@Steven-Harris if he can stay healthy he will always add some excitement/x factor to a team. Speed at his age would be a question, maybe would need to focus on 12/13 rather than wing. He does seem injury prone in his old age though. He will be 33 this month.
@Steven-Harris Simple, he is the only Former AB SR mid/outside back playing mitre 10 that was available.
@Hooroo You have noticed that the Bay are unbeaten right?
Saw these stats recently. In prep for the inevitable debate when Barrett misses a couple of kicks.
international kicking stats.
Barrett
2015- 55% 6 from 11
2016- 69% 38 from 55
2017- 80% 44 from 55
2018- 70% 35 from 40
2019- 81% 29 from 36
Mo'unga
2018 85% 11 from 13
2019 83% 20 from 24
Don't know what to make of this, sounds very gimmicky. With no lineouts is it even Rugby? 5 a side with full tackle - so like an east coast touch tournament !
The new format competition will take place at The O2 in London on 29 October 2019, with both a men’s and women’s tournament.
RugbyX is 5-v-5 full contact rugby and has been approved by World Rugby’s Executive Committee as a law trial. It will be played on a 55m x 32m artificial grass pitch, installed temporarily inside the O2.
Participating teams have been drawn from the leading international Sevens nations competing in HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
Draw:
Men’s Group A – Barbarians, England, Ireland
Men’s Group B – Argentina, France, USA
Women’s Group A – England, Ireland
Women’s Group B – France, USA
Fans can expect to see the likes of England’s Dan Norton, Olympic silver medalist and all-time leading try scorer in sevens, and England women’s captain Abbie Brown, along with France’s charismatic captain Terry Bouhraoua and the USA’s double world player of the year Perry Baker take part in the debut competition.
The core fundamentals of full contact rugby are being retained but variations of certain laws have been approved in order to encourage fast and skilful gameplay in an arena environment. There will be quick-tap restarts on the goal-line and no conversions.
Line-outs will be replaced by a quick throw from the team in possession and matches will last 10 minutes with no half-time.
World Rugby CEO Brett Gosper said: “The sanctioning of RugbyX marks an exciting step on World Rugby’s journey towards making the sport more accessible, providing an important entry point for new audiences to experience the joy, speed and skill of rugby in an indoor arena environment.
“Innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any sport and RugbyX presents a great opportunity to capitalise on increasing global interest in the days immediately preceding the Rugby World Cup final in Japan.”
Former Springbok James Dalton was allegedly involved in a brawl with security guards outside a Sea Point restaurant in Cape Town on Saturday.
The 47-year-old was allegedly involved in an argument with a man inside and restrained after things escalated. An Avenue Response security guard was allegedly bitten in the face during the incident.
Video footage showed the brawl spill outside on to the street, with Dalton at one point allegedly pinning down a uniformed guard. Patrons watched as Michael Jackson's Billie Jean played in the background. Dalton was dragged off the guard by the leg.
Police spokesperson Sgt Noloyiso Rwexana confirmed that a case of common assault had been opened at the Sea Point police station.
Dalton and Avenue Response could not be reached for comment.
Dalton was quoted by News24 on Thursday as saying the impasse with Avenue Response had been resolved.
“It's over, it's done, it's nothing, it's all sorted. You can verify that. It's a storm in a teacup,” he was quoted as saying.
Dalton, nicknamed “The Bullet”, was capped 43 times between 1994 and 2002, and was a member of the 1995 World Cup winning squad that has recently seen two of its members, Chester Williams and James Small, pass away.
TimesLIVE reported in 2017 that Dalton had been arrested for resisting arrest, assault and intimidation after allegedly fleeing the scene of a car accident.
In 2008, he was cleared of attempted murder charges after being accused of trying to drown his wife in a bath.
I have not watched this but if you have 53 minutes to kill.
The, all things NZ rugby, hating/trolling 'Rugby onslaught' website said this about it -
"Ardie Savea has created a new player-run podcast online and his first guest was Ardie Savea. To our shock, the players came across as extremely humble an insightful in the podcast that ran for just under an hour.
The video podcast appeared to be filmed from a hotel room, we’re guessing in New Zealand, so it seems that there could be more All Blacks featuring in this podcast series from Savea. If the player are as humble as this in future interviews, then we may have been wrong about the All Blacks all along.
Normally, we wouldn’t go for this kind of thing, but after seeing how humble and down to earth that the All Blacks players were. There is surely going to be more rugby players taking the leap onto these platforms in the future and we have a lot of time for this if it means that we get to see another side to these players.
We will happily admit that now Savea and Perenara are in our good books now as Japan 2019 looms it’s head. So humble"
@Billy-Webb Apparently he was asked for the team during a podcast interview without warning so it was an 'off the cuff' selection.