Rolling Rugby Thread

[Mr. Tea]

Bugger. It's over for England now surely?

Still, good to see a try at least.

 

[luka]

That was great fun. I love international rugby.

 

[luka]

New reply on

"The Nation asked for heroes and instead we saw cowards and weaklings. Never can these boys be allowed to sully the sacred white shirt of England again. Never can they be allowed to disgrace this land and it's proud people. Never may they betray our Queen with their cowardice. This is a shameful day."

 

[IdleRich]

Gotta say I really can't stand the game. Last world cup I thought I'd try and make an effort and watched a game but I turned if off after fifteen minutes. It's weird cos I don't mind reading about it afterwards. In fact maybe not that weird, sometimes I read about the Tour de France or whatever and it wouldn't cross my mind to watch that either.

 

[luka]

I much prefer it to football nowadays.

 

[IdleRich]

Footie has arguably been spoiled by money, diving, var, hypw etc etc but the actual game itself I will never stop loving. Watching or, better still, playing it's the king of sports and someone saying different just sounds like gibberish to me. I realise that's totally unreasonable obviously.

 

[luka]

It can be good every once in a while when all the stars align but it's usually boring and as you say marred by bad sportsmanship (foreigners)

 

[luka]

Highly recommend this to baboons and Craner. Brilliant analysis. Terrible jokes.

 

[luka]

Warren Gatland is finding life tough in NZ. He's lost 6 out of the last 6 games.

 

[...]

The Welsh are also struggling.

 

[Murphy]

Covid could cancel the game indefinitely. Being a halfling some of the Ospreys games attended with my son have been incredibly boring, while others were distilled electricity. Like any sport.

6 nations is one of the finest tournaments anywhere. My Mum LIVES for it. Sings the anthem, shouts at the ref (should film these incidents), curses the English, texting friends over score drubbings. Different classes access the game in Britain and Ireland. If rugby league hadn’t been invented, England would probably be no1 far more often. Imagine that horror.

 

[luka]

if league hadn't been invented no country but NZ could get anywhere near the Aussies. England would be further away then ever.

 

[Murphy]

Imagine 30 million Saxons all playing the same game. Because it hasn’t happened for so long and due to the overall player base/talent pool, my humble guess is England could be monstrously good. Oz only has a fraction of the population. Some form of warped maths logic I know and I could never condone the position that England have to be world beaters.

Has Swing Low been cancelled?

 

[luka]

England isn't producing athletes the calibre of Greg Inglis. Never has and never will.

 

[luka]

they've beaten Australia about twice in all of recorded history.

 

[Murphy]

What I’m getting at is England’s potential suffered from professionalism, while Australia’s flourished.

The skill thing is a bit like the analogy of the English yeoman‘s qualities transferred, but you’re not wrong about flair. England produce gas wingers, thug forward packs, but rarely the type of player you find in Wales and Ireland. English League clubs profited from a lot of union emigres who would never adorn the red rose, so even a League equivalent of the Lions has been held back by the game splintering.

Put another way, the fact S Edwards isn’t in the England union set up is a red flag. Look what Wales achieved with his defensive systems and drills. Australia doesn’t squander talent like that, same with cricket.

 

[luka]

 

[luka]

 

[Murphy]

 

[luka]

Queensland beat NSW 6 years in a row at State of Origin and everytime they lost the commentariat would say, they need more passion they're not playing with enough passionate. but that wasn't it. they needed brains. Queensland had every intelligent footie player in Australia. they made better decisions.