Are the All Blacks too good for Rugby?

[cashead]

At the end of the day, it shouldn't be the All Blacks' responsibility to ensure everyone else catches up. Fuck that noise. It's what I find utterly infuriating about some of the shit opinion pieces, like the All Blacks are to be held accountable for the state of Wallabies or Springboks rugby. Fuck off.

Of course, this team, as excellent as they are, will lose once in a while. And we'll likely get some fucking insufferable bullshit about "the All Blacks' aura of invincibility is gone" or something like that. Usually by cunts like Mark Reason or Steven Jones, while they're having a sneaky wank over how "clever" and "insightful" they are, and how "they tell it like it is."

[morepork]

Jesus, try supporting the Kiwis.

[rowan]

Well,my own perspective is purely observation and by no means accusation, and nothing I've written on the topic should suggest otherwise. Of course the Kiwis' success is laudable and I was saying just that on another thread earlier this week, in fact (only to be informed non-statistical comment was not welcome), and also explained some of the reasons SA & Aussie have struggled to keep up in the modern era. It's a worrisome situation for anyone with a remotely non-partison concern for the future of the international game in general. I'm not really sure what the answers are though. I agree it's for the other nations to get their house in order and try to catch up with the All Blacks, but that is obviously a lot easier said than done.

[morepork]

Kiwis = rugby league.

[rowan]

Also a byword for New Zealanders in general, and I think we'd have to agree this goes beyond the All Blacks, with Super Rugby in particular an increasingly Kiwi-dominated tournament. I'm just glad New Zealand isn't still dominating 7s the way it did for a long time, because it was really nice to see another nation atop the Olympic podium last year - and especially the flamboyant Fijians, of course.

[morepork]

Did you actually just try and school me on a cultural idiosyncrasy?

[rowan]

You're incapable of holding a normal conversation, you realise. But that's your problem, not mine.

[morepork]

Big kiss

X

[rowan]

Would a system like this help the Saffas & Aussies, or do they already have something similar in place? I'm presuming the latter - and SA has about 3 times as many players to choose from, according to World Rugby stats:

New Zealand is a giant rugby factory that spits out talented young men who can do decent things with an oval ball.

By the time they're in their late teens the best of the bunch are ripe for processing further down the chain, and that's where NZ Rugby's high performance player development manager Mike Anthony helps take control.

His job is to oversee the schools and age-group programmes to ensure everyone does what they can to enable NZ Rugby to keep trawling through the deep talent pool for professional athletes. They then invite players to camps, assess and track them.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all ... and-barrel

[morepork]

I'd imagine there are a fair few foreign "scouts" do just that in NZ too. French clubs definitely do.

[rowan]

8 years atop the World Rankings!

Incredible average score of 35-16

All Blacks' record since becoming number one on November 16, 2009
Played: 106
Won: 95
Lost: 8
Drawn: 3
Win percentage: 91 percent
For: 3755
Against: 1664
Differential: 2091
Tries: 466
Conversions: 345
Pens: 238
Drops: 7

NB: 3 of those losses were to Australia, 2 to SA, and one apiece to England, Ireland & the Lions. Only the latter was at home.

[scuzzaman]

2,900 days and counting.

Really would be something to see 3,650 days at No 1.

[rowan]

Interesting article about NZ. First part covers rugby, second politics, third social inequality:

Decades ago, as a non-sectarian Marxist, I played rugby for two of the British universities I attended. A couple of my team-mates were from Aotearoa, the greatest national team in the history of the sport. My Kiwi teammates weren’t of my political persuasion, though another teammate happened to be a Welsh Trotskyist.

But we’re talking about the 60s, when the most brutal game of the season was the one with the county police team (followed by the one with the county farmers).

No quarter was given when we played the pigs. Several of us had shoulder length hair, which was ripped from our heads by the porcines (we probably provoked them by making oink-oink sounds whenever one of them got the ball). Those of us who went to anti-apartheid and anti-Vietnam War protests were no strangers to such practices on the part of the representatives of law and order.

In return, and because their short hair precluded retaliation in kind, some of us kicked them in the head whenever they were on the ground, saying “We’ll see you again at Grosvenor Square” (the location of the US embassy in London, and the scene of several massive anti-war demos).

The farmers were gentlemen, or approximations thereof, who trash-talked by informing us we should be strung-up from the nearest lamp-post for being reds and hippies, but otherwise confined themselves to delivering the occasional punch when the referee was attending to other matters. They despised us as much as the cops did, but coming from the landed gentry in the main, preferred to focus their violence on the animals they hunted. We trash-talked back by saying it was fantastic they played rugby because foxes had a (brief) reprieve while they were engaged on the rugby field.

