The Orange

The guy’s a complete plonker.

Either that or a comedian like Rhys Darby who specialises in being funny by not being funny if you get what I mean.

His latest epistle is Ten Things We’ve Learnt From the Autumn Tests.

The funny thing is that he continues to deny that he’s got the game he’s always wanted.

Jones usually bleating about the ABs just looks plain silly after the ABs whupped the Froggies:

Even dynamic New Zealand were often pedestrian.

Some footpaths then.

Still, the same old same old:

6 New Zealand do not look the World Cup winners in waiting

They may have thrashed a hopeless French team in Marseilles last night but with less then two years to go before the Rugby World Cup, there is no guarantee New Zealand will break what would then be a 24-year drought with no world title. Their results are reasonable but with so many journeymen, it seems likely they will win many games before RWC 2011 and again be overtaken in the closing laps. Graham Henry must be the coach of the autumn. Anyone who can draw a performance from that crew must be a genius.

No one down here is saying that it is a vintage AB team.  Yet such a poor AB team (as stated by Jones) is still good enough to beat all their Northern opponents without letting in a single try.  Two years in row.

And Matt Giteau beats Dan Carter to the first five position for the team of the autumn.

As Rhys Darby is wont to say … typical.

The Wallabies start playing like the proverbial and what do they do?

Take it like men?  Or even take it like Australians?

Nope, blame everyone else.

The Aussies are now blaming NZ and Pomgolia for the shocking form of the Wobblies.

Eddie Jones:

”I think we’ve lost that instinctive way we play, and we stand wide and we’re lateral and we play like a New Zealand side,” Jones told Sky Sports Radio. ”Robbie has a way of coaching, and I think he’s a very successful coach, but I don’t think his style of attack suits the Australian players and that’s something he’s going to learn over the next period of time.

Here’s a tip for you Eddie.  Very successful coaches win games which is why they’re very successful.

”I think [Deans is] a very good coach; he does need to change his methods a little bit, the Australian players are different to New Zealand players. New Zealand players have generally been the best in world rugby because they have been physically stronger and faster than anyone else.”

Yep, Aussie players are different from NZ players.  They say “mate” a lot and wear an awful green and gold.

”Australian sides traditionally, while physically we go OK, our point of difference has been that we’ve been tactically and strategically a little better than other teams. I think at the moment we’ve lost that a little bit.”

So you’re saying our players are thick?  You might have a point but come to think of it, ours are scoring more points than yours and that’s all that matters.

Anyway, it’s all the fault of the refs, the rules, the Poms.  Anything but the Aussie players.

It cuts me up seeing Australia playing so badly.

Oh dear, nevermind, let’s just hope the Taffies do it to them too!

Yep, Stephen Jones – he of the The Times fame – tries hard.

He’s a real try hard.

Ba da doom.

Anyway, the Welshman who wants to be a Pom we most like to hate is suffering a bad case of amnesia.

Having spent what seems like his whole life sneering at the frothy rugby in the Southern Hemisphere – and especially the Super [insert number here], he’s now changing his tune.

Looney tunes would be appropriate.

There’s a problem with rugby (and it’s not just the ABs cheating at the breakdown):

England scored one try in the whole autumn series — but this is not specifically a rant against England. It is written on a weekend when neither England nor New Zealand did anything that remotely came under the heading of entertainment. And on Friday night there were two big Guinness Premiership matches that between them yielded a total of zero tries.

No meat pies.

We know who to blame:

The core of the crisis is the shocking mess into which rugby union descends whenever the ball is taken into contact, and the cause of that is the utter negligence of the International Rugby Board (IRB) in upholding the laws of the game and their utter failure to drive the laws so that they keep pace with developments in the sport.

Ahh, actually the Pommy press deserves as much blame for bleating on about the soft-cock rugby in the Southern Hemisphere.

The biggest crime of course was the decision NOT to go with the elves (ahh, not the ones at the bottom of the garden).  The ELVs.

You had the opportunity to do something.  You didn’t.

You got the game YOU demanded.  Now you complain.  Go figure.

Still he ends by admitting the whole game is in a rucking mess:

And they can allow boots on bodies, to clean up the whole phase and inject some of the old dynamism. It was sad to see the men in black, representatives of the world’s greatest rucking nation, struggling in the same awful morass as England and the rest of the world.

Actually, Stephen, it’s you who’s more ass.

