NZ Rugby World August - September 2018

IT’S HARD NOT TO SOUND LIKE A BROKEN RECORD when it comes to Super Rugby. Hard because the competition has been in trouble for the better part of the last decade and the problems that appear evident to everyone else, don’t yet seem to have registered with the people charged with running the competition. This year’s playoffs made for slightly depressing viewing. Not the games – they were good entertainment especially the quarter-final in Sydney which went down to the wire. The depressing part was the thousands of empty seats everywhere. There was one whole empty stand in Christchurch when the Crusaders played the Sharks. There were plenty of unoccupied yellow seats in Wellington and there were certain camera angles that made it look like there was actually no one at all at…

BLUES SEND FOR COVENTRY DISASTER WAS THE THEME OF THE BLUES 2018 CAMPAIGN, BUT THEY HAVE AT LEAST MANAGED TO PROVIDE A TOUCH OF OPTIMISM ABOUT HOW THINGS MIGHT PLAY OUT IN 2019. Not only have they managed to capture the imaginative and e_ ective attacking brain of Leon MacDonald, they have also persuaded the hardnosed, hugely driven Tom Coventry to join the coaching team with a view to drilling the pack. Coventry, as one current All Black suggested, is a “game-changer” for the Blues. The former Hawke’s Bay coach came to national prominence in 2012 when he played a major role in transforming the Chiefs alongside Dave Rennie, Wayne Smith and Andrew Strawbridge. Coventry was instrumental in turning the pack into a ruthless, well organised highly capable unit both at set-piece and across…

▪ One of the great rumours of the modern age broke out with speculation rife that Ma’a Nonu is heading back to Super Rugby. ▪ The rumour mill couldn’t quite make up its mind whether Nonu would be heading to the Chiefs or Blues…but who cares…it was all a big hoot thinking about either possibility. ▪ Come on, Nonu back at the Blues? ▪ How incredibly weird yet compelling that would be. ▪ Quick reminder in case anyone doesn’t know – Nonu came to the Blues in 2012 when he was fired by the Hurricanes and no one else wanted him. ▪ The Blues even let him take a sabbatical in Japan before he joined them. ▪ They couldn’t have been any nicer to him and so he repaid by bailing out of his contract a…

NEW ZEALAND HAD AN AMAZING RESULT AT THE WORLD CUP SEVENS HELD IN SAN FRANCISCO. BOTH THE BLACK FERNS AND ALL BLACKS SEVENS HEADED TO THE USA AS DEFENDING CHAMPIONS HAVING WON THEIR LAST RESPECTIVE WORLD CUPS IN MOSCOW IN 2013. AND GUESS WHAT? BOTH TEAMS MANAGED TO WIN AGAIN. THE BLACK FERNS HAD A TOUGH SEMI-FINAL AGAINST HOSTS USA WHICH THEY MANAGED TO WIN 26-21 BEFORE THEY CRUISED PAST FRANCE 29-0 IN THE FINAL. THE MEN HAD A TOUGH TIME GETTING PAST FRANCE IN THE QUARTERFINAL, THEN FIJI IN THE SEMI, BUT WERE ABLE TO RUN OUT EASY WINNERS AGAINST ENGLAND IN THE FINAL WINNING 33-12.…

WE NEED TO TALK. About referees. Being a rugby ref is not the easiest of jobs. Try working from a law book that makes A Brief History of Time seem like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, every tweak opening a fresh can of worms. You get barked at by players, hounded by coaches, abused by fans and subjected to forensic examination by the TV coverage. If you’re reffing a school or club match, you might even get belted, or at least get your hand crushed by a coach pretending to thank you for the game. We keep hearing we can’t have a game without them, and yet every year we make life more difficult for them. Fair to say they’re not always blameless. I can think of a couple, long retired, said to have had more than…

AT LAST THE BLEDISLOE. That’s not been a frequent rugby thought in recent seasons but there’s a feeling there may be a little more bite than normal about this year’s trans-Tasman contests. Let’s hope that’s the case because the All Blacks’ hold on the famous trophy has stretched to 15 years and too often the outcome has been apparent before the series kicked off. In several series the Wallabies have been either desperately unlucky or the All Blacks blessed but the overall record is overwhelmingly in the All Blacks favour since they regained the silverware in 2003. That superiority stands at 33 wins for the men in black, six for the Wallabies and two stalemates - a results chart which delivers the verdict that Australia has struggled consistently to make an impact on…