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[2019 Super Rugby] Round 15 (24 & 25 May 2019)

TL: DR Kearns is saying silly things and the Jaguares strong performance is good for international rugby.

Yea, it's pretty poor form in my opinion by Kearns. The whole idea of bringing the Jaguares into Super Rugby (in my view) was firstly, new market revenues, and secondly and the more important point for me, to provide Argentina with a high quality tournament for them to develop their talent which they haven't had in the past. A strong Argentina is very important for the growth of the game and for the sport's growth in South America. With players heading into Europe, it was key that they had something to keep their players together for a certain period of time and instill a culture or way of playing nationally and ensure that the next generation of players remained high quality. For example, SA has a lot of players going overseas, but the ones that come back to play for the Boks generally slot in quite well.

One thing that sticks out in my memory was the post-match interview of the 3/4th place World Cup match (Argentina beat France). In the post match-interview, the French captain made a point to say the following (the interviewer basically ended the interview and he specifically wanted to make this point):
"Just one thing, I just want to say to the Pumas they have to enjoy this win, it was a massive performance for them from the World Cup, I'm not sure they have such a generation for the future and I'll tell you from the French point of view, we will prepare for the next France Argentina (game)"

I wasn't a fan of that comment (clearly it stuck in my head for over 12 years), but the point was clear. We have a good structure to develop future talent and be strong moving forward, you don't. It was a special generation and prior to that Argentina had at best made it to the quarter finals. There was an expectation from some that this was it and they would become an easy win for others again. For the past nine years they have played NZ, Aus and SA multiple times a year which has definitely strengthened them. As a South African I am incredibly wary of any Springbok/Stormers away match to Argentina. Instead of disappearing, they have remained a quality force in World Rugby and are a real threat to any team in this year's World Cup. Sure, outside the Rugby Championship last year the results weren't great, but most games were fairly close and they are always in the game.

We don't want to be in cricket's position where a World Cup is only ten teams, with maybe 6 being viable winners. If we want to keep the game competitive we need to develop additional nations. Argentina was a quick win in that regard.

Reference for interview: Around the 2h02m20s mark.
 
Australians just want to watch the world burn.

I'm happy the Jaguares are doing well, that was the point was it not? Their success now shows that SANZAARs move paid off. The Australians are always complaining, every time some South African journalists write a story on the possibility of South African teams moving north you would see hundreds of Australians on all kinds of forums saying yea the South Africans should go! they just want NZ while SA/ARG can **** off for all they care. Well, id love to oblige them, wish we could just play NZ.

The Australian rugby fans seem very pessimistic about everything SANZAAR from what I can gather online, they show no loyalty or respect to their SH parters with such a long history.
 
But there is a point to be made though. The Jaguares are basically the Pumas going to the World Cup with the 5 added players from Europe. So of all the teams, they will have the most cohesion at the World Cup because all of them except 5 played together. Sure it's different to the Jaguares setup and there are different coaches etc. But you can't overlook what Kearns is saying, albeit in a prickish typical Aussie kind of way.

The Jaguares and the Sunwolves are not provincial teams like the other teams representing a region of a country, The Jaguares are representing all the regions of Argentina. But the only way to stop this from happening is to let Argentina have another team or 2 or 3. And let the players for the national squad be divided between the teams. And we all know that's not happening, so SARU has to take it on the chin as to what the team is consisting of.
 
TRF_heineken said:
But there is a point to be made though. The Jaguares are basically the Pumas going to the World Cup with the 5 added players from Europe. So of all the teams, they will have the most cohesion at the World Cup because all of them except 5 played together. Sure it's different to the Jaguares setup and there are different coaches etc. But you can't overlook what Kearns is saying, albeit in a prickish typical Aussie kind of way.

The Jaguares and the Sunwolves are not provincial teams like the other teams representing a region of a country, The Jaguares are representing all the regions of Argentina. But the only way to stop this from happening is to let Argentina have another team or 2 or 3. And let the players for the national squad be divided between the teams. And we all know that's not happening, so SARU has to take it on the chin as to what the team is consisting of.
Click to expand...
disagree it's the national team cos thre''s no other option. if they open the selection I'm sure more Europeans will take part. but all players would leave. at least 6 key players have left allready. and 3 more are leaving this year. next season there will be a second pro team playing with an American pro comp.
what angers me the most is that everyone was wandering if we where good enough. now we started wining despite having the worst schedule of the comp and everyone is whinning. also remember we have only amateur comp in Argentina! !! no curry cup for example.
 
