The Rugby Thread

Devrozex wrote: They are 1/5 to win the series - which just makes the 11/10 whitewash odds even more favourable.   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=11841424   That's the NZ Herald reaction to the squad. They don't seem particularly concerned unsurprisingly.

Anyone else read that with a Kiwi accent?

To be fair since the professional era the Lions have only been whitewashed once before - but that was against the ABs in 2005!

Devrozex wrote: To be fair since the professional era the Lions have only been whitewashed once before - but that was against the ABs in 2005!

deise316 wrote: This yoke is the absolute pinnacle of Rugby marketing.  There are 4 teams, all of whom have an ideal starting 15. That's 60 players. Yes, I know there are more than that available to him, but after that point, yer kind of redefining what an elite player is.  Gatland named 41 in his squad. Five to ten more lads will eventually get to go with various injuries cropping up.  That's nearly all of them so. Yet, to be selected for the squad is the pinnacle of the lads careers, we know this because we are told at every single available opportunity. Strangely, the rugby players themselves buy in to this, something I've never quite understood, it's almost like none of them stood back & had a look at it from even a short distance away.  I do accept being on the test starting XV is indeed an honour/achievement for the players, and wouldn't have an issue with that, but making a giant squad, in order to play a few games V some club sides or sit on the bench, and maybe get a start if one or 2 of the fellas ahead of you is in poor form or gets injured is hardly the stuff of dreams. Well, seemingly it is in Rugby Country, but I don't really buy it.  And for the traditionalists, even leaving out the oul apartheid supporting back in the day, surely is it against the ethos of that tradition to have as many New Zealanders in yer squad as Scotsmen. Rugby eligibility laws keep going the way they are and it will end up 2 teams from the southern hemisphere playing each other, the country of birth or the colour of the jersey will both be meaningless at that point.

deise316 wrote: Along those lines (excuse the pun) PM, so many lads, especially in recent years, have gone on these biannual trips and then brought out books about the experience, I don't really know of any of them that said  '' Actually, tis a bit of a load of bollix, I was delighted to be in it, made some new friends, saw some interesting places, but rugby wise, it was a bit of a letdown, all I really did was play 2 midweek mismatches V Club xyz & I didn't really feel a big part of the test games''  There were a few with gripes of Woodwards tour alright, but that was more so with him/Alistair Campbell etc than the concept itself. You would think, especially as the rugby lads are generally intelligent fellas with a decent standard of education, that at least one of them might have said something along those lines in the past few decades, but no, not a fecking peep, they may as well be reading the Sky autocue when the subject comes up.

Lads looking for a career on tv after they retire probably can't afford to sl*g off the Lions tour.
Sky don't really go down the Brolly/Dunphy route everything has to be made out to be excellent so no lad will bad mouth it.

It's a load of bollix really in the amateur days it was probably a good thing get away for a months holiday and made a big difference getting sponsors etc.

pre Madonna wrote: That is crazy, 1/5 to win two games and 11/10 to win three? Do they think that New Zealand are going to throw the last one or something?

Those odds are crazy.
NZ will want a 3-0 win to affirm their dominance and I can see them doing it.

alihau41 wrote: the reason why there's more of a correlation between intelligence and rugby players is because nearly every one of them has a university/college degree of some sort. it's part of being within a province academy as well, that they have each academy player doing a diploma in professionalism too. there is the understanding that a rugby career isn't for life so to be positioning themselves in a way to have something lined up for once their playing career ends. also, look at the ages to when rugby players do become 'professional' players, it is certainly later than the age of professional footballers and allows the time to do their further studies etc.

pre Madonna wrote: What is more bizarre is the lack of introspective on it from the rugby media, which I suppose shows how the game propels itself. Even in the days of social media and online cranks(irony alert), you find very few dissenting voices from within the game's media or supporters. Most long-term football fans have a gripe without how the game is run, the money, television and sponsorship, FIFA/FAI/UEFA etc. yet rugby has problems too but much less dissent. it is quite clear that the Lions tour is a massive money spinner, especially for the host country but also for the four 'home' unions and the sponsors, but the only person I have seen to highlight this fact is Tipperary's Gerard Meagher in the Guardian last week.

There is constant criticism from the English and French about the structure of European club rugby. They threw the toys out of the pram and negotiated their own tv deal beyond the strictures of the European organisation which controlled the competition, until they got what they wanted, a bigger share of a smaller pot.

That is what the elite clubs in European football threatened on an ongoing basis (setting up a superleague) without ever following through with it. The French and English rugby clubs took the brinksmanship quite a bit further than the football clubs ever did, motivated almost entirely by nothing other than filthy lucre, especially where the reduction in size of the competition did not reduce the number of games played by each club who qualifies.

There was a fair whack of dissent all across the Celtic League nations about that behaviour, and the fact that they were forced to cave as a result of the bully boy behaviour of the big clubs. It is certainly not unique to football, and in certain respects they went further than any football organisation has ever gone.

Now, that's entirely separate from the Lions tour, which I think we can agree doesn't seem to attract the same level of negative voice, but I think that can arguably be put down to the fact rugby does not have the same mass appeal as football. I'd guess the reason that there is little negative said about the Lions is that a number of the more casual rugby fans simply don't care. Football coverage is more all-encompassing and saturating, whereas rugby only attracts mainstream attention a few times a year (Six Nations games, knockout Heineken cup games and the World Cup). Put it like this: the back page of most UK newspapers today will be more concerned with the outcome of last nights Champions League quarter finals, containing no UK teams, than the selection of the Lions squad.