Sad News for Brumbies Young Gun

After week off in Honkers for the 7s, I have gone another week with next to no rugby.
 A sad week for rugby, I have just read the shocking news that Shawn Mackay has died in a Durban hospital after fighting for his life all week in a coma.  He was hit by an armed response vehicle in [...]

Red Faced Steyn

What a weekend of rugby, but started off on the worst foot.
The Cheetahs shouldn’t even be in this competition.  Watching them against the Blues was painful and embarrassing.  The Blues should hang their heads that they only won by 34 points.
At least the Cheetahs can win at one thing, and that’s taking the mantle off [...]

Reeg’s Rant – “Man Perm”

Well another weekend I still haven’t seen much ruggers.  Only caught the glimpses of the Tah’s match and was pretty pissed by the time I saw the Force match, so cant really add much light on that game.  It was all a blur of Cameron Shepherd and Nick “Man-Perm” Cummings.
The weekend started with an upset, [...]

Reeg’s Rant

Well, what can you say other than WOW!
What a start to the season.
Highlanders went crazy against the Brumbies in the first 20 mins leading 19-0 with only 28% territory.  Then their only All Black (Cowan) left the field with a sore finger (but mullet still intact) and they were lost in the wilderness for the [...]

Super 14 – Week Negative 1

Well I know I can get excited about the game, but thought I would start early with a quick review of week negative 1.
The missus is o/s on secondment in Hong Kong, which means I can dedicate more of my time to the game. You have to feel sorry for our new puppy though, the [...]

Super Trials and Kangaroo Courts

Last year I was taking in the results of the Trial games into my calculations for the Super 14 games-proper. Which I think judging by this years trial games is a mistake. Stormers beat Saracens 43-33 which tells us what? That northern hemisphere rugby is still really second division. Revelation? [...]

Round 8 – take 2

Waratahs go into Saturdays games with underdog status and with most of the Oracle’s indicators behind them.  Both sides scraped through unconvincing wins last week but you have to go back to 2003 before you the Blues beat the Tahs on Sydney soil.  Reckon they’ll be embarrassed by all this weeks’ unwanted attention on the [...]

Expanding SuperUniverse

Aussies ARU Chief exec, O’Neill has been re-banging on about his plans for the expansion of the Super Universe. He has proposed: 
1) it be expanded from 16-26 weeks
2) another team should be added, possibly based in Tokyo – some kind of Jap/Aussie hybrid.
 3) consist of 2 rounds  – one like current s14 and another with [...]

Pre pub flog

Not sure if i should apologise for last weeks 6 nations tipping – it clearly wasnt good.  But it brings up all sorts of existential questions about the nature of risk plus you would all sue more or something. Super 14 was a little better, hopefully some of you were braver than me and put some [...]

Favorite’s worst nightmare

So I’ve missed the two most interesting matches already.  This time zone thing is rubbish. There should be only one. 
So the Stormers managed to get a 9 points deficit on the Chiefs at home, which isn’t bad.  I would have gone for the Chiefs based on Stormers’ rotation policy.  Their playing-well rotation policy, that is.  [...]

Week 3 in SuperLand

So my picks made public, for what they worth.  That said I have kept a tally of other public tips from things like sportingindex, tvnz, sarugby, planertrugby etc and I’m doing better than they are. So there. 
First up is the mighty Gauteng Lions v the Wasted Force.  The oracle is going for Force as are [...]

S14 Round One – Leason One – How to Catch A Ball

So the first week is off with a round of home wins and the usual sloppy start that you would expect.
Catching seemed to be a big issue for a number of teams, and the kicks certainly aren’t what you would expect from players who have had months of prep work since the World Cup.It [...]