TRF_heineken said:
But there is a point to be made though. The Jaguares are basically the Pumas going to the World Cup with the 5 added players from Europe. So of all the teams, they will have the most cohesion at the World Cup because all of them except 5 played together. Sure it's different to the Jaguares setup and there are different coaches etc. But you can't overlook what Kearns is saying, albeit in a prickish typical Aussie kind of way.

The Jaguares and the Sunwolves are not provincial teams like the other teams representing a region of a country, The Jaguares are representing all the regions of Argentina. But the only way to stop this from happening is to let Argentina have another team or 2 or 3. And let the players for the national squad be divided between the teams. And we all know that's not happening, so SARU has to take it on the chin as to what the team is consisting of.
Click to expand...

But its fine if they are a national team playing Super rugby, it improves the quality of the competition.

We all knew it would only be a matter of time before a team such as the Jags playing together for a long time would become very competitive, i have written about this on this forum for years now. The idea was long term success and its working to a degree now and i hope it pays of for them in the world cup. My dream is an all SH Semi finals again to show those poaching Europeans whats the difference between rugby talent and money.

And lets not forget that with all due respect Argentina is not a traditional rugby country or powerhouse for that matter, if they were divided up then they would not have been able to be as competitive as NZ, SA and AUS because lets be honest between those three they have won 7 out of the 8 world cups to date, to expect a new rugby nation such as Arentina to compete with those nations in one of the tougest club rugby comps in the world without any kind of advantage or support system to get them competitive. They would be like two or three sunwolves teams being demolished every week if they divided up. It would take something special and that something special is the Jagaures consisting of basically the Argintinean national team.

Let them slowly build this up and in 5 or so years when the traditions has been established in their mainstream schools and in the hearts of the public to go and support them en masse then we can start talking about adding another ARG franchise. And then they all might actually be competitive. Until then lets hope the Jaguares builds a strong rugby culture in Argentina
 
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unrated said:
Australians just want to watch the world burn.

I'm happy the Jaguares are doing well, that was the point was it not? Their success now shows that SANZAARs move paid off. The Australians are always complaining, every time some South African journalists write a story on the possibility of South African teams moving north you would see hundreds of Australians on all kinds of forums saying yea the South Africans should go! they just want NZ while SA/ARG can **** off for all they care. Well, id love to oblige them, wish we could just play NZ.

The Australian rugby fans seem very pessimistic about everything SANZAAR from what I can gather online, they show no loyalty or respect to their SH parters with such a long history.
Click to expand...
Why? What is their rationale for wanting to play only nz?
 
petite said:
disagree it's the national team cos thre''s no other option. if they open the selection I'm sure more Europeans will take part. but all players would leave. at least 6 key players have left allready. and 3 more are leaving this year. next season there will be a second pro team playing with an American pro comp.
what angers me the most is that everyone was wandering if we where good enough. now we started wining despite having the worst schedule of the comp and everyone is whinning. also remember we have only amateur comp in Argentina! !! no curry cup for example.
Click to expand...
Hey with that generalising. I thought the Jaguares would do better. And most people aren't whining that they are doing well.
 
Non sense, we have one team for everything. That mitigates any advantange. Players are drained after SR+RC.

Also we dont have replacements for key positions since the pool of players is small and Rugby is not and will never be a major sport here. Even if Sanzaar gives us another team in SR we dont have the players to field it.
 
I wonder where were all those critics in round 7, when the jaguares were 14th (out of 15).
Again, not round 1 or 2. Round 7, we were second to last. And it's not as if we were there because of a front heavy schedule. Quite the contrary. By round 7 (6 games, one bye) we had lost to the lions and stormers (worst RSA teams this year) and the chiefs (worst NZ team this year).

But hey, why let facts ruin a cute conspiracy theory, right?
 
Cruz_del_Sur said:
By round 7 (6 games, one bye) we had lost to the lions and stormers (worst RSA teams this year)
Click to expand...

Not commenting on the critics part because my view is in detail above and I believe the critics have largely poor arguments.

