All Blacks Furious With Leaked Photo
The photo of the All Black playbook that is causing all the fuss.
New Zealand assistant coach Steve Hansen slammed the appearance of a photograph of a page of the All Blacks’ playbook in Australian newspapers on Wednesday as a breach of trust with the media.
The picture, showing the hand of New Zealand coach Graham Henry clasping notes detailing five different tactical plays from lineouts and scrums, was snapped during All Blacks training ahead of Saturday’s Tri-nations test against the Wallabies.
“At the end of the day you guys and photographers come to training and there are a few unwritten rules and the photographer has breached the trust. There’s not too much we can do about it,” he told local media on Wednesday.
“The good thing about it is yesterday was a defensive training day so we won’t have to change our tactics too much.
“There are a whole lot of things that are going to happen on Saturday night and I don’t think one photo is going to make too much difference.”
The picture was splashed across Australian newspapers accompanied by varying degrees of analysis.
The Australian newspaper concluded the All Blacks would target flyhalf Matt Giteau and wing James O’Connor in defence, while focusing on negating flanker David Pocock, whose ball-pilfering was praised during the 30-13 defeat of South Africa in Brisbane last week.
Australia’s assistant coach Jim Williams said he had not seen the photograph but dismissed the idea that it would influence his team’s preparations.
“I wouldn’t read too much into it myself and I probably won’t even bother looking at it,” Williams told reporters.
“(It’s) not going to make me take any extra precautions.”
The Wallabies host the All Blacks at Melbourne’s Docklands stadium on Saturday in their first Tri-Nations clash for the season.
Courtesy of REUTERS
Fourie And Cooper Hit With Bans
Quade Cooper illegally tackling Morne Steyn.
South Africa centre Jaque Fourie has been handed a four-week ban and Australia fly-half Quade Cooper a two-week suspension in the wake of Saturday’s Tri-Nations clash in Brisbane.
Fourie was yellow-carded for a dangerous tackle on Australia’s Richard Brown after just two minutes of the Wallabies 30-13 victory at the Suncorp Stadium and was cited following the game along with Cooper who was also sin-binned in the second-half for a similar challenge on South Africa’s Morne Steyn.
The 27-year-old Fourie, who also picked up a four-week ban for a dangerous tackle on All Blacks centre Ma’a Nonu during last year’s Tri-Nations, is now banned from playing until August 22 that will see him miss two Currie Cup matches for Western Province and the Tri-Nations clash with New Zealand on August 21.
The suspension brings an end to a disastrous tour for the Springboks that also included two defeats to New Zealand. Lock Bakkies Botha was sin-binned during the opening loss to New Zealand and was subsequently banned for nine weeks for a separate incident – a head-butt on All Blacks scrum-half Jimmy Cowan.
Lock Danie Rossouw saw yellow against New Zealand in Wellington while wing Jean de Villiers was suspended for two-weeks following the same game for a dangerous tackle on All Blacks winger Rene Ranger. And in their latest outing, prop BJ Botha was also sent to the sin-bin for deliberately slowing the ball.
In a massive blow for the Wallabies, Cooper will miss Australia’s back-to-back Bledisloe Cup Tests against New Zealand in Melbourne next Saturday and in Christchurch the following week.
He appeared before SANZAR’s Bruce Squire QC of New Zealand in Brisbane on Sunday. Squire found Cooper guilty of a breach of Law 10.4 (j). He compared the offence to that of Springbok wing Jean de Villiers in last week’s Tri-Nations match against the All Blacks, for which the South African was suspended for two weeks.
“This is consistent application in terms of like penalties for like offences,” said Squire. The suspension ends on August 8 but Wallabies coach Robbie Deans revealed he would consider an appeal.
“Obviously Quade’s disappointed, we’re disappointed but we’re in the process now of contemplating where to from here,” Deans told reporters. “It obviously means that we’re posed with a different challenge I guess, but it will still be a significant challenge that we’ll bring to Melbourne.”
In a further blow to the Wallabies’ Tri-Nations aspirations winger Digby Ioane has been ruled out of the remainder of the competition with a shoulder injury. Ioane had dislocated his left shoulder during the Wallabies 21-20 loss to England in Sydney last month and was expected to be out for the season before a later assessment offered hope he may be fit for the Melbourne clash against the All Blacks.
