The Silver Fern

mariner4life

that's fake news from Skull, no way he's not picking a spinner.

MN5

@mariner4life said in Ashes 2025/6:

@MN5 said in Ashes 2025/6:

Good effort to get six poms in there despite losing 4-1

on first glance it looks fucking stupid, but...

Head far and away the best bat, and best opener.
Crawley was actually the 2nd best opener.
The best 3 was actually Bethel, as Loosbuschange and especially Pope were average.
Root was the best 4
Brook the best 5.
Carey in to 6
Of the all rounders both Stokes and Green were average with the bat, but Stokes was good with the ball.
Starc walks in
The other 3 best bowlers in terms of output and actual game impact would be Boland, Neser and Tongue. Archer was actually pretty average, and i saw another team that included Carse who took a few wickets but bought most of them.

So you could very easily make a case that, based on performance in their spot alone, that the team should be 6-5 in favour of English players. Which is insane given a 4-1 result. It just shows how much the Aussies leaned on Head runs, Carey runs and keeping, and Starc wickets, ably backed up by spells from Boland and Neser.
Because they carried Weatherald, Labuschagne, Khawaja, and Green.

Skull is having none of this nonsense……

But seriously, you make a good point. Root and Stokes get in ( on bowling, not batting ), Brook deserves a shout and even Crawley despite a pair first test had his moments. Archer, Tongue and Carse all had fine spells too.

mariner4life

In fact, you look at that post, realise half the Australian batting line up struggled, and add in:
Hazlewwod didn't play a game
Cummins played 1, not fully fit.
Lyon was an absolute non-entity.
Smith missed a test and was not the dominant force
Root scored two hundreds in Australia.

These are all things that, in early October, should have signified a massive England win (especially given the "best English team" chat) and yet they series was over in a matter of days. This is the type of result that should result in a rethink and a rebuild.

mariner4life

@MN5 said in Ashes 2025/6:

Good effort to get six poms in there despite losing 4-1

on first glance it looks fucking stupid, but...

Head far and away the best bat, and best opener.
Crawley was actually the 2nd best opener.
The best 3 was actually Bethel, as Loosbuschange and especially Pope were average.
Root was the best 4
Brook the best 5.
Carey in to 6
Of the all rounders both Stokes and Green were average with the bat, but Stokes was good with the ball.
Starc walks in
The other 3 best bowlers in terms of output and actual game impact would be Boland, Neser and Tongue. Archer was actually pretty average, and i saw another team that included Carse who took a few wickets but bought most of them.

So you could very easily make a case that, based on performance in their spot alone, that the team should be 6-5 in favour of English players. Which is insane given a 4-1 result. It just shows how much the Aussies leaned on Head runs, Carey runs and keeping, and Starc wickets, ably backed up by spells from Boland and Neser.
Because they carried Weatherald, Labuschagne, Khawaja, and Green.

mariner4life

Brutal week. Dolphins fire McDaniel

Reckon it was Miami ringing Harbaugh's agent?

gt12

@Dan54

Glad you are coming around, they are different with different needs and serve different purposes.

So let’s get them out of using too much cash trying to win a semi-pro competition so they have to spend more of their money on their core role - growing the game at the grass roots.

Bovidae

Useful info:

Confirmed Super Rugby Pacific preseason fixtures

Friday 23 January
Western Force vs Queensland Reds – Scotch College, Perth

Friday 30 January
Western Force vs ACT Brumbies – Scotch College, Perth
Crusaders vs Highlanders – Fraser Park, Timaru
Blues vs Hurricanes – Sacred Heart College, Auckland
Chiefs vs Fijian Drua – Sir Gordon Tietjens field, Blake Park, Tauranga

Saturday 31 January
Queensland Reds vs NSW Waratahs – Ballymore Stadium, Brisbane

Thursday 5 February
ACT Brumbies vs NSW Waratahs – Marist College, Canberra

Friday, 6 February
Highlanders vs Moana Pasifika – Queenstown Events Centre
Blues vs Crusaders – Takapuna Rugby Club, Onewa Domain, Auckland

Saturday, 7 February
Hurricanes vs Chiefs – Jerry Collins Stadium, Porirua, Wellington

African Monkey

@Kiwiwomble said in Super Rugby 2026:

@African-Monkey said in Super Rugby 2026:

@sparky said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

@Duluth said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

I think there should be more teams and the larger ones should be broken up. There should be more opportunities for players to play close to their home.. that makes for a more tribal competition with more interest.

