First, I’m going to change the name of the column a bit, if for no other reason than it’ll force me to get it done consistently on Tuesday. That said, on to more important things…
Hey, didn’t you used to be Top 14 Rugby on US TV?
Just when you thought you might never get to hear that guy who screams before every Toulon home match again, The Rugby Channel re-introduced Top 14 rugby to the US last weekend.
TRC offered us two matches, and while neither of them was the Clermont-Montpellier barnburner (more on that later), we’ll surely take what we can get, especially on a weekend with no Pro 14, Premiership, and only one International (more on that too).
There are no further Top 14 matches on the TRC fixture list at the moment, hopefully that changes.
Oh (No) Canada!
Call me crazy, but I sat down to watch Canada’s weekend match against Uruguay, which served as both The Americas Championship opener and the first leg of a World Cup qualifier, thinking that Canada would take care of business at home in Vancouver (particularly after Uruguay’s close warmup match against the Houston MLR side). Uruguay had very different ideas.
Early on, things went according to plan for Canada. They jumped out to an early 10-point lead, seemingly controlling the action in all aspects. However, by halftime, Uruguay had trimmed the lead to 21-17, and then in the second half the South Americans took full control. But for several missed kicks by Uruguay, what was ultimately a 38-29 final could have been much more lopsided.
The two teams meet again this Saturday in Montevideo, with Canada needing to win the match by at least 10 to overtake Uruguay and qualify for the World Cup. The loser of this two-match qualifier would have one last chance to qualify for the World Cup via the repechage playoff.
This Week in #booBulls
Super Rugby is rapidly approaching (woohoo!). In the most recent of his many shrewd (stupid) moves, Blue Bulls coach John Mitchell unveiled his squad, and in so doing omitted Springbok scrumhalf Rudy Paige. This is a great (stupid) move, as getting rid of a solid, internationally-experienced scrumhalf, purportedly for age reasons (the guy is 28, not 35, dummy Mitchell), would undoubtedly cure all that has ailed the Bulls. The Lions are undoubtedly quaking with fear of being overtaken by the Bulls now that Paige has left.
May they lose every match.
That Breeze You Feel is Every New Zealander Leaving the Islands for Europe All at Once
One-test All Black midfielder Charlie Ngatai has announced that he is likely leaving for France, joining a series of fringe All Blacks that have announced departures in recent times.
Highlander and 16-test All Black Lima Sopoaga is leaving for Wasps at the end of the coming season. Loose forward Brad Shields is also making a similar journey. Last fall, Malakai Fekitoa and Aaron Cruden left. The year previous, Charles Piutau left and has dominated in Europe since.
While the All Blacks don’t seem to be in any immediate danger of losing their superstars and stalwarts, the departures of these players dramatically affects what has seemed like unending depth from which the All Blacks could select. Maybe more pointedly, it is diminishing the quality of their Super Rugby sides.
For the All Blacks, the biggest issue may be the now-murky status of the line of succession at flyhalf after Beauden Barrett. Richie Mo’unga would seem to be a candidate to be the backup 10, and the coaches seem to continue to believe that Damian McKenzie can be an international flyhalf, but neither can immediately be considered anywhere near as reliable as Sopoaga (and even Sopoaga had his struggles in tests).
New Zealand’s union would be well-served to find a way immediately to stem the tide of players leaving. Not only is the stability of the All Blacks being threatened, but these leaving players are stars of their Super Rugby sides. Figure it out.
The Four Corners Offense Meets Rugby
Montpellier scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar has been met with a fair bit of criticism this week after his club’s narrow victory over Clermont. See, what Ruan did was follow the rules, and everyone is upset.
Without getting too far into the weeds with the details, suffice it to say that Nemani Nadolo touched down a try that gave Monty a narrow lead over Clermont with two minutes remaining. After a TMO referral confirmed the try, Pienaar waited as long as the rules would allow (90 seconds in Top 14) before taking the conversion. This left Clermont with just 30 seconds to look for a score after the restart. It also left seemingly half the world mad at Pienaar for taking up all the time he did.
So, basically people are upset that he took 90 seconds, the time allotted to kick. What exactly is he supposed to do? If he’d kicked after 30 seconds, and then Clermont had scored with 30 seconds left, Pienaar would be getting lambasted for being so dumb as to kick before he was required to. Now people are mad because he did the wise thing? I’m no fan of the saying “don’t hate the player, hate the game,” but your problem here people is with the rule. Pienaar did what he was supposed to, leave Ruan alone.
On the other hand, the shot clock on conversions should be 30 seconds, max.
The Rugby Falcon Blog 