Our teams had some players who always retaliated on principle, and a few who saw retaliation of any kind as unseemly, and would not use a fist or boot to exact revenge. The biggest player on one of our teams, Peter __, was known as “Pure Pete” for this reason. Pure Pete however was physically uncompromising in his approach to the game, and being tackled by him was usually an unpleasant experience for the opposition.

Years later Tonga had an international player, Brian Lima, who was nicknamed “the chiropractor” for reasons Pure Pete would have appreciated.

Rugby can be a hard game, but in the end, it is probably one of the fairest of sports — there was no whining to the ref when I played the game, both sides knew when retaliation had to be meted out, and often, deservedly so.

The story is told of Alain Esteve, the formidable “enforcer” in the French national team of the 70s, who was punched thrice by Welsh players in the span of a few minutes, only for the Frenchman to be told by the referee he would be sent off the next time he got punched, since Esteve must have been doing something illegal– albeit unseen by the ref– to have received so many punches in such short order! (This was before the age of TV replays, which of course enable the match officials to get a frame-by-frame reprise of what went on.)

So, the Kiwis rule world rugby, but apart from a gorgeously variegated climate and scenery, and superb wines and food that are extremely affordable (as opposed to the over-priced stuff generally purveyed in London, Paris, or New York), what else are they about, in addition to the colonial, and neocolonial, shadow associated irremediably with the historic injustice done to Aotearoa’s First People, the Mäoris, who also happen to be world-renowned players of the country’s national sport (more about the Mäoris later)?

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/14 ... njuncture/

[cashead]

Interesting to whom? And don't say "Maoris," because that shit is incorrect.

[scuzzaman]

A couple of my team-mates were from Aotearoa, the greatest national team in the history of the sport.

Aotearoa is the country, not the team.

And the All Blacks are the greatest national team in the history of ANY sport.

[rowan]

Not sure how you can judge these things but the Kangaroos have certainly been more successful in the mickey mouse league "World" Cup than the All Blacks have been in the union equivalent.

[scuzzaman]

The All Blacks are over a hundred years old as a national representative team.

The rugby world cup is 30 years old.

[rowan]

Yes, and throughout the preceding 70 years they were dominated by the Springboks.

[morepork]

Yes, and throughout the preceding 70 years they were dominated by the Springboks.

Perhaps you could make a point germane to the thread you started?

[rowan]

Well, the title of the thread is in the present tense, not the past nor even the present perfect, so the question relates to the present only, because they obviously were not too good in the past, being dominated by the Boks in the pre-World Cup era, then failing (spectacularly) to win a World Cup off-shore until the 8th installment in England 2 years ago. So it's the current decade we're talking about, and I certainly reserve the right to contest the assertion the All Blacks are the greatest international team in sports history.

[scuzzaman]

... by shifting the goalposts with each comment.

So name a better one, and tell us on what basis you make this determination.

[rowan]

Already mentioned the Roos have won more World Cups. US basketball team would be pretty much invincible too. & there's so many obscure sports that basically only a handful of countries play seriously.

[rowan]

Next stop for the Bus?

Julian Savea has admitted that he has thought about a potential switch to rugby league.

The storming All Blacks winger is contracted to New Zealand Rugby until the end of 2019 but has fallen out of favour with national selectors after a lacklustre Super Rugby season.

The 27-year-old who has scored 46 tries in 54 tests for New Zealand, said the thought of switching codes has never left his mind.

"It's always been in the back of my mind," Savea told Newshub.

"I haven't had any reason to leave rugby, I'd definitely think about it.

Story continues here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/ar ... d=11961408

[rowan]

I always remember how, amid the exodus to league toward the end of the (sh)amateur era, Waikato back rower Rob Gordon called a press confidence to announce he had received no offers to switch to league but would certainly consider any that came his way. Talk about a blatant advertising stunt! But I'm not sure he was really suited to league anyway, being a little on the gangly side. More likely he was trying to pressure the All Blacks selectors with a touring squad due to be named that week. His brother Steve was already a cert, tho Rob didn't make the cut regardless. I think he eventually got selected for a tour of France but didn't play a test.

[rowan]

As good a place as any to stick this:

All Blacks legend Michael Jones has been elected to the New Zealand Rugby Board at its Annual General Meeting in Wellington today.

Jones, 53, was voted on to the NZR Board of Directors after being nominated by the Tasman Rugby Football Union.

The 55-Test cap former All Black headed off Dame Annette King in replacing outgoing member Glenn Wahlstrom on the 12-person Board.

NZR Chair Brent Impey said Jones would add considerable mana, knowledge and expertise to the table.

http://rugbyheartland.co.nz/wp/2018/04/ ... l-meeting/