Aussie sevens women reach World Cup final

Unfortunately the commentator, in true Aussie tradition, ala Ricky Stuart, immediately started whining at the end and bagging 3 INTERNATIONAL REFS who’d reached a collective conclusion.

From that moment I was happy they lost.

Grow up Australian Rugby.

You sound like the US Democrats.

At both Super Rugby and test rugby, champion teams have packs which can scrum for penalties for an easy exit in their own end and can scrum for penalties or kicks into the corner to set up a maul for tries.

There are no outstanding scrummaging props in Australia. Props are selected for their ball running, props are heralded for their ball running, and their scrummaging is neglected.

Same for hookers to a lesser extend.

Their second row has also been mediocre. There are no world class locks in Australia that are all held in the same esteem as Etzebeth, Symens, Retallick, Itoje, or Beirne. Skeleton is dominant for no more than 30-40 minutes at test level before his tank is empty.

The Springboks and All Blacks will scrum the Wallabies off the park in the Rugby Championship.

And unceremoniously decimate the North everywhere.

I think there’s a fine line between too much rugby and chasing the money. I think we’ve passed it.

Are the Lions relevant anymore?

Having said that - If you held a gun to my head - I wouldn’t mind seeing Fiji, Japan or even France winning a World Cup.

But none of the rest.

As to Smith vs Smith, all you can say is that one of them became a Test Lion on this tour, and one of them didn’t.

The question to be answered in the autumn is whether M Smith was played at 15 because Borthwick wanted a truly creative 15 and without Furbank Smith was the best option, or whether F Smith is genuinely the preferred fly half.

What is notable is that for both England and the Lions Marcus has created tries even when playing 15. Both the first and last tries against France were a direct result of the defence tracking him even when he didn’t have the ball, and he played a key role in tries scored against Argentina (his run ahead of Beirne’s try took out 4 defenders in the ruck and put another two on the wrong sides of the defence, creating the space that Tadhg went through) and in the other warm up games where he was on the pitch for long enough to make a difference.