Taking a break: Richie McCaw
This week we will be concerning ourselves with planning futures, deciding futures and uncertain futures...
New Zealand Rugby Union has laid down an interesting marker this week, confirming that Richie McCaw is taking a season off in order to freshen him up and prolong his playing days, potentially until the next World Cup.
McCaw will be 34 going on 35 by then, an age at which most players have long since fallen off their fittest and best. Not that a slightly slower McCaw wouldn't still be one of the finest players in the world, but New Zealand's pride and joy for many years now has been the way in which the young players are brought through in time to replace those looking a little longer in the tooth.
So does allowing McCaw to do this not represent either a mild shift in philosophy or a lack of faith in those currently snapping at the great man's heels? After all, we both heard and saw so much good in Sam Cane earlier this year for example. Matt Todd is no slouch either.
There's a lot of other ways McCaw will be beneficial of course. The plan - and one of the legacies of Graham Henry's reign is that everything in the All Blacks set-up is planned - could merely be, supposing he does fall foul of advancing years, to retain McCaw in the squad as a leader even while the youngsters do take the field ahead of him. Having around the man who led the All Blacks through some of their darkest times and on to the World Cup would be of massive benefit.
And while there's room for doubt over how age will catch him up, there's no debate as to McCaw's status as the benchmark openside of the professional era. In three years' time, he could well still be New Zealand's best openside. Brad Thorn was the best lock at 36 and there is good evidence Nick Easter is still England's best number eight at 34.
But what we don't want to see is a repeat of the John Smit scenario, where a great player and leader's reputation was muddied by his being significantly past his best and in the starting team despite his positional rival being some way better towards the end of his career. It would not befit McCaw to finish like that at all. Hopefully all those planning to have him around in 2015 have that well in mind.
Quade Cooper's goose must now be cooked. If there's any sense in the Australian Rugby corridors of power - debatable at times - they'll be taking one look at his most recent twitter rantings and feeding his possible contract extension carefully into a shredder.
Then again, it ramps up the pressure on Robbie Deans to an extraordinary extent. It's not just Cooper's continued pressure, it's the lack of discipline - Cooper, Digby Ioane and Kurtley Beale were reportedly involved in a late-night car accident last week - and the hints at behind-the-scenes disunity masked by ever thinner veils.
"There's a lot of people who are afraid to say what they feel so they just go along with it and nothing is going to change," said the fly-half.
"That's why I feel so strongly as a player. I don't want to be involved in the toxic environment, and that's how it is at the moment."
Strong words, which may lead to a decisive moment. If there is unity behind the scenes at the ARU, Cooper will not get his ARU contract renewed on the basis of that little vent. No player is bigger than the team and Cooper has long been waging a battle along those lines. He should be sent off - and his last tweet was a supposed desire to return to rugby league anyway.
Should he go, the reaction of his team-mates then becomes the focus. Do others go too? If so, you can be pretty sure the administration or coaching is the problem. If not, perhaps Cooper himself was the problem.
Either way, it's about time someone at the ARU did something a little more decisive, for the longer the inaction over this disappointing season goes on, the more the administration looks at fault.
Finally, there'll no doubt have been a few glasses raised to toast the French across Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy this week.
With LNR vice-President Patrick Wolff confirming that England's attempted mutiny against ERC will be a solo effort rather than an anglo-French one, the French have managed to soothe nearly everybody's worries that the Heineken Cup will be no more after the next two editions.
Nearly everybody's? Well, Wolff left us all in little doubt as to the extent of how far into everybody's backs Premier Rugby (PRL) were prepared to stick a knife when he added: "The English put a lot of pressure on us in the past few months to accept the idea of an alternative Franco/Anglo club competition almost like it was a condition before discussing anything else."
So PRL will not be flavour of the month at the negotiating table; it's fair to say that any suggestion they may bring will be instantly discredited because of this underhand attempt to manipulate power. Media in the other countries have already termed the English approach "difficult to swallow" (Scotland) and a "unilateral act of provocation" (Italy) among other things
Then there's the credible threat of invalidation of this $245m deal with BT over a new competition, one which looks almost certain now not to come into existence and one which might have been contractually invalid to start with.
