Expert
Joined May 2007
654k
Views
154
Published
120
Comments
Andrew Logan has been involved in rugby for over 40 years, as a player, coach, manager of national Sevens teams, convenor of classic internationals teams and columnist for Inside Rugby, Rugby News and match day programs. He has appeared regularly on The Drum and Sky Sportsline as a rugby commentator, and has been a columnist for The Roar since its inception in 2007.
Published
Comments
It was the great Australian golfer, Peter Thomson, winner of five British Opens no less, who when asked what was the best way to…
I have to apologise in advance for cracking and putting pen to paper on the subject of Jarryd Hayne. I'd understand if my car…
Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and child prodigy who, among other things, is credited with developing the Gaussian function - an algebraic…
Last Sunday, at a country rugby field, among the autumn leaves gently falling and the cool wind gusting across the ground, Wallabies scrum coach…
Boys, Us supporters just wanted to drop you a line before the World Cup final on Saturday. It's a massive game of course, and…
UK sporting columnist Simon Barnes said it best: “The sport was never designed as an activity on which fortunes and the reputations of nations…
One of the telling moments in New Zealand's 62-13 drubbing of a beleaguered France came in the 65th minute when Charlie Faumuina ran through…
The news that James O’Connor had been released by the Reds and was heading back to Europe brought back a taste of the venom…
What a shame the marketers ever got hold of the All Blacks. There was once a genuine aura about the New Zealanders, a mystique…
Over his career, golfer Gary Player accumulated nine major championships on the regular tour and six Champions Tour major championship wins. Player was the…
You know it's a big game when the All Blacks aren't playing but the New Zealand journos are still writing it up. Chris Rattue,…
At the Rugby World Cup in 2003, the Springboks played Samoa in Brisbane. During the warm-up, when players were running along the dead-ball line…
Coaches mostly get too much credit for winning and too much grief when their team is losing. Michael Cheika is probably getting slightly more…
As England prepares to take on Fiji in the opening match of the Rugby World Cup in 48 hours, the question on everyone's lips…
The recent gnashing of teeth out of Wales, where champion fullback Leigh Halfpenny has been ruled out of the Rugby World Cup with an…
Ah, the tragedy of race in South African rugby. All that can be said is that it has ever been thus. In 1963, the…
At the time of writing the Rugby World Cup is 23 days and 8 hours away, and closing fast. Of course, you knew that,…
Last Saturday, the Wallabies again failed to compete at Eden Park, slamming the brakes on the accelerating speculation about their World Cup chances. The…
François-Marie Arouet was born in 1694 in Paris, France, and died 83 years later in the same city. In those 83 eventful years François-Marie…
The news this week that the iconic Lansdowne Hotel was finally closing its doors made me cast my mind back to my time there…
Nick, it was a long involved saga involving a couple of trips to North Sydney police station and a bit of a kip on the floor with a pillow I found in a cupboard. But that’s another story!
Snix degrees of separation makes rugby unique
You know me Casho…..an old jersey tugger from way back.
Snix degrees of separation makes rugby unique
100% nickoldschool……my dad used to wake me up every year for the FA Cup final and we would watch it together with hot chocolate that my mum left out in a thermos. All time!
To: The Wallabies, c/o Twickenham
Sheek….I was tossing up this week about whether to write up the “Pulver/Hawker shouldn’t get too worked up if Wallabies win etc” because clearly Cheika has led the revival, not the board. I decided that it wasn’t the time or the place….but I will be onto it next week or the week after.
If Pulver or Hawker take one iota of credit for the Wallabies performance, I will go postal. The only thing that can be said for them is that they were lucky enough to have Cheika available after the McKenzie trainwreck over which they presided.
Nothing has changed at the top….as you so rightly point out.
Cheers…
To: The Wallabies, c/o Twickenham
“The other thing I would say is that players make dozens of mistakes every game, knock ons, poor passes, poor kicks, not rolling away, crooked throws. Referees make very few mistakes compared to players.”
Bushranger – amen to that.
Rugby care factor? Unreasonably high
Ahhhh Harry…..yes I have that moment sometimes, but I like the comment above about the joy of congratulating friends when their team wins. It is a joy, and we should do more of it.
You have reminded me of a comment from a teammate when we were playing in the Hong Kong Tens prior to the Sevens a few years ago. We were sitting in the rugby club at Happy Valley having a few cold ones, and he leaned back in his chair, stretched luxuriously and said “You know what Loges?….Rugby touring is the highest form of living”. I found it hard to disagree!
Rugby care factor? Unreasonably high
England beat NZ on 19th Nov 1983 at Twickenham by 15-9.
Prior to that they beat them 16-10 in 1973 in Auckland, and before that, only the 13-0 win in 1936.
England won 3 from 13 between 1936 and 1983.
Rugby care factor? Unreasonably high
Thanks Yogi. I was amazed at the time that people took that line – it never entered my head at all. But that is the thing about language, it is interpreted differently by everyone, and different people see different things. Just read the threads above for evidence! Cheers…
All Blacks too complete for flaky France
GeoffBrizvegas…..I can say with absolute certainty that had it been Pocock or Hooper on the end of that same incident, I would have shrugged it off. Read what I said carefully….”the fact is that there was nothing in it on either side”. There was hardly anything from McCaw to warrant a penalty….and nothing from Picamoles to warrant changing it. It just shouldn’t have even come up for discussion. Certainly Picamoles should have known he’d probably get pulled up for it, but at worst the referee should have just said “No more” and then on with the game.
