Super Rugby

Vodacom Super Rugby has been attracting bumper TV audiences as it reached the halfway mark at the weekend. Average viewership has increased by 15% on 2011, while viewership of South African derbies averages 685,581, making it easily the most popular sporting event on DSTV’s premium bouquet – apart from Springbok Test matches.

Continue reading

I have no idea what SANZAR thought they were doing when they appointed Bryce Lawrence to the match between the Reds and the Crusaders at the weekend. Maybe they had taken a blow too many to the head. But the officiating of this game was an accident waiting to happen.

Continue reading

Two of the most slippery and mercurial scrumhalves in Super Rugby will lock horns in Sydney on Friday.

The match-up between the Bulls’ Springbok Francois Hougaard and Sarel Pretorius, the former Cheetahs try-scoring factor who has made a new home for himself at the Waratahs this season, will be one of the highlights of the encounter.

Continue reading

VS

 

Last night, one of our Authors, Just for Kicks, mailed me regarding the spreading spat between the Pro-HSM (Highbury Safika Media) crowd and the Pro-Joffers crowd (Greame Joffe and like-minded parties), for want of defining the parties better…

… and thrust in the middle is the dillemma of involvement of the Southern Kings in Super Rugby in 2013 versus possible relegation of the worst performing South African Super Rugby franchise, the Lions, as well as SARU’s apparent woeful handling of Super Rugby participation.

The matter has now escalated to a seemingly FREE-FOR-ALL !

The contents of this Article is long and sometimes laboured, but the serious South African rugby supporter would do well to read and listen to all of it, and form his or her own opinion about the subject matter.

Continue reading

The RaboDirect Pro12 ‘dream team’ for the season 2011/2012 was announced last week. There is a fair mix of representation of players from Irish, Welsh and Scottish clubs with no Italian clubs having any players in the team.  On Sunday evening, in Cardiff, various awards for this season were handed out with the accolade for player of the season going to Edinburgh try scoring machine Tim Visser.

Continue reading

The SANZAR Duty Judicial Officer Mike Heron has accepted a guilty plea from Luke Jones of the Rebels for contravening Law 10.4 (j) Lifting a Player from the ground and either dropping or driving that Player’s head and/or upper body into the ground whilst the Player’s feet are off the ground, after he was Cited during a Super Rugby Match at the Weekend. Jones lifted Bulls player Bjorn Basson in a tackle that resulted in Basson’s neck and shoulder region contacting the ground while his legs were still in the air. Jones received aYellow Card on the field and the incident was referred to the Citing Commissioner through a White Card.

Continue reading

The Big 5 priorities have once against been summarised after ten weeks of Super Rugby, and the indication is that the shape of the game looks sound according to SANZAR Game Manager Lyndon Bray.

Maintaining the momentum around agreed scrum outcomes and keeping the time and space around the field ensures that we maintain a focus on attack.

Continue reading

Adam Byrnes, the Melbourne Rebels bearded delinquent was fined an effective AUD 7 500.00 for his verbal attacks on Tom Carter. The amount consist of a fine of AUD 5 000.00 as well as SANZAR costs of  AUD 2 500.00.

A SANZAR Misconduct Hearing for Melbourne Rebels player Adam Byrnes has been held in front of Judicial Officer Nigel Hampton QC.

Mr Hampton QC took original submissions at a hearing on 10 April and requested further written submissions from both SANZAR and Mr Byrnes.

Following consideration of these submissions, Mr Hampton QC resumed the substantive hearing on the 19 April 2012.

Today Mr Hampton QC issued his written judgements on the case in which he reported:

Continue reading

The exciting young Toyota Cheetahs flyhalf, Johan Goosen, has been ruled out of rugby for four months so he will miss the rest of the Super Rugby season, the Junior Wolrd Cup and any inclusion in the Springbok senior side for the June Tests as well as for the Castle Rugby Chamionship against New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, due to injury.

Johan Goosen freakily injured his right hand shoulder (the arm he carried the ball in) in Bloemfontein on Saturday in the unfortunate loss for the Toyota Cheetahs against the Highlanders in their Super Rugby clash, in the act of scoring a Cheetahs try. The injury appeared to be a hyper-extension of the shoulder and a possible shoulder dislocation, with no other player falling on or over that shoulder.

Continue reading

The SANZAR Duty Judicial Officer Mike Heron has accepted a guilty plea from Butch James of the Lions for contravening Law 10.4 (h) A player must not charge into a ruck or maul. Charging includes any contact made without use of the arms, or without grasping that player, after he was Cited during a Super Rugby Match at the Weekend. James charged into a ruck near the Brumbies Goal Line and made contact with Brumbies player Scott Fardy after a penalty had been blown to the Lions.

Continue reading

Users Online

Total 17 users including 0 member, 17 guests, 0 bot online

Most users ever online were 3735, on 31 August 2022 @ 6:23 pm

Archives