New Zealand Rugby
All Blacks loose forward Jerome Kaino has been named New Zealand player of the year at the Steinlager Rugby Awards.
With the international season taking a bit of a breather, I thought some informative statistics would be interesting. I am looking at the home record of the top nations, seeing when was the last time they lost a home test to each of the other nations.
I would think any nation would expect at least a 75% home win record as the minimm standard to attain. anything less would mean your home ground advantage counts for very little and travelling teams do not find it a daunting task to tour.
Carlos Spencer: Armed and Dangerous!
New Zealand rugby legend, Carlos Spencer has revealed that he has no immediate plans to return to his home town of Auckland in New Zealand.
The Wider Training Groups for the Blues, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Crusaders and Highlanders Super Rugby squads have been confirmed for the 2012 season.
The names are in the hat, with Steve Hansen set to be handed an early Christmas present when the New Zealand Rugby Union confirms him as the new All Blacks coach in a matter of weeks.
All Blacks and Crusaders captain Richie McCaw has undergone surgery on the injured foot that hampered him during the Rugby World Cup and has begun a rehabilitation which takes him out of the start of next season’s Super 15 Rugby tournament.
Sonny Bill Williams has withdrawn from the Baa-Baas and is replaced by Richard Kahui.
Drew Mitchel is injured again and expected to miss the opening Rounds of Super Rugby.
Conrad Smith is named as Hurricanes Captain for 2012.
Derick Hougaard could be back at the Bulls.
Bolla Conradie, Elgar Watts & Clemen Lewis, all from Boland, as well as Burton Francis are included in Stormers plans for 2012.
Graham Henry rules out England coaching job.
The Springboks will return to Soweto for the final home Test of 2012 when they take on newly-crowned world champions New Zealand in the final encounter of the new Rugby Championship which replaced the Tri-Nations.
Fresh allegations from a drunken binge by All Blacks World Cup winger Zac Guildford have emerged involving a triathlete in the Cook Islands.
All Blacks Rugby World Cup winning winger Zac Guildford has been accused of staggering naked, drunk and bleeding into a bar where he allegedly assaulted two people.
SANZAR have announced the ten-man Merit Panel of referees for the 2012 Super Rugby competition with South Africans making up half of the positions.
The Springboks will kick-off the new format competition against the Pumas when the all-new “The Castle Rugby Championship” launches in 2012 – the replacement for the Tri-Nations series, SANZAR announced on Tuesday.
An agreement confirming Argentina’s participation was signed in Auckland recently by the SANZAR Joint Venture partners after several months of negotiations with the Unión Argentina de Rugby (UAR) and the International Rugby Board (IRB).
Crusaders CEO Hamish Riach has announced that Rugby League Park in Christchurch will be the new Super Rugby home for the Crusaders.
AUSTRALIA will defend their southern hemisphere title next year in an expanded competition called The Rugby Championship – and will meet new boys Argentina on the Gold Coast.
The Crusaders and Melbourne Rebels will play a pre-season Super Rugby match in Singapore in order to take advantage of the growing Asian market.
World Cup-winning All Black coach Graham Henry’s vast reservoir of knowledge should be retained for the exclusive use of New Zealand teams.
The appearance of the World Cup-winning All Black team in Soweto and the process to appoint a new Springbok coach appear to be the main bullet points on the agenda this week.
The Crusaders star All Black duo of Richie McCaw and Dan Carter are expected to miss the opening rounds of the 2012 Super Rugby season.
The New Zealand Super Rugby squads have been announced for 2012.
Rugby World Cup winning All Blacks coach Graham Henry has ended his career as New Zealand Rugby coach after 103 All Black tests over the last eight years.
All Blacks captain Richie McCaw has been nominated for a royal honour, and possibly a knighthood, just days after leading the team to victory in the Rugby World Cup.
Lock Jason Eaton has become the latest player to recommit to the Hurricanes for 2012, which will be his seventh season with the franchise.
All Blacks midfield back Sonny Bill Williams will play Super Rugby for the Chiefs in 2012 after he signed a one year extension to his contract with the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU).
New Zealand media have accused a French player of head-butting and eye gouging All Black captain Richie McCaw in the Rugby World Cup final.
The New Zealand Rugby Union is already inviting applications for All Blacks coach, though Rugby World Cup-winning head coach Graham Henry remains tight-lipped about his future.
All Blacks manager Darren Shand says the French rugby team should not have been fined for confronting New Zealand’s Maori haka or ceremonial challenge in the tense moments before kick-off in Sunday’s Rugby World Cup final.
Hundreds of thousands of jubilant New Zealanders packed central Auckland for the All Blacks victory parade on Monday, celebrating their “ultimate achievement” in winning the Rugby World Cup.
So the world cup is over, and what have we learnt?There were some controversial issues, some very close matches and some really angry fans.
The concept of the X-factor actually comes from racehorses, specifically from a horse called Eclipse. An extremely large heart is a trait that occasionally occurs in Thoroughbreds, linked to a genetic condition passed down via the dam line, known as the “x-factor”.
Eclipse, the horse, was necropsied after his death in 1789. Because Eclipse’s heart appeared to be much larger than other horses, it was weighed, and found to be 14 pounds (6.4 kg), almost twice the normal weight. Eclipse is believed to have passed the trait on via his daughters, and pedigree research verified that arguably the best racehorse ever, namely Secretariat can trace in his dam line to a daughter of Eclipse.
In the 20th century, the heart of Phar Lap was weighed and also documented to be 6.35 kilograms (14.0 lb), or essentially the same size as that of Eclipse.
Now you might ask what this has got to do with the All Blacks and the Rugby World Cup final.
New Zealand coach Graham Henry on Friday named his team to play New Zealand in their Rugby World Cup 2011 Final against France at Eden Park, Auckland on Sunday 23 October at 10:00 SA Time, 21:00 NZ Time.
I still just can’t get over that quarter final loss.
The more I think about it the more I feel we were robbed. Yes, the referee was bad and wrong and yes we contributed to our demise with how we approached the game and by the appointment of a puppet as Springbok coach 4 years ago. However, all of that (poor referee, game plan, coach selection) and the Pool construction process at this year’s Rugby World Cup is part of an insidious virus, in my opinion, which is destroying Rugby Union as we know it. It is this virus which orchestrated our demise in the Rugby World Cup quarter final match against Australia.
Licences to operate New Zealand’s five Super Rugby franchises could be put on the market by the end of this year but they will only be on offer to New Zealand teams.