[2017 Super Rugby] Round 9: Waratahs vs. Kings (21/04/2017)

[TRF_heineken]

Venue: Allianz Stadium
Time: 11:45 CAT (SA, GMT+2)​

Teams

Waratahs: 15 Israel Folau, 14 Taqele Naiyaravoro, 13 Rob Horne, 12 David Horwitz, 11 Cam Clark, 10 Bernard Foley, 9 Jake Gordon, 8 Michael Wells, 7 Michael Hooper, 6 Ned Hanigan, 5 Will Skelton, 4 David McDuling, 3 Tom Robertson, 2 Tolu Latu, 1 Paddy Ryan

Substitutes:16. Hugh Roach, 17. Angus Ta'avao, 18. David Lolohea, 19. Dean Mumm, 20. Jed Holloway, 21. Nick Phipps, 22. Bryce Hegarty, 23. Harry Jones

Kings: 15 Masixole Banda, 14 Wandile Mjekevu, 13 Berton Klaasen, 12 Luzuko Vulindlu, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Lionel Cronje (captain), 9 Louis Schreuder, 8 Andisa Ntsila, 7 Tyler Paul, 6 Chris Cloete, 5 Wilhelm van der Sluys, 4 Irne Herbst, 3 Ross Geldenhuys, 2 Michael Willemse, 1 Justin Forwood

Substitutes:16 Kurt Haupt, 17 Schalk van der Merwe, 18 Dayan van der Westhuizen, 19 Mzwanele Zito, 20 Ruaan Lerm/Martin Bezuidenhout, 21 Johan Steyn, 22 Stokkies Hanekom, 23 Pieter-Steyn de Wet

 

[galumay]

A game the Tahs should easily win, the Kings looked tired last week and havent toured well. Foley will help, but the Tah's are turning into the skippy version of the Bloos of past years - look great on paper, play crap on the field. There is plenty for them to play for, a totally unwarranted place in the finals is up for grabs in the Aus conference and all sides have been so poor that its still anyones for the taking.

Given that the Ponies, Rebs and Farce are all likely to lose this weekend, a win by the Tahs would see them move up the slippery log.

 

[Caitlyn Jenner]

Folau is the captain of my fantasy team so they better bloody play well!

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

I think the Kings have been alright on this tour. They are scoring for fun. I don't predict an upset here but I'd be surprised if they scored less than 20points.

 

[Caitlyn Jenner]

What a buzz kill this game has turned out to be after the last one... just such crap execution from both teams, it's like watching kids play compared to the Canes / Brumbies game. Especially disappointing to see the Tahs playing like this because they have a lot of potential on paper..

 

[smartcooky]

Kings win, Kings win, oh my God, Kings win!

Can Australian Super Rugby sink any lower?

 

[SomeOke]

What a woeful game. At least the Kings win, upsetting people's Superbru's everywhere.

The Tahs are just terrible.

 

[Gena_ZA]

The Tahs should have variety in players, I just saw 15 Ray White's, all terrible

 

[TRF_heineken]

Wow what a comeback! 17-0 down and then winning the game! Waratahs scrum was being demolished

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Real progress by the Kings this year and although I predicted them to lose I am not surprised by this. They are becoming a free scoring side. If they sharpened up defensively they'd be an asset to the league on the field. Pretty amazing given how messed up they are off the field. This won't be their last unexpected scalp of the season if the fly half Cronje stays fit.

 

[galumay]

I have held back from posting after watching this game to try to quell the emotions! Well it hasnt really worked, what an absolute rubbish game from 2 sides that simply dont deserve to be in this competition. It highlights that cutting the proposed sides in Super Rugby will have little impact. Either of those sides would have been flogged by about 50 points by any of the Kiwi sides. Truly a disgraceful exhibition. At least there were only about 7 Tahs fans at the game to see the embarrassment. The Kings fans should be thankful they were on the other side of the planet.

These sides would struggle to win a Mitre 10 Cup game, I really dont think the powers that be realise just how dire the situation is for our game, it simply wont survive what is unfolding this year in Super Rugby.

 

[Caitlyn Jenner]

I have held back from posting after watching this game to try to quell the emotions! Well it hasnt really worked, what an absolute rubbish game from 2 sides that simply dont deserve to be in this competition. It highlights that cutting the proposed sides in Super Rugby will have little impact. Either of those sides would have been flogged by about 50 points by any of the Kiwi sides. Truly a disgraceful exhibition. At least there were only about 7 Tahs fans at the game to see the embarrassment. The Kings fans should be thankful they were on the other side of the planet.

These sides would struggle to win a Mitre 10 Cup game, I really dont think the powers that be realise just how dire the situation is for our game, it simply wont survive what is unfolding this year in Super Rugby.

You're not wrong mate. A few people are praising the Kings, and I guess good on them for winning, but there was nothing positive about that game. It was disgraceful really, you wouldn't expect quality that poor in club rugby...
I do fear for the future of Aussie rugby.

 

[smartcooky]

You're not wrong mate. A few people are praising the Kings, and I guess good on them for winning, but there was nothing positive about that game. It was disgraceful really, you wouldn't expect quality that poor in club rugby...
I do fear for the future of Aussie rugby.

According to Morgan Research. Rugby union is officially the 26th most popular sport in Australia with the same number of participants as ballroom dancing.... just 55,000.