Poor old Wobblies.

Losing to Scotland is like, ahh, like … Australia losing to Scotland.

It’s bad.  Really bad.  Michael Jackson Bad but like when he was good not tragically bad.  Not that I ever thought he was good but you know what I mean.

Our Robbie is getting some helpful advice from Eddie Jones:

“I think Robbie is going to have to change his ways a little bit and rethink the way the attack functions.”

Gee, thanks Eddie.  Yep, the Wobblies might have to change a few things.

Like kicking goals.

Scoring tries.

Learning to pass without trying to be a quarterback for the Giants or the Vikings.

Just a few little things like that.

More helpful advice from Greg Pearse:

Former Test backrower Gary Pearse got straight to the point with his observations of the game.

“Scotland have got nothing. And how dumb were we, we kept running into people and not into gaps,” Pearse said.

Don’t worry, Robbie.  The natives aren’t all that restless.

The Wallabies are atrocious ever since Deanes took over they have done nothing if it was any other coach he would have been given his marching orders long ago, why is he still there??????

Or may be not.  Next comment will be better.

DOES NO ONE REALLY GET THE MESSAGE HERE !!!!, THE COACH HAS TO GO AND NOW OR EMBARRASSMENTS LIKE THIS ARE GOING TO BE FREQUENT. THIS COACH IS NOT UP TO THE JOB AND YOU CAN TELL NO ONE IN THE TEAM IS PUMPED UP BEFORE EACH MATCH. NOW GET AN AUSSIE TO COACH US AND I SUGGEST MARK ELLA OR ROD McQUEEN, PLEASE MAKE IT QUICK OR THERE WILL BE NO ONE LEFT WATCHING THE SPORT IN AUSTRALIA ONEIL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or not.

Now, what was that about Robbie Deans coaching the All Blacks?

In honour of the game played overnight between the ABs and Pomgolia, here’s a reminder of how things were in 1995:

The weekend highlighted an issue which has been bubbling along for some time.

On the one hand, we had the All Whites “one shot for glory”.

On the other, a rugby “test”.

Clearly, it’s not comparing apples with other operating systems (;)) – the All Whites game was the culmination of a 4 year cycle and followed a handful of other qualifying games.

The fact that the first leg against Bahrain ended in a 0-0 draw simply helped the one shot for glory spin.

The point is that football … oops, I mean soccer clearly differentiates between games that matter and friendlies.  The World Cup game is simply a game that matters.

Compare that with rugby who try to convince us that the game against Italy was a test.  Yes, it was an international.  Yes, there were bragging rights at stake, along with honour and pride.

But there was nothing of import at stake.  No Tri Nations.  No Four Nations.  No Six Nations.  And certainly no World Cup.

That doesn’t stop some rugby tragics from talking about games still being “tests”.

For all the spin, they are no more than friendlies played by 80 minute enemies.  Shit, even the Taffies couldn’t get all thier players released.

So, there you go.

The ABs are currently playing a number of friendlies which they are keen to win.

See, it didn’t hurt did it?

Trying times indeed for rugby.

While many New Zealanders used to sneer at soccer for the lack of action (one goal a game) the same people are celebrating one goal scored by a New Zealand team while sneering at the lack of tries in rugby (one try a game).

Not to mention the incessant kicking.

Not to mention the incessant scrums.  And more scrums.  And even more scrums.

The problem we are told is the rules so here’s some suggestions for changing the rules of rugby.

1. Stop competition in the scrums – just use the scrums to restart the game.  No more touch hold pause engage bullshit rest bullshit.
2. While you’re at it, get rid of the lines outs.  So much wasted time.  Just have a scrum and get on with it.
3. Get rid of those goddam rucky-mauly things (as the domestic CEO calls them).
4. Take a couple of forwards off the park should help create a bit more space too.
5. If a player grounds the ball in their own in goal, make them drop out from their own goal line.
6. Reduce the number of points for a penalty.
7. Reduce the number of points for a field goal.

That would be a pretty good start

Another Super 14 team (which I realise makes it a Super 15 team).

Not only that, another Australian Super 14/15 team.

The alternative of course was the Southern Kings from South Africa.  To play in the Australian conference.

This is a vote for John O’Neil.  Not that he’s saying so:

“This is a vote for common sense,”  ARU chief executive John O’Neill said. “Equally we want to recognise that the bid put forward for the Southern Kings was a very good one and it took an even better bid for Melbourne to win out.

