The Rugby Thread

[Cormack74]

Although, to counter that, I'm fairly sure Williams spilled the ball forward in a tackle before picking up again in the build up to the first Wales try. England's fault though. List far too much territory being bullied under the high ball.

There were three or four very obvious forward passes that Wales got away with.

The one where Adams passed the ball to Williams about 8 or 9 yards from the Welsh line could have been very costly if it had been called.

[Irishnev]

Itoje and Vunipola are significant absentees but I really don't think their absence was the reason England lost today mate. (With all due credit to Wales), I'd put the defeat down to complete and utter tactical ineptness.

England's kicking game was distinctly average and repeatedly gave hard won ball back to the Welsh yet they kept doing it ad nauseam. Conversely they enjoyed significant gain line success with the ball in hand. Tuilagi got the ball about once and made 25 metres, Nowell similar.

Josh Adams aside there isn't a huge amount of pace in the Welsh back line - witness Hadley (Hadleigh Parks) treading water on the Johnny May kick chase. England didn't make nearly enough of that - May and Daly are probably in the quickest 4 or 5 backs playing the tournament but England almost never got the ball to the outside.

Eddie Jones is big on talking about leaders but if the leadership had been stronger today then maybe the decision making would have been a lot less flawed.

The injuries weren’t the only reason but they didn’t help - you lost the tactical battle as you say. The same as you won it vs us.

Pre game over here they showed the tweaks you made to beat the rush defence (2 men tackles and not committing to the rucks) and how effective it was against us and France. The 6 Nations is so unpredictable and as I said Wales were ranked 3 in the World pre tournament with Eng and Irl at home having won 10 games in a row......they were completely ignored.

Fancy they’ll do the grand slam now.

[Buzzo]

The Six nations is so unforgiving, it doesn’t need to go all that badly for the tournament to be lost.

Wales have also probably had the best luck with injuries.

One thing, and this is a sport in general point as well, the media feeds this triumph/disaster narrative. Every defeat is a disaster every victory is the best in history. The 6 Ns is an unforgiving tournament where you have to take your beatings and regroup. Look at England, they looked in control of that game until 60mins when an over reliance of the boot and a bit of ill discipline took the game away from them. Lost without really playing all that badly.

One thing I admire with the current Welsh set up is the unity and how they play to the strengths of the individuals they have within the team. Parkes is the new battering ram (Roberts) and then you have gifted backs in Williams and Davies and a strong runner in North. Their pack is well drilled.

I also think that Gatland gained valuable insight into the Irish and English during his time as Likns coach where he also helped forge the future unity of his Welsh players. He is a sharp coach though, even if he does come across as a monumental smug ******.

They’ve every chance of a Slam.

[Irishnev]

As bad an Ireland performance as I’ve seen in years - our line out malfunctioned and the players we brought in didn’t take the chance.

All in all a MEH day.

[Buzzo]

Seems everyone except the Welsh have things to work on ahead of the World Cup.

That opening game between us and you lot could be a belter. Hope both teams are at full strength.

[Irishnev]

Seems everyone except the Welsh have things to work on ahead of the World Cup.

That opening game between us and you lot could be a belter. Hope both teams are at full strength.

I hope you have the same level of injuries as you have now and we smash you

[Buzzo]

I’m being magnanimous.

What I think privately....

[Red_Polo]

Seems everyone except the Welsh have things to work on ahead of the World Cup.

That opening game between us and you lot could be a belter. Hope both teams are at full strength.

Dunno. We're still a bit try shy.

Plus we could do with Rhys Webb getting a transfer.

[Zapater]

30 cap eligibility rule for SA players scrapped over the weekend. I see several players have been snapped up and will be heading to Europe at the end of the Super Rugby season. Will probably kill franchise rugby here, but no doubt inevitable and probably necessary given economical matters.

What did you guys make of Robert du Preez's spell at Sale? He's considered a pretty dull player in SA, but his consistency and tactical kicking probably makes him a definite Bok candidate for the 10 jersey moving forward.

The other player that seems to be doing quite well who hasn't been in consideration is Cobus Reinach. Always a bit up and down, but great acceleration and heart. Him, Faf and Papier would leave scrum half well covered.

[Cormack74]

Del - wrong thread.

[Irishnev]

Good thread on some of the objections to the proposed World League - this would seriously impact on the 6 nations a couple of months later.

[ame="https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1101027487138701313"]https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1101027487138701313[/ame]

[Buzzo]

I’ll read that later.

I can see the appeal of this... but....

It solves none of the issues. Elite players will ultimately play more matches.

It doesn’t assist Club Rugby at all.

It shuts the door forever in nations such as Georgia, and it slightly devalues the World Cup.

Other than that though

[Irishnev]

I’ll read that later.

I can see the appeal of this... but....

It solves none of the issues. Elite players will ultimately play more matches.

It doesn’t assist Club Rugby at all.

It shuts the door forever in nations such as Georgia, and it slightly devalues the World Cup.

Other than that though

lots of negativity from players for many reasons, it’s all about the money!!

[Zapater]

I despise it. Kills the magic of touring.

[Buzzo]

It is an utterly flawed idea.

A decent article below from Tom English (an Irishman who works for BBC Scotland!).

Couldn't answer your Q's above about the SA guys in the Premiership Zap, I don't really watch the English Prem teams outside of the Champions cup

Financiers instead of flankers - the latest fight at rugby's breakdown

By Tom English

BBC Scotland

Rugby in both Australia and Argentina has significant financial problems
It's sometimes easy to forget that, as a professional sport, rugby is still a child, still in nappies and uncertain on its feet.