TL: DR I don't think there is an SA "worst team" at this stage given the matches they have currently played and the fixtures they have ahead of them as well as how tight their log points are.

But there are currently 3 points between all SA teams, with the top team and the worst team having the same WLD outcomes. I wouldn't really say the Stormers are the worst. For fun though, here's my view of how the SA teams will end up at the end of the season given remaining games:
Sharks: win (Canes home) lose bonus (Jaguares away) lose bonus (Stormers away) 2 bonus points gained
Bulls: Lose (Blues away) lose bonus (Highlanders away) win (Lions home) one bonus point gained
Lions: Win (Stormers home) lose (Hurricanes home) lose bonus (Bulls away) one bonus point gained
Stormers: Lose bonus (Lions away) win bonus (Sunwolves home) win (Sharks home) 2 bonus points gained

That would give the following table:
Stormers 40
Sharks 39
Bulls 37
Lions 35

There is a high chance the Sharks could also lose to the Hurricanes, but feel that there is also a high chance they could beat the Stormers.

I think the Bulls are done at this stage unless Pollard recovers, there is also the chance they could lose to the Lions at home.

All of the remaining Lions games I believe they are likely to lose, but giving them home advantage against the Stormers.

Stormers could take the win against the Lions, but also the Sharks and Stormers/WP have a habit of winning their away games against each other.

Edit: @smartcooky , noticed the Lions have some incorrect stats on the table. Should be played 13 and lost 6.
 
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TRF_heineken said:
But there is a point to be made though. The Jaguares are basically the Pumas going to the World Cup with the 5 added players from Europe. So of all the teams, they will have the most cohesion at the World Cup because all of them except 5 played together. Sure it's different to the Jaguares setup and there are different coaches etc. But you can't overlook what Kearns is saying, albeit in a prickish typical Aussie kind of way.

The Jaguares and the Sunwolves are not provincial teams like the other teams representing a region of a country, The Jaguares are representing all the regions of Argentina. But the only way to stop this from happening is to let Argentina have another team or 2 or 3. And let the players for the national squad be divided between the teams. And we all know that's not happening, so SARU has to take it on the chin as to what the team is consisting of.
Click to expand...

Jags and Sunwolves are very different situations, they have just as many foreign layers as Japanese

no one can rationally say they have an unfair advantage now when a couple of years ago some people were saying the jags and the sunwolves had lowered the standard of the comp, my biggest concern is should this be an example for what might have happened with the sunwolves? given more time?

smartcooky said:
Phil Kearns is an ignorant jackass, and almost no-one takes any notice of him

Thing One: This is partly sour grapes because his precious Waratahs got an ass whooping from the Jaguares on Saturday, for the third year in a row,

Thing Two: You have to remember that Kearns comes from the "Australian" standpoint. They actually want the South African teams out of the competition too, and think that "Super Rugby" should be an all Australasian Competition. They want a competition involving five NZ teams and five Aussie team to play a home away round robin with top four playoffs. Such a competition would hardly ever see an Aussie team in the playoffs. They would need to have a protected position like they do now.

Thing Three: Kearns (and people who think like him) are dumb-fucks. They are too stupid to realise that such a competition would be very, very bad for Australian rugby. For starters, where would the money come from? South Africa fronts with the bulk of the money for Super Rugby. - The ARL is all but flat broke.

Thing Four: If the South Africans ever left, we'd be fine, but the Aussies would be screwed. Our NPC would be strengthened with the inclusion of All Blacks. We'd move it into the Super Rugby season slot, and make it a full 14 team round-robin. It would once again become New Zealand's Premier Rugby competition. The Aussies don't have that yet, the NRC hasn't been around long enough to be elevated.

My dear old dad had a saying (some of the English old-timers on the forum will probably know this one)... Phil Kearns is "more full of **** and wind than a barber's cat"
Click to expand...

love the fact this was a comment about the Jags and three of your four points are about how bad an idea it would be to loose the RSA teams
 
Oh, this is absolute bul...
you just read the article:

"Sitting two games clear on top of Super Rugby's South African conference with the third best record in all of Super Rugby, it has never been clearer that SANZAAR created a monster when it included the Jaguares into a supposed provincial rugby competitions."

