Entries Tagged 'Rugby League' ↓

Yep, the wait is nearly over and NRL 2008 is close to kicking off. Round 1 starts on March 14.

Thanks to my mate Aaron Heath, here is a 2008 NRL schedule in an excel spreadsheet.

It’s very cool, you can input all the scores and the finals tab will update on it’s own. This means that in effect you have your own finals predictor. Cool.

Download the 2008 NRL schedule here.

OK, so I read that in Australia the AFL has produced a DVD for their players to ‘improve athletes’ respect for, and attitudes towards, women

There are some multi choice questions for the player to answer. For example

a mate’s girlfriend calls a player into her room under the mistaken impression he is her boyfriend.
“Do you:
(a) Go and hop into bed and pretend to be him; or
(b) Walk away,”

Now that’s a good question to ask a player, but what about the women? She needs to show some responsibility for mistaking another player for her boyfriend, because that is a dumb thing to do.

Another question asks

Imagine being a leading footballer and finding yourself in a nightclub one evening with a girl who is intoxicated.
Should you fetch her a glass of water?
Call her a taxi?
Or take her back to your place and have sex with her?

Hang on, what about the girl??? Why is she not looking after herself better - where are her mates? What level of responsibility is she taking in this situation? Sounds like dumb behaviour to me.

I think this DVD is good idea, as there are regular instances of football players disrespecting women.

However, what about the dumb women that engage with football players in bars and functions and end up getting in trouble? This despite the fact that history shows football players have a propensity to disrespect women.

Who is making them a DVD?

Horrible news for the Warriors today with as star fullback Wade McKinnon is likely to be ruled out for the 2008 NRL season due to a knee injury.

Bad, bad bad . . . .the last year has mainly seen good news from the club - keeping coach Ivan Cleary, making the finals in 2007 etc.

This is not the fault of the club, it’s just a horrible, freak accident sustained during a trial game (the words ’salt’ and ‘wound’ spring to mind here’

So how will the Warriors club react?

Will they allow this to screw up the season? Or will they keep on their steady up ward path. I suspect the latter will occur.

Meanwhile, the contenders to take Wade McKinnon’s spot are Aiden Kirk and Patrick Ah Van. I hope Ah Van gets a run - he’s a good up and coming player who has impressed me.

Oh well, at least this will reduce the chance that Wade McKinnon swears on TV this year!

It was a matter of when not if, and today, Gary Kemble resigned from his post as Kiwi Coach.

This is absolutely the right thing to do as the Kiwi’s were no chance to win the Rugby League World Cup with him on board.

Now that Kemble is out of the way we need a new coach. It’s essentially a choice between two men - Brian McClennan and Wayne Bennett. My choice is Bluey who has proven himself in the job. Likewise Bennett is a master coach - the best in the business, but the advantage Bluey brings is his ability to communicate and motivate the Kiwi players.

It’s also worth noting that the Kiwi coach no longer has to reside in New Zealand - a stupid rule that was introduced simply to get rid of Gary Freeman as coach a few years back. Sigh, the NZRL seems to be an appalling administrator of sport.

Hopefully the NZRL will use what little brains they seem to have and phone up Brian McClennan ASAP.

Kiwi’s captain Roy Asotasi has been quoted as saying

“A lot of us felt that Gary Kemble wasn’t up to the task. For the NZRL to reappoint him … they might have thought they made the right decision and we’ll leave it up to them at the moment, but it’s definitely an issue with the players”

To say that the coach is not up to task is a massive call for the caption of any international sporting team to make, so why did he do it?

I think it was a mixture of frustration and desperation.

Frustration, because after losing Bluey McLennan as coach, the NZRL selected Gary Kemble - a man is sadly out of his depth at the international level.

Frustration because of the awful results Kemble has obtained since taking over - a record defeat to Australia and a 3-nil white was against the Poms.

Desperation comes from the fact Asotasi knows that the world cup is on this year. He knows that the Kiwis can win the tournament, but they need a decent coach. They need McLennan back, or they need Wayne Bennet. If we get to the tournament with Kemble as coach, we are well and truly screwed, no doubt about it.

I don’t believe Asotasi’s statements are a personal attack on Kemble - he’s just a player who wants the best coach, as he should do.

Graham Lowe, director of football for the NZRL has been critical of Asotasi, but really he seems to be put out that his selection of coach is being questioned by a player.

Wake up Graham, get over yourself and get on the phone to Bluey or Wayne or both and get us a decent coach so we can win some games.

Now would be good.

2007 could have been the greatest year in our history as we may have ended it holding world championships in Rugby, Cricket (one day and twenty20) Netball and of course the America’s cup. Suffice to say we got none of those. Anyways, this is how I saw the best and worst of the 2007 sporting year.

