'Shock' as Ludlow becomes only 5th debut player to captain England

Having watched some URC I’d come to though all teams were developing some universal style amongst each other. Would you think that had been continuing or were/had they staying fairly unique/individual. Would love to know how that aspect had affected Irelands abilities in the past.

I feel along the same lines, but you see a lot of articles that point to Irelands success as being solely down to have just the one over performing team.

I really hoped that it would be a springboard to bigger pentration of rugby in all of Ireland but you reckon it could be the hindrance in immediate affect of some decline in the other provinces?

Would you know if there is any real data, like player numbers, backing up this theory? Are the relative level in quality of the players much worse now, or are Leinsters simply much better than you’ve ever produced before? How would/should the rest catch up if so?

This could be the cause of what’s happening now, were you are seeing the symptoms of perhaps narrowing your focus too much to academies etc. Perhaps they need to invest at a much much younger age, and rely less on the highschool systems?

What do you think you’d put down their success then to? And how might it relate to current day?

Things change. I take it when you say ‘we’ the lad was from Ulster? It has certainly appeared to me to be a typical case of paint by numbers, and so is there really anything ‘wrong’? It certainly doesn’t come across in the article or from your post that there is.

What has gone wrong? Were can their be improvement?

Seems like a pathetic cry for what Leinster has. Be original man, you think Ulsters dominance was brought by this sort of attitude?

That test against Aussie were he single handily took them apart and was millimeters away from setting up 3 other tries was the type of performance saw him recognized as unmatched last year.

Look I wouldn’t be gullied by anything that Robinson says.

While speaking on his desire to bring his former partner in crime home, Robertson also insisted McKenzie and Barrett’s respective roles in the All Blacks in the coming years are “critical”.

I’ve just about had it upto here with Razors BS. Look Razor, we don’t want a liar as out national teams coach, get your proverbial sorted and do your job, head down ass up.

Much more crap like this and I’m going to be calling for heads due to incompetence. It does you a disservice, learn how to be honest!

Get serious. The All Blacks have never had all their best players and you know it.

Wonder if they’ll be trying to recruite former test stars that are ineligible. Imagine how cool it would be having Peato Mauvaka as their hooker. Suspect Lions want it to be a bunch of easy beats however, so more likely to be the profile (and ability) of players like Kurtley Beale. Which would be cool in itself if there are enough of them.

Hope the team has prospects of playing more in future.

When A Savea jumps it is also often at two. Adding an option that the opposition have to factor into their lineout defense plans. The more options a lineout has the better.

Yes, Kirifi is good. Yes, he offers things that Blackadder or Jacobsen don’t offer (they are not real sevens; six and a half at best). But what does he offer that A Savea or Peter Lakai don’t offer? A Savea and Peter Lakai can cover all three loose roles and can be used as ‘sometimes’ jumpers.

Kirifi is probably worth a shot, just to see if he ‘grows another leg’ when he get a Black jersey. Some do. But he’s an outside chance to be the starting 7 on a regular basis. Peter Lakai would be the best 7 to invest in, he just 22 Kirifi is 28.

Agree, for RWC 2027 Sititi might be the best option for 7. He could be like Michael Jones. Sititi is a good ‘secondary’ option in the lineout too.

The format is arguably worse now. I can see the Canes slumping to a point were the return of key components, like their starting midfield, is now going to happen too late for them due to the reduced playoff spots. So we don’t get the perfect jeopardy like what we got with the Crusaders last year, were deservedly (despite showing they easily had a top 4 team when fit) they missed out because they were even more pathetic than that early team deserved. A couple more bonus points with some better leadership, on and off field, would have given the Crusaders a deserving. As reported last year have we not seen a more perfect finals run in.

