“We are trying to strike a balance between quality of play and ticket sales, and emmigration. If we let in Argentina or Tonga, the risk of a domestic team losing a match is simply too high right now. New Zealanders will not spend $200 to watch these amateurs defeat what’s left of our national side players. On the other hand, if we send our teams to the US, most of them will probably score lucrative contracts and not return. Samoa strikes the balance: the rugby is good, but not great, and who wants to move to Samoa? Have you been to Samoa?”
This type of match demands a lot of the match officials, but it appears that today, they were not up top the challenge. It started early on when the Lions, behind 7-0, broke the line and Ugo Monye rumbled over the try line in the corner. As the grounding was questionable, the referee right called on the Television Match Official (TMO) for clarification.
We've waited until the very last minute (the official squad is announced in less than 24 hours) so that we can claim to be the final Lions predictions for the 2009 Tour. Enjoy!
If England are being more closely watched by the referees (and the fact that the Welsh were not penalized as severely as the English supports this notion) I think this is completely appropriate. The onus is then on the team to keep a good ‘reputation’ by respecting the laws.
OK, I don't usually make predictions, but is anyone else expecting Toby Flood and Benoit Baby to crash the English and French totally out of the 2009 Six Nations?
Thursday, July 9, 2009
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