Posts by Jimmy Southgate
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Im really excited about the new structure for the NPC/Air NZ Cup. Especially having a home & away competition for Division 1, its good. Hopefully they've also thought of a way to assist teams that are promoted & relegated in order to avoid too much bouncing up & down.
Based on the criteria for Division 1 its getting a little easier to predict who will be dropped down - i'm picking Manawatu, Northland, BoP and Tasman.
Also, what the devil - Hawke's Bay want their own Super rugby team!
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I think the reason for the lack of rugby is attributable to the window between Super 1x Rugby and the Air NZ Cup set aside for Club rugby.
Which if you ask me is pretty dumb. I've always wondered why it doens't go -
Club Rugby Season starts
Halfway through that Air NZ Cup Starts
At end of that Super Rugby Starts
Then Internationals. -
Can't add much to what Naly D has already said about Masaga, if he proves himself in the Junior ABs he might get a chance, but it would seem he doesn't really have the full skillset yet.
As for Bryn Evans - the word from the coaches is that of all the locks outside of Thorn, Williams, Boric & Ross is that he does the core things better than the likes of Thrush et al. So he's good at taking kickoffs, good at the lineout and does the tight-stuff well. They think they'll be able to add the sizzle that players like Thrush and all already have.
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The Chiefs deserved to win alright, the Hurricanes had the wrong strategy for the game & for their team. Ripia's kicking game was just not up to it, and it took away from the opportunity to have Nonu & Vito smash into Bruce & Sweeney all night. Think this ought to be Cooper's last year now, time to steal back from Otago the mighty Hawke's Bay's coach. Oh, and the Hurricanes ought to try to sign a first five, like, a good one.
As for the Lauaki / Messam thing - I think its partly that Lauaki is an average 6, but also because after Latimer the Chiefs loosies are a bit unproven. Im guessing for the ABs it'll be Richie & Rodney certainties, then Thomson. Other than those 3 I just don't know. Would be awesome to have both Waldrom's in to backup those three.
As for the no upsets when its the finals; I respectfully disagree. The Bulls were better than all other teams by quite a way; and the Chiefs have to travel to the Republic, and have lost a key player. They're definately massive underdogs in my books, i'll be super surprised & terribly excited if they get up & make it.
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I hate the new structure - and I can't see how its a good deal for New Zealand in the slightest. I really don't know how much longer we can continue being a great international rugby country when we only have 5 teams playing top level rugby.
My preference would have been for the Air NZ Cup, Curry Cup & whatever domestic competition Australia can invent to be played all at the same time, with Champions League type competitions running at the same time.
It works in the Northern Hemisphere, and is great for football, so why do we have to reinvent a competition structure?
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And no sponsor is going to front for a team that has a chance to disappear down to the 2nd division and therefore off TV.
Well, likely no international sponsor - but local ones might stick around. For years Hawke's Bay were sponsored by a local company.
Your concern is valid though, so perhaps it should be possible for some of those lower ranked teams to be owned by individuals / corporations rather than local unions? That may be the only way that promotion / relegation really works in the football world - rich benefactor buys club to stroke their own ego.
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Teams such as B.O.P. Hawkes Bay and Northland are not composed of solely professional players.
Thats very true, many of the Hawke's Bay team were only semi-professional. Michael Johnson was a builder, and only stopped when he got a call up to the Hurricanes last year. Now that he didn't get picked up this year, he's probably back building.
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I think our administrators would probably do well to have a look at competitions such as the Scottish Football Leagues, or even the English Football Leagues (sans Premier). This would let them see how promotion/relegation can work where there are vast differences in funding between teams at the different levels.
I suspect that either the some teams would be able to maintain a certain level of decent players and bounce up and down repeatedly, some would go up & immediately spend to heavily and if they were relegated again would be in serious trouble, and others would slowly build after promotion and manage to hold onto their spot.
In this sort of situation you would hope that some kind of salary cap would help thwart the second possibility - as the last thing you would want was a union that got itself in the crapper financially and couldn't be rescued.
Does anyone know what the revenue split (from tv and live crowds) is in the UK when you compare the domestic competition to the European comp? I think a structure such as that would be the ideal in terms of a great competition.
So it could be that you have domestic multi-league competitions in each of the 3 SANZAR countries perhaps played home & away starting in April and running to the end of year tours, with a Champions League type competition running concurrently and a window in June for Internationals. If Australia can't maintain their own domestic competition perhaps their 'conference' or whatever you want to call it could be the one that included the Pacific Island & Japanese teams?
I think realistically at some stage a decision is going to have to be made that its just too hard fitting in South Africa into a fully fledged competition, but we do want them in some kind of competition & we don't want them going to Europe.
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To be honest I agree with the G9 folks; but then i've long been more excited with the NPC than Super 14. I think it might have coincided with the launch of the new era of the NPC & the inclusion of Hawke's Bay.
I liked the proposal that came up a while ago (probably from the same unions) that would have had a 20 teams Trans-Tasman / Pacific competition. I think it was supposed to have had 10 NZ teams, 5 or so from Australia and then potential some Pacific Island or even Japanese involvement.
So long as Hawke's Bay got in it would get me pretty excited - I suppose I nominally support the Hurricanes, but I just don't have the same attachment to them.
I could natter about it for ages, but I reckon any halfway decent competition has to allow for some kind of regional identification, shouldn't have bonus points, should just have a winner without playoffs (though I like Minor & Major premiers like the NRL), and should be home & away.
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The draw is probably my favourite part of test cricket, though I know most people find it the worst aspect of all forms of the game.
This particular draw wasn't very exciting, but some of the greatest and most tense test match moments come when a tailender has to bat for an hour until the end of play to save a game.
Plus, if it weren't for the ability to play for a draw, in many tests there'd be no point in even playing on the final day.