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Jacob Umaga: 'It's not easy to digest'

Jacob Umaga of Benetton during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Benetton at the RDS Arena in Dublin. (Photo By Ben McShane/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Jacob Umaga has bemoaned Benetton’s loss to Glasgow Warriors URC, blaming his side’s ability to play the inclement conditions in Monigo in Italy.

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Benetton fell to a 19-9 loss to the Scottish side and now have two weeks of rest before their next league fixture. Benetton now sit in 8th in the URC standings, having occuppied second just a few weeks ago.

Umaga – a former England Test prospect – was crestfallen after the home loss, and insisted the Scots played better in the rain.

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“It’s not easy to digest, they played the start in the rain better. We made too many mistakes. Congratulations to them. Let’s learn our lesson and in the future we won’t have to let the weather affect us.”

“It wasn’t easy to manage the game on the foot, we could have put even more pressure. They did it with kicks from the ruck and on the corners. We could have caused them headaches, but we couldn’t bring inertia to our side. Even though we kicked well from the box; However, we will have to improve these aspects.”

“After two defeats we have not become less strong than before; It’s not the end of the world. It’s true that our position in the standings has changed, but we’re still a very good team and a great group. Now we will study in detail where we need to make adjustments and with the Scarlets we are confident of a better performance.”

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YeowNotEven 31 minutes ago
The All Blacks don't need overseas-based players

As it is now, players coming through are competing for franchise spots with ABs.

So they have to work their pants off.

They are mentored by All Blacks, they see how to prepare and work and what it means and blah blah blah.

To get a SR start you have to be of a certain quality.

With the top talent overseas, players coming in don’t need to work as hard so they don’t get as good.

That’s Australias problem; not enough competition for spots driving the quality up. The incumbents at the reds or brumbies aren’t on edge because no one is coming for their jersey.

Without All Blacks to lead the off field stuff, our players will not get as good.

South Africa is an example of that. As more and more springboks went overseas, the Super rugby sides got worse and worse to the point where they were hardly competitive.

The lions got a free pass to the finals with the conference system,

but largely the bulls and stormers and sharks were just nothing like they were and not a serious challenge to any New Zealand side most of the time.

We got scrum practice, but interest in those games plummeted. I’m not paying $30 to go watch the bulls get wasted by a Blues B team.

If NZ was to let players go offshore and still get picked, the crowds would disappear even more for SR, the interest would dissipate, and people would go watch league or basketball or whatever and get their kids into those sports too.

New Zealand rugby just cannot function without a strong domestic comp.

The conveyer belt stops when kids don’t want to go to rugby games because their stars aren’t playing and therefore aren’t inspired to play the game themselves.

We won’t keep everyone, no matter what we do. But we can keep as many as possible.

We don’t have tens of millions of people, or billionaire owned teams, or another ready made competition to put our teams into.

We have the black jersey. And it’s what keeps rugby going.

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