Think you guys have found a good middle ground. I don't think most people are inheritly against diversity, it's just when organisations set or are set targets regardless of who applies when problems arise. Everybody loses there; some people may miss out on jobs despite being the strongest candidate, while others may not want to be promoted based on things they have no control over. Not to mention the situation where people are questioning appointments because of publicly stated targets.

There are lots of areas with an imbalance which is caused by factors that go way deeper than just discrimination, especially when it comes to men and women. A lot of these targets are simply unattainable

I've no problem with NZR casting the net wide, that's good to see, but we really need to make sure that heirarchies in our society are based on merit as much as possible.

@Rembrandt said in Blokes Advice - relationships, family matters, Tinder stories etc.:

This Agile BS gets on my nerves 'Scrum master' 'Sprints' writing on windows. Just a bunch of wank as far as I can tell.

The "agile mindset" is nothing new at all. It's just old ideas around not being afraid of failure and to see it as an opportunity to learn with a bunch of new terminology (corporate wankspeak) and some frameworks that don't really work for most teams. A lot of corporations are getting a bit carried away with it, forcing the frameworks on departments where it clearly doesn't suit.

@taniwharugby said in Blokes Advice - relationships, family matters, Tinder stories etc.:

@mariner4life said in Blokes Advice - relationships, family matters, Tinder stories etc.:

the wife's partners conference

taking that totally out of context...and you are ok with this?

Context is irrelevant. @mariner4life has outed himself as a cuck.

After having a great old time laughing at the Chiefs and Tahs we decide to rest our best against what is obviously a decent Sunwolves side. Sheesh.

@MN5 said in Poll: ABs new First Five-Eighth:

@No-Quarter said in Poll: ABs new First Five-Eighth:

@MN5 said in Poll: ABs new First Five-Eighth:

Who needs Charlie Ngatai when Akira Ioane is around.

Yup, and as a massive bonus Akira is actually the best player in NZ in his position.

Despite the fact every 6/8 in NZ got picked ahead of him last year ?

That's certainly a good talking point, I wonder if it has been discussed on here?

@MN5 said in Poll: ABs new First Five-Eighth:

Who needs Charlie Ngatai when Akira Ioane is around.

Yup, and as a massive bonus Akira is actually the best player in NZ in his position.

@Nepia said in Aussie Rugby in general:

@No-Quarter There’s also the option that RA, NSWRU etc actually do hold these values (and that the “internet” outrage is not a chief concern) and combining that with the threat of the loss of sponsorship deals means it’s a no brainer from their point of view.

As @Rancid-Schnitzel has said (repeatedly ) RA probably shouldn’t have re-contracted him, but maybe they did so for two reasons? 1. They didn’t want to discriminate against a player on religious grounds, and 2. They thought they had an assurance from him that he would not post similar messages on social media (after all a good Christian boy isn’t going to lie to their faces).

Fair point - having an inclusive policy makes sense for RA given they'd want as many people playing the game as possible. Qantas are 100% full of shit though

@Chris-B said in Poll: ABs new First Five-Eighth:

@No-Quarter I'd play Nonu at first five ahead of Jordie!

Nonu is short and actually has a decent boot on him. Think we're on to something here.

@Chris-B said in Poll: ABs new First Five-Eighth:

@MN5 said in Poll: ABs new First Five-Eighth:

@Chris-B said in Poll: ABs new First Five-Eighth:

@canefan said in Poll: ABs new First Five-Eighth:

Jordie is the my choice. You can joke about the charge downs but at the end of the day he has the quality and skills to fit in and do a decent job rather than hinder the players around him. He made a decent fist of his chances in black so far. And that us about all you can ask for if you get to the third stringer

I don't think the charge downs would be a joke - they'd be the number one thing I would target.

There's a reason most first fives are nippy little guys whose feet are close to their hands - because those extra hundredths of seconds it takes someone with long levers like Jordie - who is 20cm taller than people like DC and Mo'unga - to catch, drop and kick the ball are critical. And it's in the bio-mechanics of everything they do - they've got more power, but they take more time.

Henry Honiball, Stephen Larkham, Jonathan Sexton, Steven Donald and Jordies shorter but still quite tall brother Beauden are reading this and getting pissed off at it's inaccuracy.

Yes.

But, you'd think there would be huge advantages to having a first five who weighs 110kg compared to the 85kg lightweights who mainly occupy the position. The guys who get steam-rolled when the forwards drive close to the line. The guys like Mehrts and Cooper who get shifted out of the defensive line.

And yet there aren't too many of these 110kg first fives.

Why not?

Not enough progessive forward thinking from the coaches. A Nonu type player at first five could just be the magic trick we need to pull to catch the world off guard and romp home as he steamrolls over the opposition 10 time and time again.

@Hooroo said in Aussie Rugby in general:

@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Aussie Rugby in general:

@Hooroo said in Aussie Rugby in general:

@No-Quarter said in Aussie Rugby in general:

@Hooroo said in Aussie Rugby in general:

@No-Quarter said in Aussie Rugby in general:

@barbarian said in Aussie Rugby in general:

@Stargazer said in Aussie Rugby in general:

@nzzp Poccok got a formal warning from the ARU after he was arrested at a mine protest in 2014, so they weren't that happy.

And after the formal warning, Pocock has more or less gone silent on these issues (publically, at least).

Unfortunately, Izzy didn't do the same after he received a similar warning.

Do you think, generally speaking, companies should he able to contract people to not express political and religious beliefs publicly?

I do if it would be seen as detrimental to the company. For example a company that sells into Indonesia that has a sales marketing manager that tweets that Christians are good and Muslims are bad. (Extreme tweet but you get my drift)

It's an interesting discussion that definitely doesn't have a clear right or wrong answer. All companies have brands to protect, but we (as a society) should also place a lot of importance on the value of free speech.

I can't help but feel that in recent times the online outrage culture, with petitions to have people fired for saying the "wrong" things, has gone too far and we need to be weary of those that want to actively ruin people who have different political and religious beliefs. Especially given some of the stuff on the far left has become extremely radical - the debate about gender being a good example of that. If you say there are biological differences between men and women that influence behaviour that is seen by some as transphobic, which is hate speech, which leads us to the same outcome as Folau.

Likewise I would not want some of the radical beliefs on the far right to become mainstream and unable to he challenged without fear of losing your livelihood.

There's a balance to be struck, and I don't think we have it right at the moment.

I disagree as if I am paying you and your comments can affect my business and profit adversely. You can do one! Go work for a council or a church or something

Wouldn't it then just be best not to hire someone with views that could have a negative impact on your business? I wouldn't even want a homophobic or racist tradie doing work on my house. If Folau's views are so unpalatable for AR then they should never have rehired him.

You don't have that hindsight when hiring in most cases. Not really a question you can ask or expect to be answered honestly either.

Yeah I think it was stupid of RA to offer him that contract given he never even backed down last year, and even went as far as saying his religion is 100 times more important than his rugby. This was an inevitable situation, I guess they were hoping against hope he'd stay quiet.

But the hypothetical we are talking about is if you didn't have prior knowledge. I actually feel for companies today in the age of the internet and social media, they get put in a pretty tough position. They wouldn't want to let go of someone that adds a lot of value over something fairly minor, but at the same time have to be seen to be doing the right thing lest they feel the wrath of the online mob.