Happy Thursday Comrades. Welcome to week two for those of us who will become sleep deprived over the next 6 weeks. Week one was a marathon and a shock to those of us who were not game fit. Eight games over the weekend, The hardest part for me was leaving the Chile v Japan game which was a cracker as I needed the sleep to survive the sleep for Scotland v South Africa and the instant classic that was Fiji v Wales.
As always this is a fan run site and any contribution is always welcome feel free to reach out to me at happyman@greenandgoldrugby.com be it with an article an idea or an opinion piece. We also have a submit an article page as the vision is that world domination.
Week Two What Did We Learn
- France, still have a poor game in them.
- Ireland are the real deal with a ruthless edge
- South Africa were just playing with their food on the weekend.
- New Zealand are a team that others believe they can beat but can still win the world cup.
- Fiji will scare anyone assuming they do not fluff their lines against Georgia
- Australia are inconsistent but we knew that already.
- England are still boring as batshit.
- Wales are there for the taking
- The gap is closing between the top and bottom teams.
- Rugby Supporters are the best
It’s Not all Eddies Fault
For those that missed it I would highly recommend Bris Locals article Here on why Eddie has to go. It is well argued and has many points that I argee with. I will however take the contrary view.
Eddie has his faults which have been laid bare by BL however the issues with RA have run deep for 20 years. Let’s look at some cold hard truths every decent coach in Australian Rugby has been sent away or ostracized over the last 20 or so years. Starting with the Player led revolt at the Brumbies which saw David Nucifora eventually go to run Irish Rugby (You might have heard of them) after winning a Super Rugby title. Ewan McKenzie was basically knifed by the Waratah players including Lee Majors while in charge and has been lost to the game.
The Stewardship of Bill Pulver has led Australian Rugby to where is now. Does everyone remember when he said I am going to strip money from the grassroots as they would just piss it against the wall anyway.
With that as the background here are my points in favour of Eddie and the current Australian regime.
- Eddie is a highly experienced Australian international coach. 60 ofdd precent win rate.
- We were never going to win the world cup this year anyway so building for the future makes sense.
- Eddie has made the hard decisions moving on from players who have not been consistent winners.
- Eddie has appointed Will Skelton as Captain the man who has won everywhere. Most European pundits’ believe he is the best 2nd rower in the world at the moment.
- 20 years of atrocious strategic thinking cannot be undone in 1 year.
- We need to give him more time we have by my count have had five national coaches since 2007. New Zealand have had 3 since 2004 and you could argue they have all been from the same tree.
Fiji Rugby a Country on the Rise
It could be argued that RA were the Turkeys that voted for Christmas, and we should all be totally on board with it. RA included the Drua in the NRC before it was disbanded prior to Covid and did much of the heavy lifting to ensure that it was part to Super Rugby Pacific post Covid. We now have a Fijian team that is the pride of its nation and the 2nd team of every Rugby supporter in the world.
If they don’t fluff their lines against either Georgia or Portugal, I don’t think that England will want any part of them again or Argentine for that matter. They are in a good place with form having beaten Tonga, Samoa, Japan, England and Australia this year with only a close loss to the Welsh.
I also have news as long as they don’t of the normal thing and screw up the administration they are only going to get better.
Go Fiji
