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Kurtley Beale bucks exodus trend to re-sign with Waratahs

Kurtley Beale. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)

Wallabies star Kurtley Beale has his eye on a fourth World Cup after signing on with the NSW Waratahs for another Super Rugby season.

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The 30-year-old resisted the lure of lucrative overseas offers to re-sign with the Waratahs and is in sight of becoming their most capped player.

He will provide some stability and much-needed experience for NSW, who are yet to appoint a new coach, and for the Wallabies, with many stars opting to leave after this year’s World Cup in Japan.

That includes his Waratahs teammates Bernard Foley and Sekope Kepu as well as Test co-horts Will Genia, David Pocock and Samu Kerevi, who are all heading to play overseas after the tournament.

With 83 test caps under his belt Beale felt he still had another four more years of rugby in him, putting him in contention for the 2023 World Cup in France.

But he wants to win more silverware before then.

Beale said winning just one title (2014) as well as two Rugby Championships (2011 and 2015) from a professional career that began in 2007, was the prime motivation to continue playing Super Rugby.

“Obviously, World Cup years bring about change and we’re in an exciting period here at the Waratahs with some exciting young players and a new coach to be appointed,” Beale said.

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“To be able to play a part in that journey is exciting, and I’m looking forward to seeing what we can achieve in 2020.”

Beale has made 156 Super Rugby appearances, with 142 of them at NSW – just nine games shy of retired prop Benn Robinson’s record.

He made his Super Rugby debut in 2007 before spending two seasons with the Melbourne Rebels and a stint in the UK before returning to the Waratahs.

“I’ve spent the vast majority of my career here in NSW representing the Waratahs, it’s been an honour and something I’ll always be thankful for,” Beale said.

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“To represent your home state in a competition like Super Rugby, having made wonderful memories and friends is really special; I’m looking forward to building on that in 2020.”

AAP

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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