Nick Farr-Jones on South Africa.

Another australian being biased, or an objective opinion?

Some punters have claimed the Springboks are the real danger to the thus far clear dominance of the All Blacks but the second half on Friday against the Samoans confirmed to me that the Boks are not the team of yesteryear and are beatable by a Wallaby team that surely will not come second in the intensity stakes.

But perhaps this does a disservice to the Samoans, who were magnificent. Their passion and determination - especially in their final 40 minutes of the tournament - were matched by their fluency and execution, as multi-phased plays saw a great interchange between forwards and backs. It was damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, and they deserved to go further in this event.

Full Article link.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby-world-cup-experts/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503159&objectid=10755968

Would have been better than England and France based on the group games.

Biltongbek: I'd call it an Aussie great doing what he can to pump the team, this close to the game.

BUT:

Budget holes have now been flagged by Aus and NZ. To some extent NZ brought it on themselves with the getting of this WC, but rugby in Aus is in trouble financially (I'm now convinced, rather than concerned) and we need to work together on this as rugby. World Rugby utterly requires Aus and NZ. Can we hope the IRB deal with this?

How is the IRB going to deal with this, short of funding their short falls?

Australia has a situation where even though they have a biggish population rugby union is not their most popular sport.

Having 5 franchises costs them too much money and besides that they do not have a system that can feed quality players into their professional system.

Ubless they start looking at a system that will gorw clubs they will always have this problem.

They do not need that many clubs either.

If I look at the club structure in SA, there may be thousands of clubs but realistically each province is really only fed by a handful of clubs.

So if australia can find a sustainable method for between 5- 8 clubs feeding a franchise they will be on their way.

New zealand has a small population and hence will struggle with paying such a large group of players on a sustainable basis, specifically if they try to compete with other markets.

All Sanzar nations need to realise that they can't compete with these european nations on a financial basis and needs to find a way to streamline their structures.

1. reduce number of super Rugby Franchises per country to 4. play home and away matches, this means less players to pay higer wages,longer season which will bring in more money.

2. SA and NZ need to then look at the rest of their provinces/regions as a feeder system one level up from club rugby and create a currie cup with in SA's case of the remaining 9 franchises

3. Australia need to use their clubs in place of the ITM/Currie cup to design a similar system.

Players in SA can no longer play in the currie cup, the super rugby and tests. There is simply not enough weeks in the year.

Accept the fact that some players will leave for europe, it is inevitable and in my opinion have already levelled off to a degree as they have reached saturation point.

After that posting het is duidelijk dat "bek" is a good handle for you. You dont half go on