The Silver Fern

yeah a lot of the injuries and f'ing about at scrum time is to give the fat guys a rest
i heard a top level pro soccer player recently say that a lot of players going down injured in soccer is just to give everyone a rest, and not just to get a free kick or someone YC'd

players trying to get someone YC'd is an extremly unattractive watch
in ice hockey you can get binned for enhancement, making it a risky strategy
the transgressor and the enhancer can both be binned at the same time
rugby officials would probably only have do that a couple times and most of it would be out of the game

and here is a radical thought . . . why not penalise the dominant scrum when it turns into a mess
e.g. anywhere else on the field players going headfirst into the ground is going to get someone RC'd
a dominant frontrow deliberately forcing the oppostion to collapse has to be dangerous play
if a team is that dominant the resonsibilty is on them prevent that, not do it!

@MiketheSnow
totally agree
how it is done now is just stupid, like kicking someone when they are down . . . nice

the ref should actually go for the YC quicker, and get the infringing defender off the field
and when the team with the man advantage scores, the YC player should then come back on
the YC team would then be back to full strength after the score, not a man down!

net result being; because the ref goes for the YC quicker, i thnk defenders will infringe less, and the team with momentum will score quicker, speeding the whole game up

on the field the cowboys are a shit show, which I absolutely love!

but i have to give it to jerry jones off the field
even with a shit onfield record he has not only maintained the corporate value of the cowboys but increased it
$ 11 billion franchise value for cowboys at the mo, thats the most of any sports franchise in the world
he is also more involved with league business than any other owner, and the league is going gang busters as well

josh allen . . . my favorite player right now . . . of any football code . . . awesome run

and our boy taysom hill . . . had a blinder or what!

@KiwiMurph

yeah deebo, wonder if the long snapper is guna have a word to him lol!

Watched Detroit lions v packers the other day
A player got ejected

Few interesting things about how they deal with ejections in the NFL

Branch the Lions Defensive Back led with his helmet
First contact was helmet on helmet
Using the helmet as a weapon aint so tough in my book
When Chabal broke Ali Williams’ jaw into pieces in a similar play (no helmets there), now that was tough!

I thought it was an ejection straight up
It was a late hit, the other player didn’t even have the ball! (he’d fumbled it)
Initially it was just a 15 yard penalty!
Then it got interesting, the TMO came straight over the top of the referee
TMO ordered the ejection, no discussion with the referee, all took less than a minute

All the “old schools” were shocked; they all agreed it was a dirty hit, but ejection!

Branch then fingered the crowd as he went off (they didn’t show that bit, but you could hear it)
That was another 15 yard penalty

So the game day penalty for the team was 30 yards and the loss of their No. 1 DB for the rest of the game
As for the player; on Monday he got his fines; 10k+ for the hit and 10k+ for the finger
And he would have been notified of how many games suspension he’ll get if there is a repeat

That’s where it gets serious for the player, when you get suspended in the NFL you lose all your money for those games
He’s a high rated player, so you’re talking in 100s of thousands
And if keeps going “old school” he’ll then be suspended indefinitely and put on the NFL commissioners list

I’d be surprised to see him do it again, no matter how pissed he is—just cost too much money

You don’t actually need a grassroots system to get a sport going

Japan is a classic example of that
In the 1970’s rugby was by far the dominant football code and soccer football was virtually non-existent
In the early 80’s a professional soccer league was established and the sport in Japan was built from the top down, with tremendous success you’d have to say

There is going to be a new NRL team in NZ next season, an NRLW team
Now this is very small beer in the scheme of things, but it might show us what might happen going forward
Be interesting to see the player roster the warriors NRLW eventually put together
Not the particularly the individual players, but where they have been recruited from
Watched a bit of NRLW this year (very entertaining) and a large number of players had come across from rugby union (both 7’s and 15’s)

The ABs are always going to be an absolute weapon (on and off field), and AB players have nice contracts
Not sure what a SR/NPC only player is on, but average NRL pay is well over 400K now
The next NRL casting deal is going to be huge, so they are heading for a 500k+ average (20 teams)

The players might take the lead (ladies first)

I’d say in the end it’ll be “show me the money”

for those who dont know who benazzi is
he had a match winning try disallowed in WC95 semi vs SA
monsoon game, he definitely scored imo
no tmo in those days
would have meant a NZ v france final, and whole different rugby history
i wasn't concerned at the time, thought we were easily good enough to beat anyone

well
interesting
a slight glimmer of hope
wish robinson good luck
the battle of the football codes is probably more instense in australia than in any other country, so i think he knows what he has to do to move the game forward
just a question of whether he can cast some of the dinosaur stuff aside and actually do it
tough job

liked benazzi as a player, but in this position, he'd be a claytons frenchman
if they were going to go that way, pichot would have been the man, liked him as a player too

@Nepia
lol
yeah cause it’s sooooo easy to say
said to an aus leaguie the other day that PVL should buy the ARU
he said, why the fuck?
then he laughed, oh, you mean buy it and shut it down . . .
yeah, put the aus pro union game out of its misery
you’d keep their union international programs going, but send the domestic game back to the amateurs

the 6N and RC are incredible money makers and the standard is elite, but league is close to becoming the dominate code in this part of the world (south pac)
I don’t think the Euros are even aware (or care) that that is happening