It's growing, of course, but it's getting costlier as a consequence. The question that all unions around the world have been asking in recent times is how on earth we can afford to keep going the way we are with so many mouths to feed and only a finite amount of money to feed them with.

Rugby is at a fascinating point in its development. On the pitch, there are myriad issues about the state of the product and the startling casualty rate it produces. Off the field, the conundrum is largely about money and the growing desperation for it in order to keep in line with soaring wage inflation.

'World Rugby plans harmful to player welfare'
World Rugby, the governing body, and Agustin Pichot, its vice-chairman, came with up with a plan for a World League that would generate more money for all involved. A TV company was lined up to pay for the rights. Mark Dodson, the chief executive of Scottish Rugby, said a few weeks ago that talks are just at the "foothills" stage and that so much more detail needed to be known before any theory became reality.

You can imagine Dodson's - but not just Dodson's - surprise at breakfast time on Thursday when news broke, via the New Zealand Herald, that the World League had been as good as finalised and that it was set to start next year. The sound of corn flakes being spat out would have reverberated around the northern hemisphere game.

'Pichot looked like his trousers had caught fire'
Pichot has been doing some fire-fighting ever since. As reported, the League was going to exclude the Pacific Island nations and Georgia for 12 years - and as somebody whose mission is supposed to be about growing the game, Pichot took a ferocious kicking for that. His plan was also going to add more high-intensity games to an already crazily-packed calendar and some of the stellar figures of the sport reacted quickly to slam it to the high heavens.

Johnny Sexton of Ireland, Kieran Read of New Zealand and Owen Farrell of England all dismantled the notion that the body supposedly looking out for player welfare - their oft-stated mantra - could keep a straight face while finalising a vision that piled more Tests on players who are already creaking under a burden of big games.

Pichot went on Twitter to shoot down elements of the published report. Nothing had been agreed, he said. He didn't want to cut the Pacific Islands and Georgia out of the loop. He wanted two tiers of 12 nations in each tier with promotion and relegation offering everybody a fair crack at the top league. No, he wasn't ignoring player welfare. No, no, no.

After a while, Pichot resembled a man whose trousers had just caught fire. He seemed to suggest that he thought his plan will not come to fruition at all. He's probably got that one right at least.

'The problem is always about money'
There's a fascinating battle going on in rugby right now and it's got a whole lot more to do with suits instead of centres and financiers instead of flankers. There's the game on the field and there's the money game off the field and both of them are hard-fought in their own way.

The politics are intriguing. The Southern Hemisphere unions - Australia, Argentina, New Zealand and to a lesser extent South Africa - are struggling financially. Australia and Argentina are especially worrying cases.

A great Puma scrum-half in his day, Pichot's plan involved aggregating TV revenues between the Six Nations, the Rugby Championship, plus supposedly exploitable markets in the two other teams that had been slated for Tier One - Japan and the USA. All the lucre would be in one big pool and every country would play each other once a year with play-offs and a grand final to round it off.

In the north, there wasn't a whole lot of truck for this idea. There were issues like player welfare, and concerns about the World Cup being devalued - Pichot's plan had it that a world champion would be crowned at the end of every season except in a World Cup year - and a possible threat to Lions tours.

The Six Nations is utterly opposed to promotion and relegation and that's another nail in the proposed tournament. The way rugby politics works, these things could, in theory, be overcome. The main problem is about - and always will be about - money.

The way the north see it, the World League is a bad financial deal for them. They'd be bringing more TV money to the table but would only get the same share as the other six. How is that fair or appealing? It would be good news for Australia and Argentina, but northern hemisphere money going south is never going to work. "If you think we're going to fall for this then you have another thing coming," was the gist.

'Rugby is changing before our eyes'
To some, who are against the idea, it is an attempt to save struggling Southern Hemisphere unions with northern hemisphere cash. Also, it's an attempt to maintain World Rugby's commercial relevance in a fast-changing landscape.

World Rugby know that the Six Nations are exploring an idea that would see them pool their own TV revenues for the first time for their championship and autumn internationals. They've even got a name for the concept - Project Light. They're on the lookout for 'partners'. If that deal comes to pass then a World League is dead in the water and the financial problems of Australia and Argentina, in particular, carry on.

The game is altering in front of our eyes. Dodson talks about a changed financial picture in the sport. The driver was the private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, who last year paid more than £200m for a 27% share of Premier Rugby Limited (PRL), the governing body of the top division in England.

Now everybody is looking for the next CVC. Money has never been more needed and more talked about.

"Investors are interested in our game at multiple levels," says Dodson. "The PRL deal was like a new herald for the sport in many ways. What you found was a major finance house that saw latent value in rugby. I've been in this space for two years and it's clear to me that sports financiers around the world have come to this space as well.

"You can be frightened of it or you can embrace it. You can say, 'My goodness, £200m going into the English Premiership is going to cause us problems' or you can ask, 'If they can do it down there then what is the value of our Pro14?' It's very interesting. I said this day would come and it's here.

"These equity firms see untapped value in rugby. The game is being seen in a different way than before. A growing game needs more cash as a buffer against annual inflation. The PRL did a deal - good luck to them - and I'm hoping that we [Pro14] are next. We're at the foothills, but watch this space."

Dodson wouldn't be drawn on the mooted World League, but others say that unless the finances get recalibrated then it's not going to happen. Even Pichot didn't seem at all optimistic on social media.

Rather than being a tournament on the way in, it looks like a tournament on the brink. The money question will continue, though. The search for more cash to support an increasingly expensive sport will continue, phase after phase after phase.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/47408903