Best Cricket Match
It was the Hamilton run chase by the Black Caps against the Aussies for the Chappell Haddlee series. Chasing a mammoth 347 to win, we were gone at 41/4. Enter Peter Fulton and Craig McMillan who carved up the Aussies and got us back in the game.

The innings from Mark Gillespe was surreal as he somehow managed 3 valuable boundaries. McCullum finished the game in style and we had the silverware. A true spine tingler.

Best Rugby League Match
Warriors v Roosters (a 31 all draw). The Warriors were down about 14 (maybe 16) nil, and were playing poorly. But in the space of 15 minutes they tore the Roosters to shreds thanks to Epalahame Lauaki. He started with a two handed off-load in the tackle to Wade McKinnon who sprinted away for the try. Two minutes later Hame threw a long ball which Jerome Ropati picked up on the bounce and (after a few passes) scored under the bar. Five minutes later Hame scored himself. Both coaches had to change their half time speeches such was the turn around.

The Roosters were great as well and when the teams scored two tries each in the second half, a draw was an accurate reflection on the days proceedings. Gary Freeman’s commentary during the game was a highlight for me as well.

Best Rugby Match
Damm, I can’t think of one to be honest. I know there were a few good ones during the rugby world cup, but I never saw them. So lets say it was the France V All Blacks match. Once again the French showed how passion and toughness can win you big games.

The ‘I told you so’ award
That would be me for my ‘why the All Blacks will lose the world cup‘ and my post about the All Blacks fitness. I told you so.

Team of the year
I can’t split two rugby teams. Argentina for their best ever world cup and the English for making the final of the world cup and proving in the process that boring rugby is winning rugby. They also get a pat on the back for peaking at the right time.

Best Houdini Act
Those disappearing All Blacks car flags - soon to be clogging up inorganic collections all over New Zealand

The ‘lets milk the brand for every last dollar’ award
The All Blacks album - soon to be clogging up bargain bins all over New Zealand.

Biggest Choker
Another tie here. First is the New Zealand Rugby League who managed to get rid of Brian Mclennan, the best Kiwi’s coach this generation has seen. They did this by not overturning their ‘Kiwis coach must live in New Zealand’ rule when Bluey took up a job at Leeds. Quite how they came to this decision is beyond me. The results speak for themselves - new coach Gary Kemble is out of his depth at international level. We suffered a record defeat against the Aussies and got beaten by the Poms 3-nil.

The other winner is the New Zealand rugby media, who clearly know very little about sport, especially Chris Rattue who wrote this aweful preview of the France - All Blacks quarter final match.

Best Losers
The Silver Ferns. Not good enough to win the championship but at the end of the game, they came across as gracious in defeat and proud of their own performance.

Highlight of 2007
Winning the Chappell Hadlee 3-nil - an achievement that cannot be underestimated. This was almost as good as winning the cricket world cup.

Low light 2007
The All Blacks at the world cup. Nuff said. Oh and this guy.

So there you have it. I know I’ve missed heaps of teams and players and events, but these are the ones that stuck out for me. Leave a comment if you think I’ve missed something.

Not much to say here aside from the fact it’s great to see Steve Price being selected for Ricky Stuart’s Australian side.

This despite much rumour that Ricky and Steve did not get along.

Nice one Pricey!

Rugby League player FuiFui MoiMoi (yes that is his real name) is in a bind - he doesn’t know which country to represent in Rugby League.

So how will he decide?

Easy, by not deciding - he’ll just go with the country that asks him first. Fox sports quotes him as saying.

“Whoever I get picked by. If I get picked for Australia first, I’ll play for them. But if New Zealand pick me first then I’ll play for them.”

It seems his flat mate, Taniela Tuiaki is in the same situation - able to play for New Zealand and Australia. So how will Tuiaki decide which country to play for. Well, that’s even easier - he’ll just follow MoiMoi! He is quoted as saying.

“If he would play for Australia, then I would probably do the same and follow him,”

As a Kiwi rugby league supporter, I hope we don’t select either of these players - we want players that are prepared to run through brick walls to represent New Zealand, not players that are unsure who to play for.

In fact, if they don’t have enough passion to know which country they want to play for, they should stick with club football and forget about playing international rugby league.

Ok, we all hate it when our team loses, but check out this over the top Brisbane Broncos fan who licks then tackles a reporter doing a live report follwing the Broncos loss against the Melbourne Storm, which ended the Bronco’s season.

Would you do this if your team lost?

Check out this video of Warriors fullback Wade Mckinnon swearing (more than once) in this interview with Sky TV following the NRL semi final defeat at the hands of Paramatta.

It’s quite refreshing to see a player not give a stock standard answer to a stock standard question, and it doesn’t really worry me that he swears.

I wonder is Sky TV will interview Wade Mckinnon next time the Warriors lose a rugby league game?

Watch and enjoy.