Tightheads & Loose Balls

● Melbourne Rebels coach Dave Wessels laughed heartily when Tightheads asked him how it feels to be mentioned in the same breath as the Crusaders, the only other unbeaten side after three rounds in Super Rugby. “We definitely have a long way to go. That is the thing about Super Rugby, the quality of the competition. I find it very hard to believe there is a team in Europe that is going to beat the Crusaders. Unless you play New Zealand teams in New Zealand you can’t claim to be in the best competition in the world.

“Super Rugby from a speed and a skill point of view is still the premier competition in the world.”

● Wessels put his team’s turnaround down to him coaching graduates from the school of hard knocks.

“There are also a bunch of guys who haven’t had the easiest lives. As a result they are more resolute people. I had a coach at school that used to say ‘you never find a heavyweight boxing champion from a private school.’

"We don’t have a lot of private schoolboys in our team.”

● England coach Eddie Jones contemptuously showed the media what he thought of their hyperbole in describing rookie Joe Cokanasiga. The winger, who was man of the match in the rout of Italy, has been likened to Jonah Lomu but Jones dismissed it as “rubbish” before going a step further. Perhaps to stress the point, Jones left the 21-year-old out of the squad for the clash against Scotland. It certainly wasn’t the first time Jones burst a media bubble.

● "I used to have a technical guy that did the defence. I did everything else," reminisced Bulls director of rugby Alan Zondagh about the era in which he coached. "Things have changed a lot. Now they have a coach that helps you spit over distance, a tattoo artist, and a bloke who gels hair before the team runs out.”