The Silver Fern

GSP!

Pity about the other two titles fights though. Joanna

Seems like an outdated argument to me. The WRU are a mess and Waikato had a shit season but the Mitre 10 Cup is becoming less and less important every year, all the money goes to Super Rugby and that's the priority. It may sting because we all grew up with the NPC but what's important is getting the best players in NZ into the 5 franchises, not strengthening teams in a much less important competition.

The way I see things, the Mitre 10 Cup is basically turning into a developmental league. The next step will probably be resting starting Super players from playing in it, leaving just the U20 players, fringe Super players and club stand outs.

@hooroo said in Chiefs 2018:

@kiwimurph solid point! Maybe I have it the other way round?!?

You sure you're not thinking of Rennie, Nisbo?

Wayne Smith has always been said to see DMac as a 10 and disagreed with Rennie playing him at 15 all the time, so no surprise if Hansen's thinking along the same lines too. I don't think we know what Cooper's planning yet but seeing as Cruden's gone and Beaver's been dropped (for shame!), there aren't exactly many options.

@Chris-B. "Produce"

@taniwharugby Ah, that'd make sense then. Pity, I would've liked to see what he can do against better opposition.

Thought for sure Fifita's performance would've scored him a bench spot, especially since Ardie doesn't really offer a whole lot of impact when he comes on.

@Bones said in Law trials and changes set for 2017 and beyond:

@Unco not that I'm a fan of the hacking at the ball at the ruck anyway, but isn't disrupting play for the other team a large part of competing for possession?

Sure but there should at least be some illusion of proper competition there. To me it isn't much different than a deliberate knock on.

Some good changes in there but why the fuck did it take so long to ban kicking the ball in the ruck? It's good that they've finally done it but even ignoring player safety, it was never about competing for the ball, just disrupting play for the other team. I've always hated it.

@booboo said in All Blacks v Pumas:

@Billy-Tell said in All Blacks v Pumas:

ALL BLACKS: Damian McKenzie, Israel Dagg, Anton Lienert-Brown, Sonny Bill Williams, Nehe Milner-Skudder, Beauden Barrett, TJ Perenara, Kieran Read (c), Ardie Savea, Vaea Fifita, Brodie Retallick, Luke Romano, Nepo Laulala, Dane Coles, Joe Moody.

Reserves: Codie Taylor, Wyatt Crockett, Ofa Tu'ungafasi, Scott Barrett, Sam Cane, Tawera Kerr-Barlow, Lima Sopoaga, Ngani Laumape.

Return of the hot stepper.

Good to see Nehe back.

Little bit of rotation without going OTT. Good.

Sammy deserves a rest.

Would be fun to watch Laumape and Dubs together although I don't expect that to be plan A.

Only question for me is TKB on the bench. No problem in as much as he is clearly in the 3 best halfbacks, but as he's leaving are we missing a chance to get another 9 blooded? Or is Weber next in line and still not 100% so TKB is stop gap as nobody else is ready?

Who says they'll even have 3 full-time halfbacks in the squad after TKB leaves? It wasn't that long ago they only had Weepu and Cowan, with Ellis only called up when needed.

@Bovidae said in Auckland vs Waikato:

Who won this game again?

Check the table on the official website:

http://www.mitre10cup.co.nz/Fixtures/Standings

Looks like it's fixed now.

I love how they've still got "Official home of the Investec Super Rugby competition" in the page title an entire year (and major sponsor change) after I first noticed it. An even sloppier effort than last night's game.

@Tim said in Auckland vs Waikato:

Probability of an article in the Herald taking Auckland Rugby to task for their woefully coached team? Zero.

That would require the Herald (and the rest of the media, for that matter) to give a shit about the Mitre 10 Cup. At the rate things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't even on TV in another 10 years.

I'm happy Waikato came away with the five points but what a sloppy game. I guess that's what you get from the stupid mid-week game shitshow.

@NTA said in Bledisloe 2:

As for the conduct in the coaches box: I believe I've said before that if Shag & Co want to sit there like they've been forced to attend their least favourite cousin's wedding, they're more than welcome.

Cheika may go OTT but that's his business. You may think he looks like a dick doing it, and that's your business.