RFU Chairman Bill Beaumont - who famously engineered England back into the Five Nations in 1999 from a similar situation, while munching a pie and pint with his counterpart in Glasgow - is at least sounding hopeful of being able to introduce an element of diplomacy which may bring England back into good standing.
But PRL stand alone, right now with not a lot of bargaining collateral, nor with any representation at the bargaining table after Peter Wheeler was excluded. They insist they and the English clubs can stand alone with BT, but would the clubs want to do so while all the others played European rugby? Highly doubtful. They've been put into a miserable position by their governing body.
Unless they can rescue something from the these discussions, PRL's is an uncertain future indeed.
Loose Pass compiled by Richard Anderson
Comments
APV1 says...
@ sandal - perhaps you're right. But I think I'm still with j4a on this one. I'll keep an open mind, though, which is obviously tough for me.
Posted 10:10 28th September 2012
sandal says...
@APV1
Regarding Sincero: Yes, I do see that he greatly annoys you and other English scribblers below the line. Me, I find much of what he says to be perceptive, pertinent, and delivered with both wit and the finesse of a bar room brawler. Some of it is complete tosh. But then it is often great fun.
Perhaps you and your allies take him too seriously? It would be impertinent of me to analyse Sincero, but I do note that when we are new to a blogsite we can start out with too much gusto and indignation.
Anyway, I welcome him to the fray. At least for the moment, this website is the more enjoyable for his presence. I hope you haven't scared him off.
Posted 01:53 28th September 2012
new_j4a says...
@Sincero, This statement says it all: "They just got robbed of a World Cup final through massive corruption." You are a delusional idiot.
Posted 11:01 27th September 2012
APV1 says...
@ sandal - thank you, as always, for your perspective my friend. Always good to have you on board.
And please don't go on about an, "80-minute rolling maul, punctuated by halftime and occasional kicks to touch" - you'll only get me over-excited.
;-)
I admit to finding Sincero a difficult chap to deal with, as his comments are so vitriolic, derisory and inflamatory, I struggle to let them be.
Just as my old school reports used to say: "Must try harder."
Posted 09:55 27th September 2012
craigsman says...
Sandal - French and English clubs imposing their will. Anyway, why is the Celtic and Italian cabal imposing it's will any different?
Posted 09:16 27th September 2012
ruckingkiwi says...
And Trinats, which French club did Sonny leave last year? Or do you mean the one he left in 2009 after fulfilling his contract obligations. Do you know anything at all about his time at Canterbury, he signed a 5 year contract with a lot of provisos, the Bulldogs broke their end of the deal so Sonny bought himself out of the contract and left. His reception there will be fine: the Dogs invited him as a guest in their Friday night match prior to the Sydney Bledisloe a couple months ago.
He also fulfilled his contract obligations with the Chiefs and All Blacks, do you expect to stay in the same job for life? You say he's not much a player, but he has represented NZ at 2 different codes of rugby and the wisest rugby heads in the world all want his services, I'm more inclined to believe them than you.
Yeah his Samoan and NZ heritage. He trains, plays and handles the media and public like a professional, I believe he doesn't drink anymore, no fights, thefts, car crashes, even asks mothers if he can hold their babies when they ask for a photo.. he has made mistakes but has learn't and grown up , maybe he can help QC do the same.
And yes I have met him; he's a genuinely nice humble guy, no hype or arrogance at all.. I'm not sure how smart he is but he is highly successful at what he does so I'm sure that doesn't matter. But I'm sure he could tell me that 24 divided by 2 is less than 13.. and if he couldn't then we can be thankful he's back in Oz, the place you learn the basics like that a little later in life.
Posted 02:08 27th September 2012
ruckingkiwi says...
But Trinats, you wrote 'has lived longer in Aus than ever in NZ'... so leaving age 13 and now being 24 is meant to add up or are you back tracking on that comment after the math lesson and simply happy to manipulate your comment to mean something else? I forget when you get found out it's always 'tongue in cheek' !!
