever I flick through SkySports.
I don't watch the wendyball channels but imagine they still replay the 1966 World Cup endlessly? -
@crucial said in NH club rugby:
@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@higgins said in NH club rugby:
The only way they will be able to do that is to play friendlies (against opposition that will bring in a big gate take) during the break periods! Not sure how the TV rights holders will go given that they will have no championship matches to screen during these break weeks.
The cynic says that they will find a way to fill in these barren weeks if that is the way things go.
At the moment whenever there is a gap they seem to replay the last time England beat the ABs. It seems to be on whenever I flick through SkySports.
I don't watch the wendyball channels but imagine they still replay the 1966 World Cup endlessly?It's all to do with big data gathering and then targeting the desired audience. Someone somewhere knows that you are a Kiwi and is showing you what data says you want to see. Count yourself lucky, all I get is lesbian dwarf porn.
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@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@crucial said in NH club rugby:
@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@higgins said in NH club rugby:
The only way they will be able to do that is to play friendlies (against opposition that will bring in a big gate take) during the break periods! Not sure how the TV rights holders will go given that they will have no championship matches to screen during these break weeks.
The cynic says that they will find a way to fill in these barren weeks if that is the way things go.
At the moment whenever there is a gap they seem to replay the last time England beat the ABs. It seems to be on whenever I flick through SkySports.
I don't watch the wendyball channels but imagine they still replay the 1966 World Cup endlessly?It's all to do with big data gathering and then targeting the desired audience. Someone somewhere knows that you are a Kiwi and is showing you what data says you want to see. Count yourself lucky, all I get is lesbian dwarf porn.
They must be ID'ing the wrong person then as I usually switch channel straight away after laughing at the desperation.
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Pretty good try by Glasgow v Leinster. Set up by a brilliant run by Niko Matawalu.
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@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@higgins said in NH club rugby:
The only way they will be able to do that is to play friendlies (against opposition that will bring in a big gate take) during the break periods! Not sure how the TV rights holders will go given that they will have no championship matches to screen during these break weeks.
The cynic says that they will find a way to fill in these barren weeks if that is the way things go. Another proposition was not for the clubs to have break weeks just the players, albeit spread out across a longer season.
I don't think either option has real merit.
The barren weeks will get filled by the expanded/renamed version of what’s currently called the Anglo-Welsh Cup. They are looking to bring in two SA teams into this as a ramped up development comp for academy players nd some of the lesser lights from Senior Squad.
The revamped global schedule will see November test window start in first three weeks. There are plans/discussions to change the European Cup pool stages to run in one bloc during Dec and January and possibly the quarter final too, if they can shift/compress the Six Nations.
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I doubt that would satisfy those that pay big money for their names to be associated with rugby be it by way of sponsorship or purchase of advertising spots in telecasts. Unless things are different up north when compared to NZ I doubt the viewing audience for what would essentially be matches between 2nd XVs would be much more than immediate family and club members of the participating teams.
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@pot-hale Thanks for the info. I'd really only listened to Tony Rowe talking about it and then a few of the more lurid headlines. Seems like they're trying to squeeze in more rugby which is pretty much what I feared.
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Off to see Toulon vs Racing at the famous Stade Félix Mayol. Nonu & Fekitoa in the centres for Toulon. Hopefully should be good, 18000 seats and the famous Toulon chant Pilou Pilou. It’s a wee trip with my Swiss rugby team.
