SADLY PREDICTABLE OUTCOMES
ENGLISH MEDIA REACTION TO LOSS
Who didn’t know as soon as Jerome Garces disallowed Sam Underhill’s brilliantly finished try at Twickenham against the All Blacks that the English media were going to say it was a terrible decision.
The video evidence that Courtney Lawes was offside when he charged down TJ Perenara’s clearance kick was clear and obvious and as frustrating as it was to accept that, it was the right decision.
But of course, the English media were never going to accept that Lawes was at least a metre in front of he backfoot.
“The referee awarded the try which means that any decision by the television match official must prove a clear and obvious infringement,” fumed Stephen Jones of the Sunday Times.
“The replay clearly showed Lawes onside, with Perenara taking an age with his clearing kick. There was nothing clear and obvious whatsoever and the referee really should have taken charge.”
SHUTTING OUT OF PACIFIC ISLANDS
The push to have a Pacific Island team in the 2021 Super Rugby revamp was serious. Or so we were told. New Zealand Rugby was lobbying its Sanzaar partners to make it happen.
And it sounded for a while at least as if there was genuine effort being made to make it happen. A feasibility study was paid for, there were public comments supporting a team based in Fiji and everything felt on track.
Then at the end of the year word slipped out that Sanzaar had agreed that any new team to enter Super Rugby would have to guarantee income of between US$15 millionUS$18 million a year.
And with that the Pacific dream died.
WORLD RUGBY CHASING MONEY
In October World Rugby deputy chairman Gus Pichot announced that he felt the two international test windows needed to be shaken up – for there to be more context and meaning to the calendar.
The Six Nations, Rugby Championship and World Cup were not enough he said – and too many tests were meaningless...so-called friendlies.
His plan - and most countries appear to have agreed with it - is to build some kind of competitive element into the June [July] and November test windows so they can be sold to broadcasters and sponsors for more money.
The concept is to have the top 12 teams playing in some kind of mini World Cup year with play-offs.
“We’ve always said we’d like the calendar to be better utilised in terms of value, and, so, if there is a concept we think can work, and it does increase value for everybody and ticks some other important boxes like bringing tier two countries into the mix more often, then we’re supportive of that,” said NZR chief executive Steve Tew.
“At this stage it looks like it can do that but there’s still work to do.”