The Silver Fern

If Welsh rugby administrators had half your passion Mike, Tim Cymru wouldn’t be in this mess.

Hadn’t thought of it like that @Bones but I’m prepared to be convinced. Go on.

You’re right! Mr. Smith needed the best AB team of all time to bag his winners’ medal…

@nostrildamus said in Springboks:

@Smuts said in Springboks:

Taking that intercept and almost skinning the fastest rugby player on earth is why he has double the World Cups of the next best test 15.

That makes no sense.
And he's no Ben Smith from accounts.

You’re right. Unfair to compare Willie to Smith with his solitary RWC trophy

@pakman said in Springboks:

One for the WLRAS:

Taking that intercept and almost skinning the fastest rugby player on earth is why he has double the World Cups of the next best test 15.

@pakman said in Springboks:

@Smuts Perhaps balances out Pollard at 10?

Reckon so. Because lord knows before Am established himself during the first World Cup run Faf, DDA & Kriel weren’t exactly producing champagne rugby.

@mariner4life said in Springboks v Barbarians:

@OomPB said in Springboks v Barbarians:

Must admit he made me swear a lot

haha i bet. I've watched Bok tests where he has done dumb shit and thought "by fuck he must drive their fans nuts"

Absolutely. But for a long time he was the only Bok who could see, create and use space.

Even so almost every SA group chat I’m in has
been renamed something like Willie Le Roux Appreciation Society because it drives at least a quarter of the blokes mental.

@booboo I agree you’re over carded now. But you’re still just paying down interest on your karmic card debt. Only start eating into the principal in two generations’ time, I’m afraid.

@booboo said in WR U20 Championship 2025:

@Smuts said in WR U20 Championship 2025:

@booboo the least they deserve, unto their sons’ sons to the seventh generation, surely?

You've lost me.

Anyway, I'd say it is a stop start game. But more of a stop stop game.

Kiwi sides have a massive karmic debt of cards and penalties from undetected cynical infringements by these baby blacks’ forebears.

Short of giving back 2 or 3 Webb-Ellises and a fair few super and SANZAAR titles I’m afraid it’s getting many more marginal cards for the next seven or so generations to get out of the karmic red.

Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

@deeezenuts forwards grew into the game and the bench made a huge impact.

The halves and outside backs were pretty bloody special as well.

Not sure what changed since the TRC but they’re showing the spirit of the best Bok sides. Very fun to watch.

@booboo the least they deserve, unto their sons’ sons to the seventh generation, surely?

Very impressive defence by 14 man baby boks to ice the game against England.

Thanks to @Kirwan, @Duluth and anyone else who have kept the Fern the best place to be wrong about rugby online.

The rest of you free riders can all get stuffed.

@barbarian said in Force v British Lions:

I thought O'Keeffe was pretty good. If that's the style the tour will be played, bring it on! Let it flow, good competition on the ground but leeway given to the attacking team.

All for fewer whistles esp at breakdown. But can’t see why we should give one side an extra advantage in any contest?

Team in possession already has an advantage - they decide where/on what terms breakdowns are going to happen. If they can’t use that advantage to get support to tackled player & to create, use & exploit space buggered if I can see why we should give them licence to cheat a bit to keep the ball.

Fewer more fiercely contested rucks not more bullshit ones produces better quality rugby.

They both looked bang average. In fairness to Sotutu he was playing in a well beaten pack. But he didn’t seem to take the fight to the boks which is what I’d have expected from a guy playing to prove something to the selectors.

Edit to add that whatever @Mauss saw from Sotutu at the breakdown was too subtle for me. Nothing like another Auckland 8 criticized for being afraid of doing the hard graft, Zinny, getting stuck into the bok pack when they got the upper hand in Joburg in 97 say

Squidge is great. Wish we had more like him - the sort of guy that keeps your school 6th team going. Always finding the 16a guys who have a bye, the firsts destined player who is slowly coming back from a devastating injury, inventing moves that the whole school will be using soon, always organizing touch in the summer and chatting with the school stars on little tweaks they should make to their game but will ignore.

But this video is why they ignore him: it’s no devastating insight to say run off shoulders, pop off the deck and look to maintain continuity.

@Bones said in Sports Memes:

I feel seen

5.8K reactions · 580 comments | When the goose is too loose! 🪿🤦‍♂️😂...

When the goose is too loose! 🪿🤦‍♂️😂 I posted this video a couple of years back and seen it pop up loads so I thought I’d give another share for the people. The legend of @owen_barlow continues 🫡😂...

Same, same. My knee looks like it was sewn together by that dog-loving trans rights pioneer what got viciously gunned down in his own home by an unsupervised FBI trainee traumatized by being used as bait in a sick game between her superiors and a manipulative, sadistic, psychopathic cannibal genius.

@reprobate he is a swing bench forward. Those are handy in a squad.

@Dan54 pretty sure I’ve mentioned him on here before but Derek Robinson writes great books about fighter pilots. Start with the booker shortlisted, Goshawk Squadron about a fighter squadron in WW1. Robinson’s WW2 novels are also excellent especially Piece of Cake (39-End of Battle of Britain) and a Good Clean Fight (Desert War up to El Alamein) and have a young kiwi pilot as a central character.

If you haven’t read Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey/Maturin books you’re in for a treat. They are ostensibly about the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic wars but are really much more than that. Friendship, the difficulties and joys of love and marriage, career frustrations, coping with impossible parents and in-laws. In short, they deal with what it means to be human. Highly recommend.

Ditto Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel. first of a series about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s prime minister. Astonishingly good.