Rugby...

[KingTJ]

Best formatwpuld be to start the season with the currie cup or have it as qualifiers for the Super 15 with the best 4 teams going through to the champions league and the other 2 teams going throught to a cup league (similiar in soccer in europe) this will still get people interested in wanting to watch the game as all teams will play internatiolly and get exposure, amd people will still go watch as there is somethin at stake ...so in short you would have for example a Super 12 and a Cup 12 with teams from all over amd less repeats of playing the same local teams... i think it makes sense. Give your opinion

[Shebeen]

so this happened 20 years ago today!

 

[Shebeen]

interestingly, check how much the team changed throughout the tournament. they used 4 different centres, in four combinations in 7 matches.

 

 

 

opening game - australia

15 FB Andre Joubert 14 W James Small 13 C Japie Mulder 12 C Hennie le Roux 11 W Pieter Hendriks 10 FH Joel Stransky 9 SH Joost van der Westhuizen 1 P Os du Randt 2 H James Dalton 3 P Balie Swart 4 L Mark Andrews 5 L Hannes Strydom 6 F Francois Pienaar © 7 F Ruben Kruger 8 N8 Rudolf Straeuli     Replacements 16 P Garry Pagel 17   Johan Roux 18   Brendan Venter 19   Gavin Johnson 20   Chris Rossouw 21   Krynauw Otto

 

mainly B-team against Romania

 

Team 15 FB Gavin Johnson 14 W James Small 13 C Christiaan Scholtz 12 C Brendan Venter 11 W Pieter Hendriks 10 FH Hennie le Roux 9 SH Johan Roux 1 P Garry Pagel 2 H Chris Rossouw 3 P Marius Hurter 4 L Kobus Wiese 5 L Krynauw Otto 6 F Ruben Kruger 7 F Robbie Brink 8 N8 Adriaan Richter ©     Replacements 16 FH Joel Stransky 17   Andre Joubert 18   Joost van der Westhuizen 19   Rudolf Straeuli 20   Os du Randt 21   James Dalton

 

 

the battle of boet erasmus - ended the tournament for dalton and pieter hendricks

 

15 FB Andre Joubert 14 W Gavin Johnson 13 C Christiaan Scholtz 12 C Brendan Venter 11 W Pieter Hendriks 10 FH Joel Stransky 9 SH Johan Roux 1 P Garry Pagel 2 H James Dalton  

 

    3 P Marius Hurter 4 L Kobus Wiese 5 L Hannes Strydom 6 F Francois Pienaar © 7 F Robbie Brink 8 N8 Adriaan Richter     Replacements 16 W Joost van der Westhuizen 17 FH Hennie le Roux 18 L Krynauw Otto 19   Japie Mulder 20   Os du Randt 21  

Chris Rossouw

 

 

 

quarter final - no stransky, Gavin Johnson on the wing for his place kicking?! chester on the other wing gets his first match(not even in the match day squads before)

 

  Team 15 FB Andre Joubert 14 W Gavin Johnson 13 C Christiaan Scholtz 12 C Japie Mulder 11 W Chester Williams 10 FH Hennie le Roux 9 SH Joost van der Westhuizen 1 P Os du Randt 2 H Chris Rossouw 3 P Balie Swart 4 L Kobus Wiese 5 L Mark Andrews 6 F Francois Pienaar © 7 F Ruben Kruger 8 N8 Rudolf Straeuli     Replacements 16 W Brendan Venter 17 F Adriaan Richter 18 L Krynauw Otto 19 F Naka Drotske 20   James Small 21   Johan Roux

 

 

the semi we sneaked - mark andrews moves to #8

15 FB Andre Joubert 14 W James Small 13 C Japie Mulder 12 C Hennie le Roux 11 W Chester Williams 10 FH Joel Stransky 9 SH Joost van der Westhuizen 1 P Os du Randt 2 H Chris Rossouw 3 P Balie Swart 4 L Kobus Wiese 5 L Hannes Strydom 6 F Francois Pienaar © 7 F Ruben Kruger 8 N8 Mark Andrews     Replacements 16 SH Johan Roux 17   Gavin Johnson 18   Rudolf Straeuli 19   Christiaan Scholtz 20   Garry Pagel 21   Naka Drotske

