Gallagher Premiership opening fixtures announced

Clearly, we are rebuilding from the floor up. But the one place that the Boks are not "miles ahead" is on the paddock. A brand new, relatively untested coaching team, with a new team still in the making, came close in Sth Africa.

Change takes time. Whatever this magic instant innovation potion is you allude to, it doesn't exist. Just ask Rassie. It's taken the Boks years to develop. I've no doubt Razor will get us there.

Ted & Shag were both about 85% I think, Foster at 78% & Razor at 71%. The implication was, of course, that Razor hadn't done as well as the others.

A closer look though shows Foster's first 14 tests were v AUS (7) ARG (4) FIJ (2) & TON (1). There was no explanation about this, despite the obvious discrepancy rendering the "statistics" completely useless. Not good enough.

But, some of the games we were losing were from schoolboy errors, or downright confusion. Either the players were really dumb (they weren’t) or they were poorly coached. Given the repetitive nature of errors, brain fades, poor decision making, & loose structures, this all lands with the coaching group.

With only six playoff spots now in SR, & Aussie franchises now consolidated to four, 2025 looks like a tight one. I'm picking we'll have to tough it out under Penney & hope for the best.

The amount of inconsistency with the head contact law coming into the game. No red yesterday and no yellow today, but then another player gets a suspension for a side on headonhead (as apposed to these two sweet shoulders) contact last week. Happy if there is a referee change to having a bit more commensense.

And I expected ITA to play exactly how they did. Make the game messy, high physicality, stop-start, & ride the crowd. I didn't see any jaded players, you just need to see how strong our D was. A temperature of zero degrees & a slippery ball certainly didn't help.

Also, AUS has only beaten ENG of note. They need to show up v SCO & IRE to get a proper gauge. Beating WAL three times doesn't count. Also, winning one test from six in TRC is useless. So TRC2025 will be the real litmus test for AUS. That said, I'm rooting for our SH brothers for the next two tests.

Roigard very good, lots of jobs being done well. Only real opinion is that the game changed when BB stopped kicking and when he ran, after about the 30min mark, he started passing at the line instead of two steps before it. This gave the runners (this team doesn't really have other playmakers outside him) just that tiny bit more space and I think they must have made 3 late breaks solely because (compared to all the previous good ball) Barrett drew a defender or two.

So wondering about the send given they must only add another try or two when you'd normally expect them to push out further?