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Thorn envious of Vunivalu’s transition after Reds push Blues

Brad Thorn is optimistic Suliasi Vunivalu’s latest injury setback is only minor, joking that he’s “quite annoyed” with how well the Queensland Reds winger has taken to his new football code. Vunivalu hobbled off with a hamstring injury in the second-half of Friday’s 31-24 loss to the Blues ahead of next week’s final round against the Hurricanes in Wellington. More Rugby Thorn envious of Vunivalu's transition after Reds push Blues Crusaders hit snag in close win over Force The Lions' game plan to stun the Springboks and what to expect from Saturday's squad announcement Queensland Reds vs Blues: Super Rugby Trans-Tasman live scores Crusaders vs Western Force: Super Rugby Trans-Tasman live scores Rugby The Wallabies will play three Tests agai...
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Is rugby really a classist and elitist sport?

The recent floggings of Australian Super Rugby teams by the polished New Zealand outfits re-invites the perennial idea that rugby union is not popular enough in Australia to compete with league, AFL and cricket. Whilst there are plenty of enthusiastic rugger-loving Australians as documented on The Roar , the same national pride and interest about the Wallabies in comparison to the baggy green, league derbies and AFL is nowhere near as passionate since 2003. Given how proud and competitive Australia is as a leading sporting nation, after cricket, rugby union is the second sport Australians can boast and look forward to competing with other rival nations such as NZ, England and South Africa. This surely should be an incentive for more citizens to be interested in an international game. The perceived lack of interest comes from a number of factors, but perhaps socio-economic and schooling are the most glaring of issues. England and Australia share some similarity in the fact that rugby ...
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Super Rugby tipping panel Week 16: Try stopping the frontrunning Hairy Man

I don’t know if you’ve all noticed this out there in tipping land, but we’re currently in the presence of greatness. You see, all very quietly on the far left-hand side of the panel sits a hirsute South African-American. You know him as the Roarer with beautiful prose, of engaging long reads about Springbok passion and with a borderline inappropriate man-crush on Pieter-Steph du Toit. We just know him as the rotten sod who just can’t stop being right about rugby. More Rugby Super Rugby tipping panel Week 16: Try stopping the frontrunning Hairy Man Super Rugby Trans-Tasman Round 4 teams: No Fraser McReight as Reds name squad for Blues clash Why there are more Townsville twists and turns to come for the Reds in Super Rugby Trans-Tasman Has rugby lost its way again? The Brumbies have a perception issue only the...
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Why there are more Townsville twists and turns to come for the Reds in Super Rugby Trans-Tasman

The immediate post-match interview with a soccer manager in the UK is a hot-house of sporting cliches. In an exciting game, there is “a lot of end-to-end stuff”, if a player has a bad patch he expects “the hair-dryer treatment” after the game. A surprising loss is framed as “there are no easy games at this level”, while an unexpected shift in momentum translates to “it was a game of two halves”. They even speak in a curious present tense about a past which can no longer be changed – “he’s hit it with his left foot and it’s curled into the top corner”. It is as if they are still reliving the game in an endless, purgatorial loop. As the comedian Michael McIntyre once pointed out, everything happens to football managers “at the end of the day” – even if it happened first thing in the morning. Whenever you hear the interviewee slip into soccer vernacular, it is the time to switch off. You can kiss any further value to the commentary goodbye after that. An entirely genuine game of two h...
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