 

 

final

 

Team 15 FB Andre Joubert 14 W James Small 13 C Japie Mulder 12 C Hennie le Roux 11 W Chester Williams 10 FH Joel Stransky 9 SH Joost van der Westhuizen 1 P Os du Randt 2 H Chris Rossouw 3 P Balie Swart 4 L Kobus Wiese 5 L Hannes Strydom 6 F Francois Pienaar © 7 F Ruben Kruger 8 N8 Mark Andrews     Replacements 16 P Garry Pagel 17 N8 Rudolf Straeuli 18 W Brendan Venter 19   Gavin Johnson 20   Naka Drotske 21   Johan Roux

[Frosty]

While I like "some" of the new rules of today, watching the game now on SS1 the rules from back then so simple, so basic and still flowing rugby.

[Frosty]

So funny the way people now feel justified in saying the seventh ranked stormers never deserved their playoff slot.waratahs are at home to the landers who had more points too. You don't have to agree with the system, but don't blame teams for taking advantage of it.

 

Ps.it is changing next year, for those who hadn't realised. Going even more convoluted

I don’t feel justified at all, but rather feel that it has highlighted how poorly the SA teams have fared in relation to the other teams. The rules are there and they deserved the home playoff having finished top of the SA conference.

 

I also wonder what effect the exodus of local players has had on each team's performance, if any. With so many players choosing to play abroad/retire that there could be a "don't give a ..." attitude.

[Mntboy]

so this happened 20 years ago today!

 

Still get excited when I remember this match. Great game, great result considering what was to come in years following this win. Still think the late Ruben Kruger scored in this game. Pity it was never given.

[Mntboy]

So funny the way people now feel justified in saying the seventh ranked stormers never deserved their playoff slot.waratahs are at home to the landers who had more points too. You don't have to agree with the system, but don't blame teams for taking advantage of it.

 

Ps.it is changing next year, for those who hadn't realised. Going even more convoluted

It was/is a stupid rule to begin with considering that conference winners also receive a trophy for it. They should have just allowed the top 6 teams to contest the play off regardless of where they're from, with the top two getting home semi finals.

 

New format will be interesting and let's leave it at that.

[Skubarra]

As a mtb'er I liked this tweet from Dan Nichol just now 

 

Dan Nicholl ‏@dannicholl  9m9 minutes ago

Young mountain bikers across the country discovered yesterday that the old guy from @AbsaCapeEpic had won a World Cup for SA... @stranners

[Skubarra]

It was/is a stupid rule to begin with considering that conference winners also receive a trophy for it. They should have just allowed the top 6 teams to contest the play off regardless of where they're from, with the top two getting home semi finals.

 

New format will be interesting and let's leave it at that.

 

The whole point of the stupid system is to have a team from each country in the play-offs, otherwise they could have just gone the normal Top 4 to semi-final route.

 

It is like Shebeen said, Stormers made the most of hand that was dealt to them - no complaints. But this whole league system where you play some teams twice, others once and others not at all will always be inherently unfair. Can only hope the next format makes more sense.

[scotty]

Comparison 95 vs 2015

 

Cape Town - It’s a difficult and pretty subjective exercise, so don’t hang me for it.

You aren’t always comparing apples with apples, and rugby has changed much more than some may think in 20 years.

But we thought it might be fun anyway, on the anniversary of the immortal Springbok World Cup success of 1995, to engineer a comparison between the possible Bok personnel to be employed on key occasions later this year and Francois Pienaar’s heroic starting XV at Ellis Park.

 

http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Springboks/Boks-of-95-v-now-Whos-better-20150624

[Skubarra]

Ps.it is changing next year, for those who hadn't realised. Going even more convoluted

 

Hope I'm mis-understanding wikipedia here

 

The fixture schedule is still to be confirmed, but each team will play at least one match against all the other teams in their conference. They will also play one round of fixtures against all the teams in the other conference in their group, as well as games against one of the two conferences in the opposite group.