The trouble with those big revenue raising games in the NH this weekend is that that the NZRU gets fuck all from them
The financial model for those games is dinosaur
The NZRU will make more out of the games against Japan and munster (different revenue model)

Samoa RL obviously got a good deal from the Pom RL for their current series, created a hole in the NRL Pac Champ, but obviously offer was too good to refuse
Don’t think the Pom RU would ever give the Samoa RU a like deal

Tonga are awesome, but the others are definitely comin on quick (even CI are sort of competitive!)
The main reason imo is because of what happened in the last NRL CBA
all the international revenue was separated out, and the players were given a percentage of the gross
the players themselves then decided that all NRL players would receive equal match payments no matter which country they played for
currently about 10G a game I think
this caused the players to literally “spread out”
this is detrimental to the aus and probably even more so to the nz teams

the SOO is the only prob I see, 60G match payments (I think), very tempting, allows aus to retain some PI players
I hope that gets changed
if a PI or kiwi player is a NSW or qld junior, he should still be able to play SOO and not for australia
that would make both SOO and international teams even stronger
Taumalolo SOO and tonga, like that!

the only union pro domestic comp that comes close to the NRL is the French T14
the English RU is a huge union, maybe bigger than the rest of the world put together
but their domestic premiership is a mess right now, and I noticed that the ERU signed a batch of players directly to them (for the first time) a week or so ago (the NZ model, the cricket model)

it’s not me who considers that the NZ PIs are not Kiwis
it’s PIs themselves who are doing that
NZ will probably have only maori and pakeha to choose from going forward

yeah give you that
i heard pakeha-maori
whatever that is
another name for kiwi?

i kinda like hill
i think that type of player can be effective
probably like to see more running backs who can pass
rather than QBs who can run
small but important difference

lol
and the aussies wont pay either
it'll be all poms on junket tours
a red out
"spot the aussie"

johnathan thurston's father was Maori

well
i remember a game a few seasons back, NZ Maori v British Isles (at Rotorua?)
i was thinking this should be a good game, and was really looking forward to it
at the start of the game the haka was rolled out
it was beautiful, probably the best haka i'd ever seen!
but, I was straight away concerned
being a XV game they probably only had a week together to prepare
and as right to be apprehensive, the Maori boys got smashed
clearly . . .
too much f’n haka practice, and NOT ENOUGH F’N RUGBY PRACTICE!

mmm saints are a mess
fans are getting real shitty too
saw belichik being asked about them today, and he just sort of shook his head
afterwards i thought, jeez he's a roster expert, maybe saints have already chatted him

i think johnson oc lions may have knocked back a hc position at end of last

lions are awesome, best right now imo

hmmmm . . .
should i make a comment
say what i really think
no
not yet

@Nepia

agree with most of what you say

we played shit in the first half, but still could have won, we were great for most of the 2nd
but in the final 10 minutes of the tongans were more composed, more professional than us
that surprised me, wouldn’t have happened in the old days, we’d have finished them off, no prob
the tongans are really good, they’d have a really good in union team too, if they were allowed

agree stacy fucked this up, just didn’t wanna say it
the winning game plan was to smother defence them, at least three in every tackle, peel off slowly, don’t let the tongans get any momentum, frustrate them
the aussies will do that next week
like a rush defence in union

as soon as I saw the kiwi team sheet I thought tonga was going to win
I think we are guna have to get used to “weakened” teams
all those PI players are gone for good, even tho most of them are still technically qualified for nz
way more PI players in the NRL than kiwi
the only consolation is I think the aussies are permanently “weakened” a little too
wouldn’t be surprised if the aussies got beat next week
the SOO situation needs to be sorted, although the players seem to be doing that with their feet already

I said a “like” union comp: like nz/aus/fij/sam/tong/png/ci
union cant do anything near as like competitive
the majority of the players come from the NRL
the NRL is the highest standard rugby comp in the world (league or union)
their next casting deal will be north of a billion per year, more even than french T14
I think the NRL players get the same match payments no matter what international team they play for
Imagine if union did something like that, you’d double the amount of world champ contenders

Union is my game, but I like the direction league is heading
Cant say the same about union
Lots of mickey mouse crap in union too
Only 5 or 6 international teams are legit contenders
Poms just played ABs in a nothing match . . . and the ABs got nothing, just expenses (and the W) . . . how f’d up is that!

yeah
soooo cool

wow
how the fuck did that happen!
best nz cricket result ever!

watched the whole series
the indians got caught on a "sticky wicket" in the first
in the 2nd and 3rd india went for spinning wickets
it backfired spectacularly on them
hard to believe it, but the spinning wickets actually suited us better than them

kiwis took the tongans on at their own game
a bit silly, they feeling it now hehe
but made for a great watch
aussies wont do that
they'll just smother them with defence, at least 3 in every tackle and stop tongan go foward
the poms did that in the series last year, and just fristrated the fuck out of the tongans
very effective but not as good to view
even so, i think the tongans can still win next week

not surprised the tongans won against the kiwis, and wont be suprised if they win next week v aus
international league really starting to be something
even png and fiji are going pretty good, and samoa looked ok v poms last night
and CI are sort of competitive
a bit of a levelling out, get used to it i think
shits all over a like rugby union comp

state of origin should have nothing to do with international play
so long as the player was a NSW or qld junior is all that should matter
that would actually take SOO to an even higher level than it is now
genuine all star series, still with acid