Objectively easier finals qualification is better suited to shorter competitions, and we know SR is the “sprint” version amongst it’s rugby equivalents. The Top 14 is probably the worst competition in this respect, with it’s length with a double round robin should have a football styled champion. The Premiership, with it’s smaller base but also double round robin, was pretty much perfectly suited to it’s smaller 4 team playoff. Super Rugby, with it’s much shorter season (smaller amount of games, and most importantly over a much shorter period, would be able suited to a 6 team play off series if it had a comparative round robin. It doesn’t. Playing a bunch of random extra games, within your own division, requires you to expand the qualification reach. Super Rugby was another perfectly balanced competition.

If you want to look subjectively, sure, there are a lot of cool facets of tighter qualification, they just aren’t sensible applicable to SR so you have to be a realist.

I’m pretty sure you yourself have authored articles showing you need to be in the top four come finals time to win Super Rugby.

Competition parity this year just seems to be part luck, but we’ll take it.

The closer parity is simply more about circumstance, I agree. The Lions tour has just as much to do with the consistency and early standards in Australian players performances, and random factors balancing the NZ sides. The predictable improvement of the “Pacific Powers” another key factor, but with the case of extra support like NZR help raise their profile, as in the “Ardie” factor, possibly able to happen a year sooner than it has.

Still, as I have highlighted on previous articles, I wouldn’t be surprised if these results were nearly as predictable as they were last year, and that it was just the fixture ‘creation’ by new management that has artificially created a bit more hype and unrealistic perception on the competitions ‘parity’, in these early stages.

Super Rugby Pacific has done the right thing and got rid of most TMO interventions that have plagued the game over the last few years and impacted one World Cup final.

I wouldn’t have minded if they just put their own spin on WR’s structure. While you don’t go on to describe what the two situations are that remain, one that I think could still have been of value keeping is for the ability for the TMO to rule live.

The fact that several of the WC’s TMO officials were overly zealous in their ability to over rule the onfield decision does not mean there wouldn’t have been value in a good southern hemisphere run contingent from simply adding value and support to the game ref. Take the case last weekend as the perfect example. While I don’t believe it would have been of any real benefit for the Highlanders to have had advantage at the death (the same sequence would have still played out), looking in isolation one can clearly tell that was a live situation where the ref said he was obstructed from making a call, and if the current rules would have allowed, the TMO, like us on TV, could easily have told him to play advantage for the infringement. In another situation that type of officiating could have made all the difference to the quality and accuracy of the outcome. Views of the comp would be a lot different if it was clearly as case that the Highlanders were robbed of a deserved victory.

All told, the game is obviously much better off for what changes have been made with officiating, though this is not really isolated to SR. SR is just the only comp to have start with these.

If you want back in, put your hands up for some real competition, don’t ask for handouts. No conference systems.

We are currently in a conference system Ben, I’m afraid you’re beating the wrong drum there and you own subjective (and flawed) opinions are coming through quite clearly. As spitballed on the article a few days ago, it’s hard to see a true league table where it is either a full round robin or double round robin happen, there is still going to be some amount of divisional derby matchs going on to fill out the season.

Conferences are also the only way forward, so get on board. I would love for SARU to be able to add a couple of regional sides in Super Rugby, using the countries burgeoning playerbase. It might be far easier, and more advantageous, for SA to add to SR than say try to enlarge the URC, or go it on their own with a professional scene. They could leave their clubs to themselves and take control of running a highveld team out of Cheetahs country, and a lowveld team wherever they would like a new attempt at a ‘Kings’ team. I can’t see the clubs ever rejoining SR.

Not surprised the article is well off the mark Ben.

One thing they could do to further improve the ‘jeopardy’ though is to have a separate world club table where each seasons finalists are awarding ranking points going towards selecting who takes part in the biennial (right?) world champs the Champions Cup is hosting in the future. I’d normally expect the government to simply send whoever the most recent finalists are but I reckon creating a way to have those instead be judged by contribution since the last edition (however frequent this idea might turn out) could be a winner this new management will work out and capitalize on. It would also help add to that jeopardy if say ranking points were only allocated to the top 6 of an 8 team finals format.