The Silver Fern

@FakatavaAllBlack said in Vote All Black Captain:

@The-Docter I'm too young to really remember Taine Randell, although I do know he's an Otago & Landers legend so if I ever met him I would shout that man a drink

Taine Randall - a fine No 8 who could play at 7 and 6. He was strong and able and fierce with a good future ahead of him and your selectors fixed that - it was a time of great change in your senior personnel, so they appointed a young bloke who had just arrived as captain and left him to work it out for himself ... at 21 or 22! It was one of the most myopic decisions I can recall from the wise men of rugby, shameful really, and Randell was the only one who paid a price.

@Mick-Gold-Coast-QLD

Front row: As a long term student and tradesman in the craft I was delighted when your Con Barrell (Auckland, Canterbury, Crusaders) turned up here some years ago, helping out with our juniors. We have enjoyed discussion on this vital subject many times over.

Carl Hayman's career fascinated me. He was way too tall for front row, yet then Sir Graham had him switch to tight head back in '03 or '04! I recalled the extra attention I had from my bloke to deal with my height at 6 feet, which was tall way back then - useful for No 2 in the lineout but his focus was on getting the open side technique right, to secure scrum ball. He came from a more educated position than most, he had competed in the field in the '62 Empire Games under an Eastern European master and he worked on precision, as his coach had.

I had a look through the record to find that Hayman was the tallest front rower used by the All Blacks from the late '70s until his departure in 2007.

Of the 21 players just four were less than 40 mm of his height and his most frequent partner, Tony Woodcock, was 90 mm (3½") shorter - at loose head. How did that work? Carl must have had double jointed knees to get his back down far enough, and parallel!

Was there anything else you need help on?

@nzzp said in Carl Hayman:

@Frye said in Carl Hayman:

@Tim said in Carl Hayman:

@Billy-Tell

Wasn't he convicted of serious domestic violence charges in France? Don't know if he can blame those on head-knocks.

(Out of character?) eruptions of violence was certainly a characteristic of the NFL players who were found to have CTE.

Although you definitely want to be wary about blaming it, I think there has to be a measure of responsibility as well.

I've read a bit on the CTE, including the excellent book Concussion. Be careful of going down that rabbit hole, as it will reduce your enjoyment of contact sports (particularly NFL) significantly. Seriously, don't start if you don't want to know.

But @Tim one of the charactertistics is the change people have. Historically mild mannered individuals flare up, forget things, get frustrated. It's damn scary stuff.

So, he's responsible - but if he has CTE, then there are veyr likely other major drivers.

It's so sad for the dude, wouldn't wish it on anyone.

That characteristic was there in my experience - my dear mother departed a life of sacrifice, service, pride in her charges and joy in her days to a foreign world where the people about her were strangers. Of all the brothers and sisters I was the only one she recognised. We agreed she would be most unhappy with her existence and we investigated euthanasia.

The only good feature of the dementia condition is that is short lived.

A neighbour has recently disappeared from view and the family has reorganised itself around him falling victim. He suddenly switched from happiness to sudden anger. Crazy Horse touches on this up the page there, as does NZZP.

As good fortune would have it his family lives for each other and they have formed a protective circle around the 80 year old and mother. Three daughters and a grandson attend to a week per month each live-in care - one leaves her business in Sydney in her managers' hands - to ensure he has careful full time surveillance.

It does demand that level of attention, one must anticipate the most alarming anomalies.

@Crazy-Horse said in Red Cards:

@Mick-Gold-Coast-QLD said in Red Cards:

@Crazy-Horse said in Red Cards:

@Duluth said in Red Cards:

@Crazy-Horse

The ‘team’ yellow point is valid

Matera isn’t a great example though because the second offence probably should’ve been a red anyway

Fucked if I know anymore.

Cheika also went on about bending at the hips being a mitigation , but not bending at the knees. He suggested it is not always possible to bend at the hips because the distance between the tackler and his target can be too close to allow hip bending.

Either way the boffins have created a mess.

Too funny! Just like when Cheika was going around for Randwick, he's made that up on the run! He'd have no persuasive basis for it other than a loud whiny voice.

He was good on the paddock. His master at No 8, John Maxwell, was hard and intimidating. Chieka was hard and plain unscrupulous.

Maybe, maybe not. He didn't have a horse in the race last night so not sure he would have had a reason to whine apart from seeing a game he loves going down a path he may not like. I like him on that panel. Never liked him as the Wallaby coach though.