I find this quite fascinating. Have recently been in the UK, and the sheer density of population/football teams in London is incredible, and it goes back to your first point.

What's really impressive in England at the moment is some sides in the National League, Nation League North/South and the Isthmian League (the 5th, 6th and 7th tier) pulling in paying crowds of over 5000.

Take a bow supporters of Carlisle, Notts County, Oldham Athletic, York City, Southend United, Torquay United and Dulwich Hamlet

You live therw, would you say it's a flow on efect with so many locals being priced out of going to premier league games now?

i would say thats definitely a part....but the standard is also much better, when wimbledon came through the leagues we only went semi pro in championship south i think and didnt go full pro until promotion to the league (this was only 2010), now i believe theyre full pro right through the championship

@antipodean said in Super Rugby 2026:

@Dan54 said in Super Rugby 2026:

@African-Monkey said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

@Duluth said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

I think there should be more teams and the larger ones should be broken up. There should be more opportunities for players to play close to their home.. that makes for a more tribal competition with more interest.

I find this quite fascinating. Have recently been in the UK, and the sheer density of population/football teams in London is incredible, and it goes back to your first point.

Why is it, that Auckland, a city of 1.5m, struggles to support two Super Rugby teams, given rugby is our national game?

Sydney is about 2x as big and they support 9 NRL teams.

Is it better to look at the population of rugby fans as opposed to actual population?

I think a ranking of average crowd size for the 14 NPC sides + the 5 Super Rugby sides would be interesting.

Auckland also has The Wahs and Auckland FC to compete with, and with a cost of living crisis, rugby is bring squeezed out by rival codes. Compare that with the population of the Canterbury region which is about 700,000 currently and growing and has ONE professinal sports team. Lets see how they cope once they eventually get a league team down the track. There's no competition currently in the South Island and the crowds down there are still pathetic most of the time.

Sydney is also not 2 times as big, it has a population of 5.5 mil.

Yep bang on AM, it's pretty different when you look Sydney has population of whole of NZ .
Problem is getting that 5.5 mill to stadiums involves a fair bit of travelling.
Brisbane las about double pop of Auckland doesn't it, and has one of each code , I think, with a couple of teams in surrounding cities? My main take is travel and of course w got a lot of people who these days quite enjoy the convenience of sitting on couches?

If you count the Goldy and Sunshine Coast (and you should) then Brisbane is over 3.5 million

And while there's been rationalisation in this millennium, if your region/ suburb had a NRL team, you had a stadium which was "reasonably" well serviced by public transport. Or certainly better than driving which is an act of self loathing.

Australia is also much more willing to waste taxpayer funds on infrastructure.

The other issue is while Australians generally support winners, my experience is there's a considerable discrepancy between codes when their team sucks. Rugby appears to be the worst- "fans" stop attending when their team sucks and are amazingly ignorant of the laws.

i remember being shocked when i first came over and their was a mid season mid table game between Richmond and Carlton...ie both having average to shit seasons and very little to play for....90k people

Yeah it's quite funny in Perth. The Eagles are obviously going through a massive rebuild and their fans have been mocked for not getting behind their side in tough times......I went to their last game of the season against the Swans and they still got 37,000, and their fans have been described as fairweather fans lol as they only won 1 game all season.

Imagine the state of NZ super rugby crowds if one of our teams were on a run like the Eagles are currently on!

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