Smart Signings: Fonua-Blake is leaving the Warriors – but it might open a path for them to get even better

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With the Finals over and the November 1 contract deadline passed, we can officially declare the NRL’s silly season open. Into the morass of gossip and conjecture, we will bring sanity, with the relaunch of Smart Signings, our dissection of where clubs are weak, what they need to improve and where they might find it. […]

How about no, Joe: Any way you look at it, this all talk, no action England team not ‘man for man’ better than Aussies

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It’s the kind of thing players say when they’re down to the last motivational trick in the kitbag and Joe Root was clearly clutching at straws by claiming England were a better team than Australia.  With the Stuart Broad as chief protagonist era officially over, Root stepped up to try to put the Aussies off […]

A nightmare to bowl to, a nightmare to face: Are India like the 2003 Aussies?

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Remember back to the 2003 World Cup when opponents facing Australia had to see off Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie in the opening spell and if they were still standing, they then had to face the thunderbolts of Brett Lee and the accuracy of Andy Bichel… and if that wasn’t enough they had to endure […]

Why World Rugby is calling the fans’ bluff with its bunker mentality

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One thing’s for sure after the Rugby World Cup in France: many fans aren’t going to see their sport in the same light again, thanks to the bunker. No, not the bunker mentality, of the England kind, to eke out wins, but the TMO’s high-tech man cave. Like it or not, TMOs will come into […]

The Wallabies need change now, and it will take a lot more than an independent review to initiate it

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So the latest Rugby World Cup is over and the recriminations are well underway, the Wallabies coach has fallen on his sword, a replacement will be selected in due course and the inevitable ‘independent’ review will soon start. Based upon history, the wider community stakeholders, (including us the fans) are unlikely to see the resulting […]