Posts by Tom Semmens
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Oh and I forgot to add - and in the meantime, they'd be swinging from the rafters over in Tauranga and Roturua everytime the Super Steamers (plus 4-5 drafted Blues players) ran out to play.
The bottom line for is if someone wants it more, and earns it, they should get it.
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tensure that the S14 franchises spread the games around more equitably.
That hasn't worked, you get a bit of tokenism for a year or two then splutters out again as "to hard". And wouldn't address the need of risk of failure to motivate and renew.
Let's imagine an NZRFU "worst case" scenario of the Auckland team getting relegated and the Blues losing their Super Franchise to, say, BOP.
First of all, it would be a real shake up for the jaded, moaning and saturated fan base in Auckland to lose top rugby for a year.
Secondly, it would be a disaster for Auckland rugby and they would be forced to really have to sort out their rugby - which would be fantastic for NZ Ruugby in the long run.
Thirdly, the NZRFU would just allocate more tests to Auckland to keep a public that would for once be hungry for rugby happy.
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I can't see this one working for a number of reasons. Financial ones mainly. And player contracts would be all over the place. It'd be far too messy.
A number of reasons? I fear you probably reflect NZRFU thinking. Like Napoleon's opponents, they see everything at once. They should try beeing more like Napoleon, and see the main thing only.
Off the field reasons are no reasons at all.
Part of the growing "peasants revolt" going on NZ rugby is a realisation that if you don't live in one of the Super 14 base areas, the current structure of the game has completely shut you out. Why should the people of Tauranga or New Plymouth give a toss about Super rugby and the All Blacks? The very heart and mainspring of NZ rugby is a ferocious provincialism.
Fans have decided that the professional game has become a cosy self-serving cartel dripping with complacency and entitlement. An ossified professional layer have booked themselves onto the gravy train express and they won't let anyone else have a ticket.
And that goes against a powerful New Zealand sense of fairness and giving someone a fair suck of the sav if they have earned it.
The bracing winds of consequence and accountabilty need to blow through our professional layer, and to hell with whether or not they've already let the stationary contract out and it is just to hard to change the letterheads.
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Much as I enjoyed the Sydney test, the two best games on the weekend for were Manawatu vs. Otago and BOP vs. Waikato. Whilst tests are absorbing matters of inches, the rugby was more entertaining in the two ANZC games. A full house watching a team of desperate locals produce a gutsy result and/or entertaining rugby on a sunny late winters afternoon is the real deal.
Some of the results are fantastic. All Blacks, Super 14 and chosen, red-carpetted first XV/Academy/ANZC players are getting taught all sorts of rugby lessons in desperation, committment and old fashioned work ethics. The look of incredulous entitlement on the Wellington and Otago player's faces were priceless to behold when they lost, and had echoes of the looks on the All Black's faces after they lost in Cardiff. Mini-Cardiff's are happening up and down New Zealand every weekend, and bloody good job to. Better for top players to be reminded on a cold night in New Plymouth they still put their shorts on one leg at a time and have to earn every win than rediscover than truism in a RWC quarter final.
To me, the ANZC is better rugby than the Super 14 and All Blacks because the competition is more even, it is rooted in real places with real fans, teams have distinct styles and the fans can understand and identify with the game - forwards are forwards, backs are backs. The N.Z. Super 14 teams all play the same style. According to professional layer, we don't have any first fives. The ANZC is making a mockery of that claim.
I heard on the radio that ANZC cup audiences are up 88% on last season. Conversely, I believe the last Super 14 was down by up to 25%. I am not sure if they were talking about crowds or TV or both, but either way the NZRFU is being sent a huge message - and a huge warning - by the New Zealand rugby public.
The success of the ANZC is challenging some of the basic assumptions of the way NZRFU administer game. The public is turning its back on a professional game that is seen as out of touch, over-paid and under-performing and no longer reflecting "real" N.Z. rugby values.
Finally, provincial success is cyclical. Teams are not forever strong or weak, and we need to find a mechanism that will translates the reality that four of the five Super 14 franchises are extremely weak right now in their ANZC base. How about at the end of this season, the bottom four teams ANZC should be relegated. No formulas, if Auckland, Waikato, Nothland and Counties-Manakau are the last four then drop them.
And if the top finishing non-super union finishes ahead in the ANZC of the worst performing Super 14 franchise base, then the Super 14 team should automatically lose its franchise to the better performing ANZC cup team. In other words, if say BOP comes second in the ANZC cup, it will replace Otago in next years Super 14.
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The way I see it, the smacking referendum isn't so much about child discipline, as it is about the re-emerging Kleinkulturkampf in NZ.
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*sigh*
Yes, you guys are all right on this issue - 100% in fact!
And you all wonder how it came to pass we got a government built on resentment of being patronised.
Besides I am sure Brian Edwards doesn't need me to argue his corner for him.
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I just think it's fucking stupid as hell.
Use of four letter words would seem indicate otherwise?
Here is the problem I have. The argument seems to not that disagree with his point of view but that you seem to me to be demanding he not hold it all. That is what fucks ME off.
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Maybe some people need to learn how to cope with another point of view.
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I can see exactly where Brian Edward's is coming from. His position is a personal one based on his life experience and as such it is one he has a perfect right to hold.
Whether or not it is useful to extrapolate from his particular to the wider general debate on gay adoption is another question entirely.
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The amount of righteous rugby anger out there in non-Super land is scary to behold.