They created A MONSTER. I mean, they had been absolutely irrelevant for 100 years, we invited them into our tournament and let them play with us, we accepted that they only had a handful of world class level players, and then they dare use those players we allowed them to have in the team to win games and show how poorly managed australian rugby has been for the last decade? Dare I say that we have created a FRANKENSTEIN and now these sneaky argentinians will conquer super rugby and force australians out? Will the tahs ever have a chance against the pumas in lamb's fur? Same thing they did with Hitler let me tell you. There's only a 16 hour flight from buenos aires to Sidney and these guys are looking for their own vital space.

"Argentina had 13 capped Pumas in their run-on side against the Tahs — it's getting easier and easier to work out why the NSW side has never beaten the Jaguares."

What they're not saying here is the implicit idea that the Tahs were always better as a side than the Pumas, so the idea that Jaguares was going to consistently win against the tahs and the brumbies and the rebels never actually came up as a possibilty... again, how dare these pumaguares play better than we expected them to be? I mean, australia won almost three world cups in a row 20 years ago. Why isn't that the state of things anymore? damn it evolution.

The truth is that Jaguares was and still is at a disadvantge: they had to create a structure from 0 with the goodwill of the players to refuse more money from europe to stay in Argentina and build this thing. With 0 experience from players and staff they had to build up and lose year after year with fans, press and their own families (yeah, they didn't take that fancy european money and the wives probably figured out they were loosing it to be defeated all the time); enduring all these realities plus the crazy travelling for less money than they could have had. Then the technical aspect of the thing: they had to learn how to play professional in a southern hemisphere way, to compete against all blacks and wallabies and springbocks every week and all that came with it: argentinian rugby changed radically in 10 years, absolutely every aspect of the game came to have a new form for them, including the basis of the pumas/ jaguares/ pumaguares which includes junior players and the junior world cup, an aspect most of foreigners never get to see.
In other words, Argentina has had to change everything in 12 years to become a proper tier 1 team. And now what they need to do is stretch that structure, which is almost brand new, and come with another team to sort out the players so they don't have an unfair advantage in the competition.
What they're not saying is that having pumas and jaguares/ pumaguares also brought two years and a half of negative results for Pumas.

It seems to me that this is a good way to cover for the poor performance of australian rugby as of late.
And I still consider Australia better than Argentina at every aspect of the game.
 
Horacito said:
Oh, this is absolute bul...
you just read the article:

"Sitting two games clear on top of Super Rugby's South African conference with the third best record in all of Super Rugby, it has never been clearer that SANZAAR created a monster when it included the Jaguares into a supposed provincial rugby competitions."

They created A MONSTER. I mean, they had been absolutely irrelevant for 100 years, we invited them into our tournament and let them play with us, we accepted that they only had a handful of world class level players, and then they dare use those players we allowed them to have in the team to win games and show how poorly managed australian rugby has been for the last decade? Dare I say that we have created a FRANKENSTEIN and now these sneaky argentinians will conquer super rugby and force australians out? Will the tahs ever have a chance against the pumas in lamb's fur? Same thing they did with Hitler let me tell you. There's only a 16 hour flight from buenos aires to Sidney and these guys are looking for their own vital space.

"Argentina had 13 capped Pumas in their run-on side against the Tahs — it's getting easier and easier to work out why the NSW side has never beaten the Jaguares."

What they're not saying here is the implicit idea that the Tahs were always better as a side than the Pumas, so the idea that Jaguares was going to consistently win against the tahs and the brumbies and the rebels never actually came up as a possibilty... again, how dare these pumaguares play better than we expected them to be? I mean, australia won almost three world cups in a row 20 years ago. Why isn't that the state of things anymore? damn it evolution.

The truth is that Jaguares was and still is at a disadvantge: they had to create a structure from 0 with the goodwill of the players to refuse more money from europe to stay in Argentina and build this thing. With 0 experience from players and staff they had to build up and lose year after year with fans, press and their own families (yeah, they didn't take that fancy european money and the wives probably figured out they were loosing it to be defeated all the time); enduring all these realities plus the crazy travelling for less money than they could have had. Then the technical aspect of the thing: they had to learn how to play professional in a southern hemisphere way, to compete against all blacks and wallabies and springbocks every week and all that came with it: argentinian rugby changed radically in 10 years, absolutely every aspect of the game came to have a new form for them, including the basis of the pumas/ jaguares/ pumaguares which includes junior players and the junior world cup, an aspect most of foreigners never get to see.
In other words, Argentina has had to change everything in 12 years to become a proper tier 1 team. And now what they need to do is stretch that structure, which is almost brand new, and come with another team to sort out the players so they don't have an unfair advantage in the competition.
What they're not saying is that having pumas and jaguares/ pumaguares also brought two years and a half of negative results for Pumas.