Crazy Horse: I must clarify my comments on Cheika - I wasn't watching Friday's match. My piece was directed at his exceptional Club playing career and his win at all costs determination. The "whining" I spoke of was almost invariably Michael pressing the referee for an advantage over some non-existent infraction by his opponents. Well before he was appointed captain he was berating referees on the field.

He played for the dominant Australian club Randwick for 10 years, during which they won 4 of the 6 grand finals in which they appeared. He captained them for 3 years and later coached them to a grand final win in 2004 (over my Mighty Eastwood, the mongrel - grrrr). Seriously good players were selected for Randwick, there were no "also rans".

His performance overseas as a player and as a coach from 2000 onwards, at 33, was as impressive.

As Australian coach - I rarely read the critiques. From Bob Dwyer onwards I had been reading that none of 'em were any good, the eight or nine or ten of 'em who preceded Michael Cheika. Jones, Deans, Ewen, no matter what they did they had no idea so far as the fans were concerned.

Banjo Paterson once wrote about Australian racing fan experts at the gallops:

But all the finest horsemen out the men to Beat the Band
You’ll find amongst the crowd that ride their races in the Stand

His summary is good for all sports I reckon.

As to his achievements off the field - he learned quickly and succeeded mightily at the top end of the fashion industry in Europe. He is multi lingual, and his family is highly regarded in the powerful Lebanese business community in Sydney.

I like his pedigree and I like him. He irritated me as a player because he never shut up but I have no doubt about his knowledge of the game, his pursuit of excellence or his appetite for hard work.

@Crazy-Horse said in Red Cards:

@Duluth said in Red Cards:

@Crazy-Horse

The ‘team’ yellow point is valid

Matera isn’t a great example though because the second offence probably should’ve been a red anyway

Fucked if I know anymore.

Cheika also went on about bending at the hips being a mitigation , but not bending at the knees. He suggested it is not always possible to bend at the hips because the distance between the tackler and his target can be too close to allow hip bending.

Either way the boffins have created a mess.

Too funny! Just like when Cheika was going around for Randwick, he's made that up on the run! He'd have no persuasive basis for it other than a loud whiny voice.

He was good on the paddock. His master at No 8, John Maxwell, was hard and intimidating. Chieka was hard and plain unscrupulous.

@pakman said in 6N England v Ireland:

“It is the responsibility of the player [Ewels] to not put himself in a reckless position that can seriously injure an opponent.” Raynal went on to say: “He’s upright, he runs the risk. It is high speed, a high degree of danger, clear head contact. We go for a red card.”

The referee was addressing this to the England captain, pretending to make an innocent enquiry about something he did not know about. If Lawes does not know the Laws then he should not be captain.

The standard could not be clearer - responsibility of the player - no matter how much vitriol one directs at referees; the learned submissions of barrister-fans citing contradictory, persuasive precedent decisions by other referees at other times; swearing robustly at the moon; and relying on invisible Law X by which the referee is obliged to keep the game attractive.

They are too dim to understand that the game affords them a handsome income for as long as they care to enhance and protect it; and too lazy to study the laws. RUPA is silent on the risk, utterly useless, focused only on the income for today's players and does not give a rat's about the future. Daddy can pay for that.

For all their posturing most of the coaches have abrogated their responsibility to sanction dopes who continue to go high - their thinking extends only for the period for which they are contracted, less 33% for likely early termination.

These circumstances are common to Union and League - the games are in a precarious state, with legal actions now being mounted about failure to protect players; and both are a single fatal injury away from public horror and consequential political intervention.

As an aside - five weeks ago League lost one of its favourite sons, John Raper. If you saw him moving in to tackle you, there was nothing you could do but surrender - the best I have seen in the game. I doubt he ever made a tackle above the waist. I played against one of his younger brothers, Mick or Maurie - I don't remember which - they were all the same, deadly. It can be done.

The biggest mistake League made was to permit the high tackles Sonny Bill was good at - I didn't see much of that 'cos I stopped supporting League after they kicked my beloved Souths out. It was little more than a shoulder charge, evidently. A good few of the boofheads lumbering about now would welcome its return, to show off how tough they are - that League wonder boy Mitchell deserved a long, long holiday for his most recent effort last August.

@donsteppa

During the bushfires in Victoria in 2009 I watched the nightly news featuring a visit to the firefighters by that effete little man Rudd as Prime Minister. He stepped out of the Commonwealth limousine, stood and looked awkwardly towards the crews milling about, 30 or 40 yards away, collecting their tucker from the trestle tables.

