Tri Nations Rugby twitter wrap and Irish Magners League highlights

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Return to form revolution in rugby cheating? smug coach tries superb attack miraculous comebacks record setting Ritchie McCaw unstoppable?

Quade Cooper contract negotiations hammering in the press last minute elation last minute despair Building for the World cup? exciting youth

Radical reversal in form paranoia foot in mouth media skills aging team leaky defence odd selections Fourie du Preez critically important

That’s the Twitter summary of the Trinations, you guess which tweet applies to which team. Rearrange the words in the first tweet to suit your view.

Best newcomer Awards:

Wallabies – Curtly Beale take a bow – but not when they pass you the ball

All Blacks – Israel Dagg, Kieran Reid, almost anyone they put on the pitch

Springboks – Francois Hougaard – but did playing with geriatrics make him look good?

Team outlooks

All Blacks – futures so bright they have to wear shades

Wallabies – still building for the future – must be quite a building at this stage

Springboks – future looks All Black, very All Black

Any complaints? The tournament seems to take forever when your team is losing.

Magners League

On Irish telly:

Friday Sep 17
Ulster v Edinburgh, ML, BBC2/RTE2, 20:05
SAT SEP 18
BEN TREVISO v LEINSTER, ML, TG4, 18:05
Munster v Ospreys, ML, RTE2, 20:00

Ulster are unbeaten so far, Edinburgh can’t buy a win so Ulster look to have this in the bag but there’s nothing like a bit of desperation to turn your form around.

Leinster were a bit too Jekyll and Hyde for my liking last week , excellent for 20 minutes – bookending 60 minutes of dross. Surely this will be an extended training run though.

Munster are going up the gears, fairly dodgy looking last week but can only improve as the internationals return. The Ospreys, the glamour boys of Wales are looking for consistency but are unlikely to achieve the consistency they want against Munster at home.

Tri Nations - the one that got away for the Wallabies and Leinster start to get going

“You should have seen it, it was black and this blaaady big ( spreads arms as wide as he can)” For the second time in three weeks the Wallabies got achingly close to hooking a big one then saw it slip away right at the end. The All Blacks don’t know when they’re beaten, and this make shift bunch, resting on their laurels, still had too much gas in the tank for the Wallabies, even away from home. That slick black juggernaut turns wallabies and springboks into roadkill all too easily. There will be those out there bleating about the All Blacks peaking between World Cups, while at the same time praying it’s going to be someone else’s team that does the dirty on the All Blacks. These guys are the real deal, and to paraphrase ex Sharks coach Dick Muir ‘It’s going to take a sniper to stop them’


It was a great match to watch, top quality stuff, if you were going to be picky Giteau’s kicking was the only low point of the match. Aaron Crudden is still quite a way off the pace of international rugby but that didn’t seem to hurt the AB’s too badly did it? The Wallabies kind of ran out of steam in the last quarter, much as the Boks did last week. The rise and rise of the mighty All Blacks continues, first unbeaten team in the current 3N formation, record 10 wins in a row over the Wallabies.

Magner’s League

Munster will a little scratchy in their win over Edinburgh and it took some old heads to steady the ship and guide them home, with O’Gara kicking the winning penalty.

At the RDS, Leinster had a few scratchy moments of their own, winning 32-23 over the Cardiff Blues in a score that flattered them. Ian Madigan had an unexpected run on debut as Jonny Sextoin pulled up injured in the warm up, and acquitted himself pretty well, rounding it off with a beautiful try at the end. Leinster ran in two trys early on and looked like they were going to run away with it, then basked in their glory and let Cardiff right back into it. Joel Schimdt must have been sweating there a bit as Cardiff took the lead, before Leinster woke up and sealed the deal.


The front row of Ross, Strauss and van der Merwe had a great night, and Fitzgerald look lively, there is going to be great competition for places in the back line this season. Isa Nacewa was sublime, putting in rib crunching tackles, covering and kicking well and a threat with ball in hand. I’ll have to check the replay to make sure there was only one of him playing. All the replacements, especially Reddan were good value, but Fogarty is going to have a battle on his hands to nail down the hooker position – does he need contact lenses to help throw straight?

A few kinks to iron out still, but the Leinster motor is beginning to hum again.

Wallabies v. All Blacks – Round 2 or what do the Wallabies have to do to beat the All Blacks?

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/sam_herd/3029254804/

If had the ear of Robbie Deans ( and laying aside the fact I don’t quite have his coaching experience) I’d say to him ‘Robbie, or if I may call you Dingo…’ this is what you need to do to beat the All Blacks:

1. Take them on at their strengths. They like fast ball from the ruck – how about some s-l-o-w ball from the ruck. Drop overmuscled but underbrained Richard Brown, shift Rocky to 8th man, bring on another fetcher – is it Waugh, is it Smith, is it whoever, but two fetchers will slow the ruck down, while the All Black backline kick their heels and practice their swerves.

2. Kick intelligently and practice all week:

• Kick it out and steal the opposition ball from the line out (you might practice getting your own ball while you’re at it)

• Kick a few highly pressurized up-and-unders – I’ve seen Mils get the dropsies and The Rocket man bounce one off his noggin.

• If they know you’re going to run it each time that’s easy to defend so mix it up a little – and they find broken play running as hard to defend as you do.

3. Discipline discipline discipline - no more yellow cards

4. Practice receiving kick offs.

5. Fitness – hit them in the last 20 minutes when they start to tire like they did last week.

6. This is a bit underhand – but you want to win don’t you? Rough them up, be all over them like a rash, in their faces – I saw the Sharks do it to the Blues a few years ago, and in about 5 minutes flat BAM! notoriously short of fuse Troy Flavell was in the bin for trying to land a haymaker. The New Zealanders will see the funny side eventually. Probably.

7. Invade New Zealand. You have a big army, they have a little army. Simple really. They’ll never have the Bledisloe cup again because:

• Your army will take it

• It’ll be one country now, nobody to compete against

That’ll mean you’ll be hosting the World Cup next year, home advantage for a record three cups – sounding better all the time. Come on the All Wallabies! Robbie Deans will get all smug with Graham Henry – who got the better job now huh? HUH?

8. The Wallabies could claim there’s a refereeing conspiracy against them to drum up interest in the World Cup. Nah, that’s way to far fetched, that would just be silly.

There you go Robbie, spurn these pearls of wisdom at your peril.


So while I’m at it, a few sage words for Graham Henry:

1. Do exactly what you did last week

2. This is a golden opportunity with the Tri Nations practically wrapped up to try out a replacement for Achilles Heel (because there’s only one of him) play maker extraordinaire Dan Carter. Give Aaron Cruden a good go.

My prediction: well the All Blacks can’t play that well four Tri Nations matches in a row, but in Christchurch they aren’t going to lose so a 7 point win over the Wallabies.