Not sure when I first played rugby, 5 maybe, but from a very young age it's clear which players are on their way. There are exceptions (Latham, Ali Williams or whomever) but by age 10 there are wide expectations on good rugby players, I know Jerry Collins had the future AB tag from a very early age and closer to home Quade had played Roller Mills and rep rugby for Waikato, he was already very good by the time he left NZ.. like everything in life, the fundamentals are best picked up when you¿re young, maybe like you say it's the teens in Australia... that would probably explain the 13 x 2 < 24 thing..
Anyway, to be fair, I don't know which passport he travels on but I know he still has a Kiwi passport and still feels very much a Kiwi, a source closer to home than the Media told me that.
Posted 02:07 27th September 2012
sandal says...
Northerners fulminating on the different nations' machinations in the Heineken Cup has made for dull reading, which I have mostly ignored. Just as many northerners must ignore the tiffs of southerners.
Until ...
Sincero came along. Thank you, thank you, and welcome to the fold. I have enjoyed watching you swing your club (Algonquin, I don't mean golf club) and induce another of APV1's self-pitying hate lists (never a dull read).
To this outsider the Celtic clubs' (not golf clubs, Algonquin) easier entry to the Cup isn't fair. On the other hand, we have seen England turn to their tried and tested method -- to try to impose their will at the expense of everyone else, and to do so even to longstanding friends. Whether it be choosing the world cup venue, negotiating TV revenue, tournament qualification, joint contracts ...
Sorry, Algonquin. I do see that the Celtic nations have been the biggest obstacles to virtually any worthwhile changes in the game. But England ARE arrogant, and often ARE hypocritical, and despicable and risible in equal measure.
@Waz4before
Every so often, the English and the South Africans threaten to leave their competitions. I am minded of a group that go out repeatedly and are all good company together. Then two are thrust into each other's company without the others. Suddenly, the prospect is very unpleasant to both.
I can imagine a tournament in which England and South Africa repeatedly play each other. Might we not see a return to their core values, and to the 80-minute rolling maul, punctuated by halftime and occasional kicks to touch? Some would argue that the Boks have enlarged their game, with up-and-unders and charge-downs. Intercepts would be neutered, however, because England would never run the ball. Both sets of fans would love it, I imagine.
Posted 01:00 27th September 2012
TVaddict says...
@Sincero
Wow, seriously, you are messed up! Are you the product of inbreeding or something! Calm down! Just go relax with a pint with all these 'friends' you talk about. Stop having a tantrum on the internet just to get attention. Maybe your parents didn't love you, maybe you were bullied at school, maybe you deserved it... However, stop crying out for love on here, go out and meet some real people! Though, only as long as you're nicer in reality....
@APV1
Yeah, I know what you mean, I guess we should stop replying to such a bigot. There are so many plebs though, why must they comment on here?
Posted 00:15 27th September 2012
APV1 says...
@ Sincero - I didn't bring history into it. And it's the "PRL", for Goodness' sake. One mistaken reference can be attributed to a typo. But to continually get it wrong, just demonstrates a lack of grey matter.
Stop being such an unpleasant person and take your anti-English nonsense elsewhere. And please stop changing your mind:
"Mate, I've nothing against Bath. One of the most interesting sides to watch in England. Quality in the squad and the back 3, as you mention. Great rugby town, beautiful city. Love visiting. Nothing but respect. And great fans to boot."
"Oh, you support Bath, don't you? Never mind!"
I am, as is widely known, a Bath fan. I suspect you don't think I'm so "great" though, do you?
Posted 22:24 26th September 2012
Waz4before says...
Anyway, back to Riche McCaw - do you recon he was offside when he picked that big trophy up or what (in the picture)???
Posted 21:58 26th September 2012
APV1 says...
@ Sincero - you are a thoroughly objectionable bloke aren't you. There are so many faceless posters on here I'd love to meet up with and share a pint with. You, however, are not one of them.
I was sticking to rugby until some twerp decided to bring 100s of years' of history into it and the anti-English brigade got out from under their bridge and started off on one.
I refer you to TVaddict's post:
"...you really do epitomise what's wrong with people on the internet. Very unpleasant, mixing lies with truth to make what ever point you want and, as difficult as it is to imagine considering all your comment on here, your probably a normal person in real life."
Posted 21:11 26th September 2012
craigsman says...
Sincero - print that list and frame it huh? I guess we are one bland homogeneous blob to you. Irrespective of the thousands of years of migration and trade. If you actually came here spoke to the people and visited the different regions you should find us as diverse a nation as any.