But a recurrence of the injury in training has dashed those hope. “It’s tough on Digby because he got his hopes up,” Deans said. “He’s a tough bloke and he’s a great bloke and he deserves a lot. He will get a lot. He will be rewarded as an individual he’s just paying forward, I guess.”
South Africa centre Jaque Fourie has been handed a four-week ban and Australia fly-half Quade Cooper a two-week suspension in the wake of Saturday’s Tri-Nations clash in Brisbane.
Courtesy of Scrum.com
Sportard – Horribler and Horribler
Sportard
How about them Bokke, eh? No sooner have we finished trumpeting about being world-beaters who have established ourselves as Tri-Nations shoe-ins and pre-Rugby World Cup favourites than we’re playing like Rudolph Straulli’s back in charge.
I believe it was that legendary retard Forest Gump who coined the phrase ‘stupid is as stupid does’.
Certainly Bakkies’ latest effort was his most effective endorsement of this philosophy to date and his forced vacation offered hope that stupidity might be replaced by form and skill but what did we get instead? Dangerous Danie and his stupid, naf little kick.
What a twat! Ten minutes and ten points later and everybody watching had the same whacky sensation of being transported back a week in time.
I’m beginning to suspect that brains are not in as great a supply these days as perhaps they were under Jake’s tutelage. OK, so it’s not a suspicion; I know it with the same subtle certainty that I know that beer tastes better out of glass.
Let’s see what else I know:
I know that when the kicking coach blames a crap kicking game on the players; that pretty much guarantees that he’s a moron, which is not surprising considering the damage that twenty years of inhaling peroxide must have done to Percy’s brain.
I know that our coach is a moron because if he had half a brain he’d realise that a Tom Selleck moustache will never negate dwarfism.
Take that one step further with the fact that he’s now gone public with his idiotic theory that the referees are favouring the Kiwis because they are hosting next year’s World Cup and Moron can safely be tattooed onto his forehead.
I know that at least half the team are morons because they are professional rugby players and that’s pretty much the global standard. Granted, rugby players are generally less stupid that football players but, considering that many of our rugby players herald from the farming class, I think it’s safe to say that there won’t be many Mensa members in the squad.
All of this stupidity is a problem and does not bode well for our future prospects. Unlike football, where stupidity is a highly prized prerequisite, rugby is a relatively sophisticated game that requires at least some of the team and management to be able to beat an eight-year-old at scrabble.
Skill alone will never win a test match and I fear that Captain John, who seems quite clever, must feel terribly lonely trying to manage all of the cognitive work on his own.
Granted, John’s got Clever Dick backing him up, and the good OS du Randt, his farming credentials notwithstanding, also passes muster in the brains department. The problem is that when the man in charge is as thick as mieliepap it follows that, all efforts to the contrary, thickness will prevail.
Fortunately the worst part of the Tri-Nations is now behind us. We’ll never win it now – the All Blacks have seen to that – but we’re up against the Australians next and there we have a whole nation of the stupidest people ever to dip a sheep.
I suspect that we can beat them simply by dropping small shiny objects on the pitch and capitalising on the ensuing chaos as Wallaby players stop to blink a lot and touch them.
In future, though, we’ll need to change our recruitment policy. If the politicians insist on SARU placing complexion above competence then perhaps a new prerequisite for any future coaching staff should be an IQ test with Jake White’s result setting the benchmark for head coach and Pieter de Villiers’ presenting the lowest possible hurdle for employment as bag carrier.
By Mike Stephen
* The views expressed by Sportard are not necessarily those of Sports Illustrated. We just think he’s funny and worth the read.
Springboks Take Complaints To Sanzar
Oregan Hoskins, Peter de Villiers and Victor Matfield at a press conference.
The Springboks are taking their complaints to an official level with the South African union asking Sanzar to look into what they clearly feel is a bias against Peter de Villiers’ side by the judicial system.
The two match ban on Jean de Villiers for a dangerous tackle on top of Bakkies Botha’s nine-week ban for head-butting has raised the anger of the South Africans after a tough two weeks in New Zealand where they lost both Tri-Nations tests to the All Blacks.
South African Rugby Union boss Oregan Hoskins has instructed the Springboks’ representative on the Sanzar legal committee, Judge Lex Mpati, to look into the matter.
“On the judicial side, I have asked Judge Mpati to take it up,” Hoskins told the Cape Times newspaper.
“A number of stakeholders have complained to me about the lack of consistency in the rulings of the judicial officials in rugby.
