The IRB rankings are a crock of you know what! ;o)

First topic message reminder :

Wales win the grand slam - beat everyone in front of them, yet England beat Ireland by a large score (well done on that by the way) and are above us

http://www.irb.com/rankings/index.html

I realise that most people don't pay much attention to them, but surely there is something fundamentally wrong when you are lower in the rankings than a team you beat?

Are England better? Me thinks not!

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

Woodstock wrote: 2 great Irish pubs there with draught Murphys and Caffreys in one and Guinnuss in the other.

Youll probably get a great pint of bitter there at the moment

Nah mate, i think you have consumed it all

gelodge wrote:

Morgannwg wrote:

Taylorman wrote:
How about Oz? Injuries and depth will be your ongoing problem. We hear stories here non pro club players are being brought through to fill in sxv positions on a fairly regular basis.

Gotta be a concern given Wales have 2 or 3 now fighting for most positions. But both teams are also on similar paths- probably the 2 most settled sides in World rugby given theyve done their 'new players/ cosch' thing for a good 203 years now.

Aus don't have any clubs though do they? They have the Super XV provinces (are they provincial?) but I think they lack something below preparing them for that level.

I'm not sure if we have as much depth. We have players in 3 or 4 key players in certain positions who if cropped will affect the team. There was no opportunity in the 6 Nations for their replacements. Craig Mitchell and James Hook should have seen some game time in their preferred positions. As for Aus, I'm not sure how their injury list is right now. But I think their player pool is still larger than ours and the ones they bring on through are very good players. O'Connor and Ashley-Cooper are two of my favourite Aussies for the fact that they can slot in anywhere in the backline and still look world class.

Sure they do. Each region has their own club competition, of which the Shute Shield (NSW) and Queensland Premier Rugby are the big dogs and see the most players promoted from their ranks.

Full marks gelodge - Did you live here at some point?

Oz has a decent enough number of leagues and clubs, but geography becomes the challenge. For instance there is a union covering Country NSW which has been playing City (ie Sydney) in a rep fixture for a hundred years. Once upon a time this game was a selection trial for the NSW team to play Qld. The population of NSW Country is over three million and plenty follow and play rugby, but they are spread over an area bigger than France. The result has been that talented kids from the country will move to Sydney or Brisbane if they have ideas of being a pro. Or they pull a Steve Merrick, decide they hate cities and stay unknown.

The competitions in Sydney and Brisbane have remained mostly amateur apart from the players contracted to the State Unions for the S15. I'm not familiar at all with the Brisbane setup, but in Sydney 4 or 5 clubs consume probably 95% of the Super Rugby players which I guess makes them semi-pro.

It would be great to have a more significant league below the state union level, but the money (or possibly the risk appetite) isn't there for another professional tier. Taylorman mentions above hearing stories of amateurs being bought into the our S15 to fill in, which is true. The reverse is that we hear stories of NZ unions going broke spending money they dont have on wages to third tier players. I think it's important that we avoid that and if it means the third tier stays amateur then we probably have to accept that for the time being. Certainly until a practical model can be figured out and agreed.

Well that killed the thread.

I have never understood why posters have to have little digs at others on threads where people are having a good laugh.

biltongbek wrote:Equo, no need to get personal.

So, i'm getting 'personal' and yet you allow Woodstock to post:

'Nah dude still be here long after you have gone. Us Welsh have the ability to construct HOUSES with ROOFS and we can WALK. Wikkiforidiots.com will give you a comprehensive guide to using the correct WORDS.'

Priceless that, just priceless.

eirebilly wrote:Well that killed the thread.

I have never understood why posters have to have little digs at others on threads where people are having a good laugh.

Do you mean my post Billy?

no boomeranga, not you mate.

boomeranga wrote:

eirebilly wrote:Well that killed the thread.

I have never understood why posters have to have little digs at others on threads where people are having a good laugh.

Do you mean my post Billy?

No Boom, far from it mate, yours was a quality post

Boomer explained our situation in Australia very well.

A few years back they launched The Australian Rugby Championship which only lasted a year. The quality of the games was sometimes OK (but mostly not!) and the financial losses in the inaugural year was too much to bear and the whole thing folded. It simply couldn't compete with the NRL, AFL... even the A-League at that time.

From memory, the matches were poorly attended and some of the scorelines were very lop-sided. Ironically, the Melbourne Rebels were re-incarnated a few years later in the Super XV (they kept the name) but they were a totally different side from the current one.