“At some point in time, SANZAR will no doubt enjoy the company of the Southern Kings. However, at the moment, this is the right decision for SANZAR and it’s a momentous day for Australian rugby and the people of Melbourne.”

Yep, the rugby loving public of Melbourne will be cheering from the rooftops.  All three of them.

Only the Super 14/15 can get professional sport so wrong.

If we’re going to have professional rugby, then let’s make it professional.

Professional means paying players not developing national teams so let’s loosen up the eligibility.

Professional means having the top teams based on performance.  Not location.

Professional means a decent year long competition.  Not fitting around your domestic comps.  Our international windows.

Frankly, the only thing worse than a fifth team from Australia in the Super Whatever is a sixth team.

I had thought that sheep bleated until I read the reports coming out of Wales.

The Independent put it succinctly:

New Zealand may well have lost their aura of invincibility in other arenas of world rugby, but in Cardiff they still seem invincible as ever. In extending their staggering period of dominance over Wales to 56 years and 21 Tests, the All Blacks forced Warren Gatland to seek a target elsewhere. The home coach duly turned his anger on the referee.

Yep, the refs have been cheating and looking after the ABs for years, especially in World Cup games!

The Kiwi accused Craig Joubert of favouring the favourites. “It’s trying to change referees’ opinions about not wanting to referee an upset – referees don’t want to be involved in upsets,” said Gatland, who spent a portion of the build-up querying the All Blacks’s “infallibility”. “The frustrating thing was not getting some 50-50 calls. We’re not asking for any favours, you just want some calls to go your way. If that high tackle had been at the other end, it would have been a penalty and a yellow card.”

It’s not worth rebutting this crap so I won’t.  I’ll leave it to the Independent:

Gatland certainly had a point about Dan Carter’s unpunished hauling down of Martin Roberts as Wales tried to launch their unlikely comeback with 10 minutes to go. The Welsh camp later revealed they want the fly-half cited. And fair enough, too. But it was hard to see where else the South African official had ruled outrageously for the visitors. In truth, Wales’s defeat was all to do with their own failings and very little to with Joubert. They were brave and that’s all they were. What should have made it all the more humbling for them was that New Zealand did not even play that well.

Oh dear, how sad, nevermind.

There’s a lovely phrase later on that sums up the sheer frustration from such a long losing streak:

Alas, Alun Wyn Jones, the Lions lock, did not have faith in his legs getting him to the line in a madcap dash as the seconds counted down. Half a century of failure acted like cement in his boots. Jones came up short, and ultimately so did Wales.

And why look for a punchy comment to finish this post when I can flog it:

Yes, New Zealand might have only won by a whisper. But few could deny it was still a long whisper. Gatland’s reaction merely clouded the real issue. Wales had come off second best. Yet again.

The weekend sees another of Daniel into the Dragon’s Den.

It’s been 56 years since the Welsh have beaten the Blacks.  But they sure can sing.

The rivalry is legendary, the hits massive, the cheating Aussie-like (hey!!! Andy was pushed).

I could go on.

However, while there’s some ground left uncovered by my nascent journalistic tendencies, why bother when there’s a decent punch line.

And a cheating Aussie.

As reported by the Granny Herald:

One of the more humorous efforts came from Australian Scott Johnson in 2004, assistant to coach Mike Ruddock, who described New Zealand as a “poxy little island in the Pacific”.

“We are not calling them the All Blacks this week. They are New Zealand. New Zealand is a poxy little island in the Pacific Ocean,” Johnson joked.

Just as well Wales isn’t part of New Zealand.

Then it could be Whales and it would really get confusing when you say Whales is in the Pacific Ocean.  Like, where do you expect them to be??  The Sahara?

Anyway, back to the poxy Ozzie.  Not surprisingly, things didn’t go so well for Johnson with the brown stuff hitting the fan.

In a later press conference Johnson, wearing a t-shirt which read “Kiwi Target Practice” next to a bullseye, apologised for any offence caused.

“After a conversation that was private and has now been displayed around the world, I do make an apology. I wasn’t misquoted, I just got it slightly wrong … it’s actually two islands.”

Boom boom.

Pity about Stewart Island and the Chathams and the rest of the islands.

Anyway, it would be great if Wales did beat the ABs so we could start talking about the football again rather than how many years it’s been since Wales last won.