“I have stressed to Judge Mpati the seriousness of the matter, and he has promised that he will come back to me in writing hopefully by next week.
“I don’t want to say too much further, as previously I have spoken about the issue in the media and nothing has been done about it.”
Jean de Villiers wasn’t penalised for the tackle on Rene Ranger during the Wellington test by referee Alain Rolland, but was cited afterwards by the Australian citing commissioner Scott Nowland.
The Boks are angry that nothing was done against Ranger for an earlier ”no-arms” tackle against their fullback Zane Kirchner.
The world champions were also vocal in their assumption that All Blacks captain Richie McCaw was getting away with too much at the breakdowns, believing he should have been yellow-carded at the Cake Tin.
Coach de Villiers vented his frustration after the match by suggesting he was considering coaching his team to “cheat” on the field after struggling with refereeing inconsistencies over the first six tests of their latest campaign.
“As a coach, you don’t want to coach your team to cheat, but maybe that is something we are going to have to consider,” he said.
South African Rugby’s manager of referees, Andre Watson, did not want to comment on Rolland’s performance in Wellington.
“I looked at the ref, and he made some brilliant decisions and some not-so-good decisions,” Watson said.
“I can’t say if the Boks got a raw deal from the referee because if I do say that that is the case, then South Africa will love me and the rest of the world will hate me, and if I don’t feel that way, it will be the other way around.”
Courtesy of stuff.co.nz
Weekend Rugby Wrap
The Sharks vs the Bulls.
The Springboks probably used up their three wishes on their matches against Italy, France and Wales and thought it would be enough for the Tri Nations.
Unfortunately it was not.
This weekend the All Blacks dished out their second dose of terror on the Springboks and won 32-17, having beaten them 32-12 the previous week.
The Springboks luck had run out.
I say luck because it didn’t help that the Northern Hemisphere referee seemed to favour the All Blacks.
The cards, especially the one given to Danie Rossouw, have caused Springbok Coach Peter de Villiers to lash out against the refereeing decisions.
Springboks coach Peter de Villiers lashed out at the standard of rugby Test referees and suggested cheating may be the only way to beat diverse law interpretations.
The All Blacks responded well to the new rules and coach Graham Henry was full of praise for new law interpretations which allowed the team in possession to win quick ruck ball and play an expansive, running game.
As a result they scored eight tries in the two Tests.
South Africans were again unlucky when wing Jean de Villiers was suspended for two weeks for making a dangerous tackle.
De Villiers faced a Sanzar judiciary hearing after he was cited for an alleged lifting tackle on All Blacks winger Rene Ranger in the 27th minute of the match.
De Villiers admitted to making a dangerous tackle.
He was suspended for two weeks up to and including August 1 which will see him miss South Africa’s Tri-Nations match against Australia in Brisbane next Saturday.
Currie Cup Action
The Sharks on the other hand got their break beating the Blue Bulls 34-28.
History was again on the Shark’s side of the Sharks as the defending champions, the Bulls, have only defeated their KwaZulu-Natal opponents twice during their last 10 fixtures.
The Bulls were last victorious in Durban in 2006 when they secured a 50-32 win over the Sharks.
Western Province made it two wins from two games in this year’s Currie Cup with a 32-0 victory over the Lions at Newlands on Saturday.
Fly-half Wilem de Waal gave Western Province an early lead but they struggled to hammer home their dominance and had to wait until midway through the half before flanker Pieter Louw crossed for the opening try of the game.
De Waal added the extras and three further penalties before the break.
De Waal’s boot kept the scoreboard ticking over after the break and his fourth penalty was followed by a try from fullback Conrad Jantjes.
A try from replacement flanker Pieter Myburgh raised hopes of a try-scoring bonus point to accompany their outstanding defensive display but they were denied by some desperate defence from the Lions as the game drew to a close. However, the result was enough for WP to claim top spot in the table.
Western Province continue their season unbeaten.
Friday night’s match saw Prop Coenie Oosthuizen score a hat-trick of tries to help the Free State Cheetahs to a 33-26 win over neighbours Griquas.
It was the Cheetahs first win of the season after they lost 25-11 at home to Western Province last week in a scrappy season-opener.
While the Griquas lost for the first time.
Lastly, the Pumas inflicted a 38-32 defeat on the Leopards.
Courtesy of ESPN
HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you think there is a difference between the North and South when interpreting the new laws?
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