The Silver Fern

@Dodge For comparison, if possible, could you post a few of those crowd numbers?

I found these crowd numbers of the first round of the Japan League One competition (Division 1). I have no idea whether those crowd numbers are high, or not, as I have no idea what the numbers were in previous years.

Kobelco Kobe Steelers 80-15 Mie Honda Heat (11,419 spectators)

Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars 30-29 Hanazono Kintetsu Liners (7,852)

Brave Lupus Tokyo 43-30 Shizuoka Blue Revs (11,553)

Toyota Verblitz 15-8 Black Rams Tokyo (9,059)

Kubota Spears Tokyo-Bay 26-52 Tokyo Sungoliath (18,110)

Saitama Wild Knights 53-12 Yokohama Canon Eagles (12,582)

What would be interesting to know is whether the lower crowd numbers in the Premiership are offset by increased tv viewership, similar to what happened in Super Rugby. With the high cost of living and expensive ticket prices, watching from home is attractive financially as you can watch more games for less.

@gt12 That's such an oversimplification of reality (which you may not be aware of). Just a few examples:

I think what hurt his chances was him having to turn down the NZ U20s in 2019, because of his family situation that meant he had to suppor this family financially from a young age. Possibly, those same responsibilities necessitated similar choices along the way, for example, when he played in Japan for one season.

Then there's the development pathway at the Canes, which we've criticised for years as the man in charge is Darren Larsen, who has openly admitted to never travel outside the Wellington province to watch club or school rugby and has a clear record of bias favouring players from Wellington, because they're the only players he knows. We've been complaining about him for ages. It resulted in signing and re-signing of a very average player like Jackson Garden-Bachop, and then Aidan Morgan ... It was obvious in selections at age grade and development level; McClutchie wasn't the only one missing out and the Canes have quite a long history with overlooked playeers (not just from HB) eventually going elsewhere.

McClutchie spent only about 2-3 weeks with the Highlanders as injury cover at a time the development teams didn't play anymore. So he didn't play during that time and had hardly enough time to make an impression.

McClutchie's biggest mistake has probably been rejecting a Crusaders contract in favour of Moana Pasifika, but it proves Razor thought he was good enough for a SR contract.

I see the BF7s lost 12 - 24 to France in the SF, and then beat the USA 19 - 7 to claim bronze.

The AB7s beat South Africa 31 - 7 and finished 5th.

Very disappointing. I hope both teams will improve a lot during the season and come right before the Olympics.

The Aussie women won gold again, beating France 29 - 26 in the Final.
Argentina beat the Aussie men 45 - 12 in the Final, and Fiji took home bronze after defeating Ireland 14 - 7.

Women's Cup SF:
1:34am: BF7s v France

Men's 5th place play-off:
3:52am: AB7s v South Africa

So the rules are different from what I thought, because I expected us to play France for 5th place, but the WR website says we're playing South Africa.

Fiji score and win!

FT: Fiji 29 - 24 France

Nah, another yellow for the French. Seems harsh.

A Frenchy gets yellow ...

This game is going to extra time! Sudden death.

Fiji 24 - 24 France

Fiji were 17 - 0 ahead, but are imploding now.

HT: Fiji 17 - 14 France

@NTA The Aussies looked very good in that game!

FT: Australia 28 - 0 South Africa

Both South Africa and Canada suffered bigger losses in their QFs than NZ. So if I've understood the rules correctly, the AB7s will play for 5th place.

And again!

28 - 0 Australia

Another try for the Aussies!

21 - 0 Oz

Okay, the Aussies blitzing the Blitzboks works for us as well.
HT: Aussies 14 - 0 RSA (that's not enough yet)

Canada lost 0 - 33 to Argentina, so that's worse than the AB7s.
We have to hope for the Blitzboks to blitz the Aussies or Fiji/France to do that to their opponent.

The AB7s were so bad that they may miss out on the play-off for 5th place. They don't play semis for those lower ranked places. It's best QF loser v 2nd best QF loser for 5th place and the other two QF losers play for 7th place.

One last try to NZ scored by McGarvey-Black.

Well-deserved win to Ireland. AB7s were terrible and didn't deserve to go to the Cup semis.

FT: AB7s 21 - 36 Ireland

Yuck. Ireland score another one.

14 - 36 Ireland

Now Cody Vai scores NZ's second.

14 - 31 Ireland

Finally. That's how to do it. Well done Cody Vai.

7 - 31 Ireland