Your posts portray a level of arrogance that is at odds with the level of the content they contain. Maybe you need take a look at why you feel the need to post your insults on this site.
Posted 20:36 26th September 2012
Rosbif says...
thks sincero. yes indeed, was just trying to lighten the mood. the hcup nations are a little like the anarcho-syndicalist commune methinks. taking it in turns to rule etc. (and the whole andrew mitchell "pleb" incident must surely have run along similar lines - oooh where was that cctv directional microphone when we needed it!)
un caro saluto
Posted 20:00 26th September 2012
Sincero says...
APV, every single word of mockery and scorn you deserve thoroughly. Thanks for the précis. Ticks and double ticks all down the list. Even the references to history are fair enough, because you bleeding well brought the topic into a discussion on: RUGBY. Now grab a hankie and get used to it... it'll be a tough year for you sasanach in the European Cup, and not one for those of a sensitive or nervous disposition like yourself. Oh, you support Bath, don't you? Never mind!
Craigsman, that wasn't English.
Rosbif, I take it you're being a tad facetious, rather than seriously suggesting that PLR did not have a mandate to represent the English clubs? Dennis and his moistened bint with a scimitar a great clip... nice one.
Posted 19:29 26th September 2012
Rosbif says...
@sincero. as monty python once observed: "supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses...." i happen to live in london but i must have missed the nationwide referendum where they asked us to delegate powers to PRL? i guess now "we see the violence inherent in the system" hehehe.
anyhow, for anyone who's ever felt repressed, here's the antidote...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOOTKA0aGI0
peace :-)
Posted 16:48 26th September 2012
craigsman says...
@ Sincero - 'no sensible argument'. Gee, why so you have to be so miserable and sensible all the time? Can't you just accept that it's in your national character?
Posted 16:45 26th September 2012
APV1 says...
Here's why I can't be bothered with the debate anymore. The Anglophobes have got their wish - another opportunity to have a go and not discuss rugby. The labelling of a whole nation and / or all of its supporters is shameful:
typically English and arrogant
Arrogant English as usual!
WOW the Enger-lish are looking pretty stupid now aren't they??? hahahaha BOOM
The greedy English amateurs
the utter arrogance and insubordination of your moronic bartering
English rugby is a laughing stock not only due to your endless stupidity
You're greedy and inherently dishonest
the greedy English
the English made fools of themselves AGAIN
your greasy tills and greed-inspired calculations
We all know about you English folks... what's yours is yours and what belongs to someone else is yours also.
just because they want more tv money for there own coffers
just pathetic whinging
throwing their toys out of the pram
Typical bitter Anglo/French behaviour
this boils down to financial greed
Whinge whinge moan moan - typical English
Pathetic
The English and French leagues are full of mercenaries playing for big fat greedy pay cheques
if ever there was proof of English whinging, this is surely it. whing, whinge, and more bloody whinge...
shameful bullying
the Arrogance of the these people knows no bounds
its really pathetic
trying to get there grubby little hands on every penny they can
Unbelievable arrogance
leaving them drown in the greed they so crave
the destroyers of a great game in Europe
I say sod the arrogant English
it is just arrogance
nothing more than pure greed
greedy English
Your arrogance is astounding
the English money-grubbing nation of shop-keepers
800 years of crimes against humanity
whining victimisation
Just like the English
The English are now toxic.
endless greed and disregard for the law
the centuries of crimes in your wake
Posted 13:24 26th September 2012
Sincero says...
So, again, no sensible argument on any of the valid points... so... admit defeat by calling the opponent names and run away thinking nobody will notice. I think it's nice they let people with serious 'obstacles' like APV there use computers to interact with human beings they might otherwise not be able to in their daily routines. Good for your institution.
Posted 12:20 26th September 2012
APV1 says...
Following recent political issues here in England, I'm thinking of using the word, "Pleb" more often. It can be defined as, "...a derogatory term for someone considered unsophisticated or uncultured..." and is spectacularly underused.
In contrast, "Troll" may be defined as, "...ugly and slow-witted...".
Hmmmm...
Posted 11:16 26th September 2012