9 Rugby Coverage Rubbish!!

The physical Manu Samoans defeated the Wallabies for the first time in Sydney on Sunday afternoon and showed that we still struggle for depth and have been exposed in the physical arm wrestle... traditionally the Wallabies put on a rusty first hitout each season but this was very bad.

To give you an idean when a game goes this way and you get behind in the arm wrestle and on the scoreboard it feels like you are running in mud and no matter what you do a mistake seems to put you back in the mire again... it's very hard to counter numbers in the tackle if the oppositions fitness holds up... well done Manu Samoa!!

That aside, I chose to experience the Channel Nine coverage as the new free to air network, despite access to Foxtel... that was a short experiment...

I had failed to previously notice Ken Sutcliffe's rugby pedigree and expertise [there is none] and given this George Gregan and Andrew Slack were always going to sound boring and uncomfortable... then to rub salt in, the match cut to the Fox commentary for the live action!!

Nine should have done whatever it took to get Gordon Bray back from ESPN, nevermind, too late now... Sutcliffe kept referrig to it as a 'friendly' where there's no such thing in rugby union. Perhaps the Wallaby forwards read the same press release because that's how they played. Very poor form in a World Cup trial... 3 or 4 players marked their cards yesterday afternoon, making it easier to get 40 into 32 or 28 for the tournament... lucky the Springboks are sending a B Team next week.

Lucky the Rugby World Cup in September/October is not in the northern hemisphere or those blokes would put me to sleep in the breaks!! Maybe they'll get better, I won't know!! If I'm going to listen to the Fox commentary I might as well take their pre-game and the press conference later as well!!