JayStarr says...

@ uglea: The phrase you quoted me on was meant as opposition to Alistair Coetzee's belief that "defense wins championships"... which you deliberately misconstrued to make yourself seem clever or something. My point was that his belief might be true in some tournaments, and on the international scene (such as World Cups, which he helped the Springboks win) - and many instances can be found of a team winning a tournament because they simply prevented their opposition from scoring points through a rock solid defense... But in Super Rugby the pace is faster than any other tournament in the world and it involves the best attacking players in the world - so no matter how good your defense, tries WILL be scored against you, eventually. And that is why the Stormers, with (statistically) the best defense in the world, keeps falling at the last hurdle in Super Rugby... Because even though they have (by far) the best defense in the tournament, the attack of the Crusaders and Sharks were just too good. And the Stormers' attack wasn't good enough to breach the Crusaders or Sharks defense when they were forced to. So where the Stormers' defense won them 14/16 games and helped them finish top of the Super Rugby log, it wasn't good enough to get them through the finals, because they were forced to score tries there - and couldn't. But if they were playing in the NH tournaments they would have probably won for the last 3 years, because defense plays a much bigger role there than attack...

That was the gist of my point.

Posted 12:12 04th January 2013

russp says...

@JayStarr I agree with your review of WP / Stormers, especially the idea that Stormers will look to attack more. Will be a while before I get the Super Rugby season preview up on here, but certainly wouldn't talk anyone out of 9.0 for Stormers to win.

Didn't have the room to put it in a column on here last season, but looked into the 'defence wins championships' idea at the end of last season http://rpbetting.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/defence-wins-championships/ Basically, before last season - the best attack has won the Super Rugby title 12/16 years and the best defence 3/16.

@5Lock4ward, yes factored in Hamilton's move. Will be a big loss but they'll receive a transfer fee to help replace him and Savage has probably taken to the league quicker than was expected. Always tough to call when a team will make that step up but the fact they beat Leicester at home without him in round 7 was a good sign.

Have a good 2013 guys!

Posted 17:30 02nd January 2013

5Lock4ward says...

The article claims that Gloucester are a season away from challenging but their current captain and inspirational hard man Jim Hamilton will be gone next season. I wonder if that was factored in.

Posted 00:19 02nd January 2013