 

Meaning a Saffa team would play all the other saffa teams at least once (the 2 conferences in the African group) - and then only Aussie or NZ teams not both (games against one of the conferences in the Australasian group)

 

Hands up to which you countries team you would prefer playing - Aussie or NZ teams?

 

This system seems even more screwed than the current one....

[Shebeen]

As a mtb'er I liked this tweet from Dan Nichol just now 

 

Dan Nicholl ‏@dannicholl  9m9 minutes ago

Young mountain bikers across the country discovered yesterday that the old guy from @AbsaCapeEpic had won a World Cup for SA... @stranners

i think '95 world cup bok marius hurter has done more epics. and he's a prop ferchrissakes!

[Shebeen]

Hope I'm mis-understanding wikipedia here

 

The fixture schedule is still to be confirmed, but each team will play at least one match against all the other teams in their conference. They will also play one round of fixtures against all the teams in the other conference in their group, as well as games against one of the two conferences in the opposite group.

 

Meaning a Saffa team would play all the other saffa teams at least once (the 2 conferences in the African group) - and then only Aussie or NZ teams not both (games against one of the conferences in the Australasian group)

 

Hands up to which you countries team you would prefer playing - Aussie or NZ teams?

 

This system seems even more screwed than the current one....

look it's taken a bad system and skewed it even more wonky. essentially it's a bow down to SA dominanace in SANZAR financially(as bizarre as it seems, we pay the most for the competition) here's a video that explains how F@#$$ it is.

 

[Meezo]

Comparison 95 vs 2015

 

Cape Town - It’s a difficult and pretty subjective exercise, so don’t hang me for it.

You aren’t always comparing apples with apples, and rugby has changed much more than some may think in 20 years.

But we thought it might be fun anyway, on the anniversary of the immortal Springbok World Cup success of 1995, to engineer a comparison between the possible Bok personnel to be employed on key occasions later this year and Francois Pienaar’s heroic starting XV at Ellis Park.

 

http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Springboks/Boks-of-95-v-now-Whos-better-20150624

 

 

100%, the problem is that the vast majority of SA rugby coaches still believe it hasn't!

[Steven Knoetze (sk27)]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr5NG2i-Fwg

 

That is absolutley disturbing.

So basically a few fatcat SANZAR officials(government linked I imagine) are going to screw up the whole Super series out of greed. Basically.

[Shebeen]

That is absolutley disturbing.

So basically a few fatcat SANZAR officials(government linked I imagine) are going to screw up the whole Super series out of greed. Basically.

sort of. thing is SA is the main contributer to SANZAR in terms of money. New zealand is a rugby country, but small numbers - Australia are a big country but rugby ("union" as they call it) is sport #4 in terms of following. BUT collectively they outweigh us - so it's horsetrading the whole way.

 

originally, when super rugby started in 1993 it was still amateur days. Australia only had two teams, Queensland and NSW - 90% these guys all played club rugby in sydney or brisbane. SA had three teams, depending on who did well in the currie cup the year before. we had a pacific team to keep people happy(samoa then tonga). and for some reason new zealand got 4 teams.

 

There were two pools or five, winner of each pool played in a final. (so weeks of games in total compared to the 21 we now have!). All the finals were played in south africa, I think because the competition was bankrolled.  by us - remember SABC's Topsport with Trevor Quirk etc??  

transvaal were the only SA team to play all 3, it got awkward when for instance Natal lost the final at home in 94, and didn't even qualify for 95 due to currie cup. EP also played in 94 (played 4, lost 4).

 

 

then the super 12 came after the RWC '95 and the game turning professional. They booted out the pacific team and each country got one more team. SA now got a 4th team,  Australia created a totally new team from the guys who were two crap to make the NSW or Reds team - the ACT Brumbies. for some reason new zealand now had 5(even though they had only been in one of the previous 3 finals).

 

you can scoot along a few years and work out how we got to SA and Aus getting 2 more teams and NZ staying at 5....frikken minefield!