They looked back at him with obvious disinterest. He then had to walk towards them, beaming and unwelcome.

The very next night the news showed a similar setting - a white sedan arrived on site, the front passenger door was opening before it stopped. Out bounded Shane Warne with a big smile and "G'day fellas", striding to them. The reaction was spontaneous - they came to him as one, laughing and enjoying the surprise, swamping him with their hospitality.

He did what he needed to do instinctively, with confidence and ease. He was a natural.

That is precisely what I see in the video you have displayed - "Quite a skill" you say. I reckon you would be fortunate to see that just once in a lifetime.

Big Merv could pull it off it; Mark Waugh too - he was good with the mob; and Greg Matthews, a charismatic and able fella, who they liked. None of them could do it with near the same aplomb as Shane.

It has been a sad week, I felt the same when Peter Brock died sixteen years ago. You come across many good men in a lifetime, some of them are truly exceptional.

@catogrande

It would be a fair bet that Shane did not once speak about porking sheilas in Accrington, or anywhere, who were in their "very early 90s"!

@mn5 said in RIP Warney:

@jc said in RIP Warney:

This one is really sad. One of those people I would have really loved to have a beer with. His war stories would have been worth me putting my hand in my pocket all night.

See ya Warney, thanks for those magic moments and never being boring.

Yeah one of those cases of a person being a sporting legend AND a dynamic personality. So often it’s one or the other.

He would have been terrific company over a few beers.

So sad, heartbreaking.

Mike Gatting:

“He was a great tactician, he was always up the other end thinking about how to get somebody out, how to do something different. All the while he was having fun. He enjoyed what he did and it came across.”

Rod Marsh in hospital following heart attack [https://www.skysports.com/cricket/news/12123/12550129/rod-marsh-the-former-australia-wicketkeeper-in-hospital-following-heart-attack)

It is not clear to me where I should place the link I wish to provide, or where to place any text I wish to add to it.

PS. Now I must apologise, this news was previously noted up the page - I did not check beyond the latest 17 hour old entry, believing the news that I saw was reported just this morning.

@mn5 said in Rugby Freaks:

Does Ma’a Nonu deserve a mention or was he just someone who did everything really well without being freakish ?

He was as you say, in my opinion. I watched his development throughout - I liked what I saw in the Hurricanes when Super Rugby arrived and followed them a bit - Rodney, Piri, Jason Eaton. I saw a really focused, deliberate effort from Tana Umaga, bringing Ma'a Nonu on from his clumsy, random early days.

When Tana left that fine team it seemed as if he and Conrad Smith had colluded to fashion the second half of the plan. With Corey Jane he did a lot of work teaching Nonu positional play. To his credit Nonu paid attention and just got better and better at it.

When Sonny Bill turned up he did not see him as a threat and it was a joy to watch the ease of their combination. The try in the 2015 World Cup final was, for me after 12 years, the icing on the cake.

@booboo said in Rugby Freaks:

A left field one, and a bit of a flash in the pan who disappeared into loigue, but Brett Papworth had an incredibly freakish ability to step through defenses.

A commendable choice there, booboo, honouring the President of the Mighty Woods!

He was a gun alright, we lost him to League in 1988 and he immediately copped too many injuries - played just a half dozen games and had to retire before turning 30. He went straight back to his local roots, playing cricket for Epping, and he has been an intelligent, energetic and popular Club President since some time last century.

Brett has been on Graeme Hughes weekday Talkin' Sport radio program for years, with Peter Tunks, he's involved in several businesses, including player management.

"I would agree about George Smith. Maybe he had a stronger team around him, but I remember him as being a far more significant nuisance when we played him"

@canefan

Of course he was, yes. My amusement is at the locally generated hyperbole that accompanied him whenever he played, and the failure to acknowledge his limited repertoire. Bono was the new "great white hope".

@bones said in Rugby Freaks:

@machpants said in Rugby Freaks:

Pocock was a freak in the jackal, best player in the world ever at that imo. Not much else, ... . So good at it, ABs made their forwards tactics around running directly at him to nullify him.

Yeah see I can't really get behind that eh - all he did was look for a jackal - to the detriment of pretty much every other factor of his game at times. I don't see it as anything that can't be pretty much replicated by any other half decent player if they shelve every other aspect too.

Lazy Owen Finegan, David Wilson, the exceptional George Smith all offered way more than him. Schalk Burger, Thierry Dusautoir, Jerome, Liam Messam and Sir Richie not only monstered him, they were technically better, more effective. World Rugby disagreed - kept awarding him as Australian-World Idol, to stop his agent yabbering in their ear ... and to punish McCaw because they didn't like him.