That is less than Japan (123,000), Sri Lanka (103,000), Argentina (102,000), USA (88,000), Italy (66,000) and Malaysia (60,000).

Rugby Union is crashing and burning in Australia, and that is a worry for the future of the game on this region

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

Using the number of regular participants as a measure of a sports popularity is questionable at best.

 

[galumay]

True Cruz_dle_Sur, and you can see that from the numbers for soccer compared to AFL. Also the 3 highest participation sports are Golf, Tennis and Pool/snooker/billiards according to that - very little correlation to popularity.

Regardless, if you forget the misuse of the word 'popular' in the post and consider the participation rate, its pretty obvious what a dire state the game is in, 55,000 participants to support an elite comp with 5 sides? That must be the definition of impossible!

I think some skepticism needs to be considered too, Morgan Polls are not what I would consider an authority on participation rates in sports!

Yep, some checking shows its ********. The ABS numbers show about 140,000 adults participate in Rugby Union Australia wide. Still the point is correct, participation rates are pitiful, even when you add in another 60,000 kids that play Rugby Union. So we have round 200,000 playing Rugby against 1m playing soccer and 650,000 playing AFL.

The interesting one is Rugby League, a participation rate not much higher than Union, 250,000 - but a massively more popular.

https://www.clearinghouseforsport.g...articipation/sport_participation_in_australia

 

[smartcooky]

Using the number of regular participants as a measure of a sports popularity is questionable at best.

No, you see, its actually a very good measure.

It doesn't matter how "publicly" popular a sport might be, you have to have PARTICIPANTS or you don't have a sport. You can have 80,000 crowds showing up to matches, but if you don't have enough players at the grass roots level, you cannot support an elite professional domestic competition at the top because the base of the pyramid is too narrow

Even in NZ where Rugby Union is king.... the No. 1 most "publicly" popular sport, and with all the talent raising and nurturing systems we have in place, with only 150,000 players in the player base, we could not support a professional National Provincial Championship. We tried it with the Air New Zealand Cup a few years ago (2006-2009) and we failed. In 2010, the NPC reverted to a semi professional competition with the non-All Black Super Rugby players (about 120 of them) being the only fully professional players, and the remaining 300 or so players being mostly semi-professionals on fixed retainers for the 10 week period of the competition and returning to their "day jobs" outside the season.

 

[galumay]

No, you see, its actually a very good measure.

It doesn't matter how "publicly" popular a sport might be, you have to have PARTICIPANTS or you don't have a sport.

Do you have any reasons you think its a good measure? Especially in light of the reasons given that its not a good measure? (actually its not a measure at all, they are two entirely different things.)

Your second sentence is nonsensical, clearly without participants there is no sport, but there is no obvious correlation between participants and popularity. The comparison between Rugby Union and League makes that very obvious.

 

[smartcooky]

Do you have any reasons you think its a good measure? Especially in light of the reasons given that its not a good measure? (actually its not a measure at all, they are two entirely different things.)

Your second sentence is nonsensical, clearly without participants there is no sport, but there is no obvious correlation between participants and popularity. The comparison between Rugby Union and League makes that very obvious.

It depends on what you means by "popular."

To me, a sport can be popular if the public want to play it, or be involved in it or enjoy watching it on TV, or enjoy going to games, be they test matches, or behind the sideline ropes down at the local park on any given Saturday.

But what we are talking about here is sustainability. If a country has low participation numbers, they are simply not going to be able to realistically sustain an elite level professional competition. I do not believe that Australia can sustain five fully professional teams in Super Rugby with a grass-roots base of only 55,000 players.

 

[galumay]

It depends on what you means by "popular."

To me, a sport can be popular if the public want to play it, or be involved in it or enjoy watching it on TV, or enjoy going to games, be they test matches, or behind the sideline ropes down at the local park on any given Saturday.

But what we are talking about here is sustainability. If a country has low participation numbers, they are simply not going to be able to realistically sustain an elite level professional competition. I do not believe that Australia can sustain five fully professional teams in Super Rugby with a grass-roots base of only 55,000 players.

Ok, you seem to be moving the goalposts all over the shop!

I think your final point is hard to disagree with, regardless of the popularity of a sport, sustainability at the elite professional level presumably has some direct correlation to participation - particularly in team sports. As noted the grass roots base is actually 200,000 not 55,000 - and given that the participation rate of Diet Rugby is not that much higher at 250,000, i suspect there are some other factors at play.

One of the factors is the lack of free to air coverage of Union in Australia, this impacts on popularity, therefore sponsorship and flows through to player payments and grass roots development.

I cant argue with the view that we cant support 5 franchises, but I wonder what happens if we reduce the number of franchises? I dont think that is going to lead to some magical recovery of popularity, participation or competitiveness.

Maybe the answer is to reconsider our expectations, maybe we shouldnt expect to be competitive in a comp like Super Rugby, the Rugby Championship or the World Cup? I know that sounds negative but the effect of being the 4th winter ball sport in Australia is starkly obvious.

Its not just a concern for Australian rugby, it has international impacts and we are not alone in facing these problems in the game we all love to play and watch.

It wont do NZ much good if they are number 1 in the world - and there is no number 2 or 3!
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[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Two Kings named in this team of the week.

http://www.planetrugby.com/news/team-of-the-week-super-rugby-23/