My biggest problem with that sort of thing is that it will happen in the 72nd minute of a close final and will decide a match. It is not a significant event in the course of the game, but a jumpy referee will make it one.
All Blacks too complete for flaky France
ebop….you’ve missed the point. I love the All Blacks and I admire their rugby. I simply think it’s a shame how much of their identity is now driven by marketing imperatives.
All Blacks too complete for flaky France
Jokerman…..tell me which of the following phrases didn’t meet your fancy….I’ll gladly change them.
“All Blacks too complete for flaky France
Every All Black can tackle, can run, can pass, can contest the ball on the ground…
…teams playing the All Blacks have to be at their peak for 80 minutes just to compete…
The All Blacks are masters at the turnover-and-two-quick-passes Sevens play…
Read is the best 8 in the world…
…with their excellent catch and pass skills, the try is usually a formality…
They are undoubtedly the best team in the world…
So how good was this All Blacks performance really? Well, the answer still has to be that they were pretty damn good…
It was an utterly complete performance….
New Zealand are the best prepared side in world rugby and current world champions….
The high scores speak less to the poor quality of other teams, and more to the All Blacks’ ability to meet whatever challenge comes their way….
They will continue to lift and other teams must go with them.”
All Blacks too complete for flaky France
My phrase was “anything approaching regularity”, which means “not regular”, but Howi has it right. Regularity is the wrong word. The point is that France, England and Wales (in the 70’s) are the only northern teams who have actually beaten the All Blacks more than a handful of times. Ireland and Argentina are yet to beat them ever if my memory is right. So the only teams with a realistic chance of beating NZ are SA and Aus.
All Blacks too complete for flaky France
Chooka…..I think this is how Salman Rushdie felt.
Any colour you want, as long as it's All Black
Lordy….loving your work my old Sportsline mate 😉 However, I genuinely believe that Cheika made a smart decision with his Eden Park selections. He had proved the point against the AB’s in Sydney, why give them another look at his best combination at Eden Park? Also, why risk the self-belief that his first team had built up in that win?
Having sent his second-stringers to the slaughter in Auckland, he has achieved two goals. One, his first string still believe they can beat the All Blacks. And two, the All Blacks know that the Wallabies first string can beat them.
I truly believe it is all part of a massive Cheika mind-game and long-term plan. If we make the final against the AB’s (a long way to go I know!), then we are level pegging psychologically.
What is the Cheika way?
nickoldschool……I said many times to anyone who would listen in the leadup that the Cup would be won in the 12 inches immediately over the top of the ball. That England went into the tournament apparently disdainful of that fact when it had been proven several times in the Rugby Championship and the 6 Nations, just amazed me. They paid the price. Armitage would have made a difference.
The harder the Wallabies work, the luckier they get
I think Cheika has shown that he wants form players on the paddock and that he is not afraid to back young guys. McMahon is more hard shouldered than McCalman, but both are equally hard workers and it could go either way. If I was MC, I would start Pocock, aim to get ascendancy and then run McCalman on at 8 around the 45-50 minute mark. But anyone who says they know what Michael Cheika will do is full of it – he is full of surprises!
The harder the Wallabies work, the luckier they get
Sheek…..as always you are my benchmark. If you liked it….I’m happy!
The harder the Wallabies work, the luckier they get
Harry……the unofficial transcript was pure gold….”His girlfriend was the daughter of the former Prime Minister of Australia. She liked him. She never saw him do anything untoward. If he had, she would have told her father.” Just one of the gems.
The harder the Wallabies work, the luckier they get
Paul….I don’t blame the referee….I blame World Rugby for taking away any power the referee might have to make a decision within the context of the match. Clearly the referee in this case made the only decision he was able to make, at least if he wanted to keep his job and have a chance at refereeing the final.
My argument in the case of Warburton, is that the referee should be entitled to make a decision himself, taking into account the context of the situation. Weighing up the fact that it is early in the match, that it is a World Cup semi-final and a highly emotional match, that the player was not injured and continued the game, that Warburton was the captain, that Warburton has a sterling reputation for fairness, that Wales up to that point had played highly disciplined rugby…..and so on.
I believe that the exact skill of a good referee is to make good decisions within the context of the game. Any robot can follow a directive, and more often than not, a sterile directive clashes with the rich context.
I am certain that no referee left to his own judgement would have pulled the red card in that situation.
It was only the right call because it adhered to the World Rugby directive.
Wales can't take a World Cup trick
NOS…..I think the problem was twofold 1) it was a clear IRB (now World Rugby) directive; and 2) it was a semi final.
Every referee wants to ref the final, so no ref would ever go against an IRB directive in the semi when it might cost him a shot at refereeing the final.
This is the problem with modern refereeing, that it is far too heavily influenced by directives and efforts at consistency. This would be fine if it was played in a perfectly consistent environment by two perfectly matched teams of perfectly uniform-size players.
Obviously this is not the case. Weather, pitch conditions, player size and strength, occasion….all these things come into it and the job of the referee should be to make good decisions within the context of a match. Indeed, the skill of a top referee should be precisely this, to make good decisions within the context of a match – not to blindly follow a directive regardless of context.
Wales can't take a World Cup trick
Yes Will you’ve nailed it – I thought the same! What a lemon of a miracle. And as some other wag put it, it’s not like there was a shortage of mountains in that part of Wales anyway…..
Wales can't take a World Cup trick
Well done Onside – I wondered who would get it.
Hayne at sixes and sevens in rugby's short form