"So good at it, as a minor irritation ABs made their forwards tactics around running directly at him to nullify him." That would have taken them all of three minutes in the tactics session a week beforehand.

@catogrande said in Rugby Freaks:

Lots of great players being touted here, but we're supposed to be talking about freaks.

So you will throw your boot at the screen if I mention Tony Woodcock or Greg Somerville ... Anton Oliver?

Your Zinzan Brooke was special - splendid, especially capable, a joy to watch. He ran like a centre holding the ball out in front and was a punishing tackler.

@victor-meldrew said in Rugby Freaks:

@arhs said in Rugby Freaks:

Cullen Campo J van der Westhuizen Serevi Hugo Porta would be my top 5.

Good call

Hugo Porta, certainly, we saw him do some wondrous things with consummate ease in the '87 World Cup - taking a ball at Concord near halfway, on the sideline in front of the stand. He glanced at the advancing defence and nonchalantly dropped the ball over for three points - just couldn't be bothered expending energy unnecessarily. His left winger, RAF Flying Officer Rory Underwood turned to the crowd and gestured, palms up, as if to say "Is there anything this genius cannot do?"

Hugo was appointed Ambassador to South Africa and later became a Minister in the Argentine government.

David Campese was simply the best, talented, quick, creative and focused. He epitomised excellence, and led the way for players to earn good money in Europe before the game turned professional.

He cops criticism from lesser men and I doubt he hears it because he has always been a bit busy being successful. He is not at all friendly.

@majorrage said in Rugby Freaks:

Skinstad was something else when he first came on the scene.

Andrew Walker probably the most natural runner I’ve seen on a rugby field.

Walker was in a class above, he played on instinct which he had in spades - simply exceptional. He was a beautifully balanced runner, similar to Jason Little, could step and swerve and find his way through openings which simply did not exist! He had splendid natural ability, reminiscent of Mark Ella.

He battled the grog, went on benders and Eddie Jones never stopped caring for him and responding whenever his wife called for help. He did it for Walker's welfare, not to enhance his own Brumbies and Wallabies record. He was finding Andrew work in league, using his vast network, long after he left rugby.

Eddie once left a Wallaby camp at Coffs Harbour to go down south looking for him when he went walkabout. He understood the phenomenon - he grew up with the La Perouse locals, went to Matraville High with the Ellas and Lloyd Walker - and he demonstrated outstanding ability to work with it. He's an easy mark for the big mouths who know not much, Eddie, yet he has a long history of going well beyond the ordinary fellow in his efforts for his fellow man.

@sparky said in Would-be hardmen thread:

French Rugby hardmen

Pascal Ondarts
Gerald Cholley
Eric Champ
Adelatif Benazzi
Olivier Magne
Jean Condom
Jerome Thion
Serge Betsen
Thierry Dusautoir

French flair had always been allied to French granite.

Abdelatif Benazzi was outstanding in play, vigorous, involved and mobile; scary big and genuinely tough, fearless, at a time when there were plenty of contenders for that title. I used enjoy watching him, especially taking the ball up - he loved the hard work.

Thierry Dusautoir was a talented player with the perfect temperament for captain - all class. He was not recognised enough for his superiority over others at open side, a bit like the indifference shown to Sir Richie. It was self evident that a powerful block resisted recognition of these exceptional players, in favour of a couple of blokes from the Southern Hemisphere who were "over represented" in World Rugby awards and the like.

@sparky said in Would-be hardmen thread:

Proper hardmen:

Colin Meads
Kevin Skinner
Uli Schmidt
Buck Shelford
Richard Hill
Jerome Kaino

I enjoyed Jerome, he was big and physical and able. He could take the ball up better than just about any loosie I can think of, leaving a path of destruction (apart from Bono of course, a BIG man, the finest 7 in the game and later the finest 8 in the game ).

Jerome offered maximum efficiency come scrum time, I used watch his set up and his front rowers would have greatly appreciated his presence.

He had a grand smile and a happy nature just like our Viliami Ofahengaue - with my son I watched Willie one day in Club, just in front of us on the reserves bench at Manly Oval. He had no idea what was happening in the game 'cos he was too busy playing hand shapes games with his similarly monstrous sized Tongan team mates, giggling like girls without a care in the world.

Jerome, like Willie, could belt anyone out there into next Friday fortnight, without even trying. They just didn't feel the need to demonstrate it! Being a bit lazy at times helped.