It seems to me that this is a good way to cover for the poor performance of australian rugby as of late.
And I still consider Australia better than Argentina at every aspect of the game.
Click to expand...

two things

1. how many Wallabies were in the Tahs? id assume more than a couple
2. how many times have the met? cant be more than once or twice so although true hardly a reliable sample size for the claim..."never beaten"
 
Horacito said:
Oh, this is absolute bul...
you just read the article:

"Sitting two games clear on top of Super Rugby's South African conference with the third best record in all of Super Rugby, it has never been clearer that SANZAAR created a monster when it included the Jaguares into a supposed provincial rugby competitions."

They created A MONSTER. I mean, they had been absolutely irrelevant for 100 years, we invited them into our tournament and let them play with us, we accepted that they only had a handful of world class level players, and then they dare use those players we allowed them to have in the team to win games and show how poorly managed australian rugby has been for the last decade? Dare I say that we have created a FRANKENSTEIN and now these sneaky argentinians will conquer super rugby and force australians out? Will the tahs ever have a chance against the pumas in lamb's fur? Same thing they did with Hitler let me tell you. There's only a 16 hour flight from buenos aires to Sidney and these guys are looking for their own vital space.

"Argentina had 13 capped Pumas in their run-on side against the Tahs — it's getting easier and easier to work out why the NSW side has never beaten the Jaguares."

What they're not saying here is the implicit idea that the Tahs were always better as a side than the Pumas, so the idea that Jaguares was going to consistently win against the tahs and the brumbies and the rebels never actually came up as a possibilty... again, how dare these pumaguares play better than we expected them to be? I mean, australia won almost three world cups in a row 20 years ago. Why isn't that the state of things anymore? damn it evolution.

The truth is that Jaguares was and still is at a disadvantge: they had to create a structure from 0 with the goodwill of the players to refuse more money from europe to stay in Argentina and build this thing. With 0 experience from players and staff they had to build up and lose year after year with fans, press and their own families (yeah, they didn't take that fancy european money and the wives probably figured out they were loosing it to be defeated all the time); enduring all these realities plus the crazy travelling for less money than they could have had. Then the technical aspect of the thing: they had to learn how to play professional in a southern hemisphere way, to compete against all blacks and wallabies and springbocks every week and all that came with it: argentinian rugby changed radically in 10 years, absolutely every aspect of the game came to have a new form for them, including the basis of the pumas/ jaguares/ pumaguares which includes junior players and the junior world cup, an aspect most of foreigners never get to see.
In other words, Argentina has had to change everything in 12 years to become a proper tier 1 team. And now what they need to do is stretch that structure, which is almost brand new, and come with another team to sort out the players so they don't have an unfair advantage in the competition.
What they're not saying is that having pumas and jaguares/ pumaguares also brought two years and a half of negative results for Pumas.

It seems to me that this is a good way to cover for the poor performance of australian rugby as of late.
And I still consider Australia better than Argentina at every aspect of the game.
Click to expand...

Horacito, I give you 9 out of 10 for this post. If your command of the English language was better I think I would even give you a 10.

(no insult intended, I'm just kidding...... but not about the 10!)
 
Jabby said:
Jags and Sunwolves are very different situations, they have just as many foreign layers as Japanese

no one can rationally say they have an unfair advantage now when a couple of years ago some people were saying the jags and the sunwolves had lowered the standard of the comp, my biggest concern is should this be an example for what might have happened with the sunwolves? given more time?



love the fact this was a comment about the Jags and three of your four points are about how bad an idea it would be to loose the RSA teams
Click to expand...

You can't talk about whinging Australian rugby pundits without the topic of their ill-will towards South Africans in Super Rugby coming up. Their whole schtick on the Jaguares comes from a place of wishing that only New Zealand and Australia was involved.

The NZ Rugby (then the NZRFU) went out on a limb to save Australian rugby once before. I have no desire to see them risk doing it again.
 

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