At the same time though, his business is Australia's business, isn't it? I've seen plenty of comments from Aussie fans who sick of his victim complex and siege mentality bullshit.

@Chris-B. said in Bledisloe 2:

@No-Quarter Wouldn't surprise me if Jules has done his dash. He's got Rieko and Naholo ahead of him as power wingers and Dagg and NMS as second fullback type wings, plus Jordie pushing Ben Smith towards a wing, plus DMac and Havili in the back three frame - and big Seta shifting outwards from a congested midfield and who knows who else emerging from the pack. It's not a situation where you want to be pushed out.

I don't think Ardie's under too much threat until the selectors decide they want more muscle on the bench. He brings something very different to that bench role - though I don't really see him displacing Sam Cane to start any time soon.

You say Ardie "brings something very different" but what exactly does he bring? In theory Ardie seems like he'd be the perfect impact player coming off the bench but in reality, he doesn't really seem to impact a whole lot.

Herald and Stuff are saying Laulala's starting. Time to breath a sigh of relief.

@MiketheSnow said in UFC:

@Duluth said in UFC:

FFS the LHW division is a mess now

Jones won't come back. The fans won't look at Cormier as the real champ. The UFC tried to pretend Manuwa was a contender and he got exposed. Rumble had a chance against Cormier and fucked it up, then retired..

Hopefully Gustafsson gets the next challenge and wins the belt

What an idiot.

But possibly shows that Jones didn't feel he could beat DC clean.

Ban him for life.

There are some good LH coming through.

I think what it shows is if you combine it with his weird T/E ratio a couple years ago and the inhibitor he was banned for last year, he's probably been on roids his entire career. It calls into question every fight he's won.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of ban he gets. The inhibitor he failed for last year was only a 1 year ban, whereas roids are two years and second time offenders are double that. So it'll depend on whether they consider this his first or second fail because they're two different drugs. If it's his first then he should get a 2 year ban but if it's his second, it'll be a 4 year ban. At 30 right now, he's snorted, crashed into and pissed hot the peak years of his career. What a fuckwit.

Oh and while I know they're waiting to see how things play out before doing anything, if they don't just give the belt straight back to DC and pretend that loss never happened, it'll be a complete joke. You can't lose a fight to someone who shouldn't have even been allowed in the octagon.

Yeah, um, about that main event... Jones failed a steroid test...

So I guess DC gets the title back and Jones gets banned for four years because it's his second failed test?

@rotated said in Beaver book:

@Unco said in Beaver book:

Uh, what? "Watch Weight of the Nation." Why? It was only 7 years ago, I don't need to watch a 90 minute documentary to remind me of what happened (which was barely even covered in it anyway). It wasn't quite as bad as what Henry got in 2007 (and for years afterwards by some) but it was pretty close. It went on for months and was pathetic.

Not watch the whole thing - the compilation of media reaction to Donald's performance. The worst comment is that "he isn't the answer".

It makes for a fun story and guys like Sumo, Mulligan and McOnie love pumping Donald's story up - but beaver was no more thrust into the wilderness than guys like Jarred Hoeata and co who just weren't up to All Black standard.

You must have one shit memory.

Honestly, SANZAAR shouldn't be the ones running Super Rugby. You look at most other major pro comps around the world and they're run by organisations that exist solely to look after and grow their comps. Then you look at Super Rugby and there's three (now four but I'm not sure how much influence the Argies have) different unions with different interests constantly pulling the comp in different directions. That's why we got the fifth Aussie team, the fifth and sixth SA teams, the Japanese team, the god awful conference system, shit teams being handed token spots in the finals, the June test break right in the worst possible spot, the absolutely fucked schedule and now three teams being dropped (one of which was the second best team in the Aussie conference).

Most of those problems were obvious and pointed out long beforehand but SANZAAR never gave a shit how much they hurt the comp because each union was getting what they wanted and they all seemed to figure the comp could just work around their goals.

Even if he wasn't injured, Weber got a cap against Samoa the other year.

Amazon's been slowly making moves into sports recently, so this is pretty interesting. They could be a major player in a few years.

Whether it's in 2019 or a few years after that, the move to a major streaming service is inevitable and that'll be the final bullet to Sky. I can't wait.