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I should have put rugby on the backburner - Aaron Smith opens up on airport incident
By Harry West
Aaron Smith believes rugby should have taken a back seat as he attempted to patch things up with his family following his off-field indiscretion last year.
In September, the New Zealand scrum-half was pictured entering a disabled toilet at Christchurch Airport with a female who was not his partner.
Smith was subsequently suspended by the All Blacks for "breaching team standards" before making a tearful public apology.
Ahead of his 100th Super Rugby appearance on Friday, the Highlanders number nine concedes it was a difficult period for him and his family.
"It was a huge mistake by me, obviously," he said. "The way it hurt my family and my partner, and then myself obviously, it was just a really tough time.
"I probably should have put rugby on the backburner then and focused on myself and my family.
"But we're past that and I've learnt a lot from it - I think a lot of positives have come from that incident for me personally, on field and off field.
"I fixed a lot of things mentally off the field and that cleared me up to train really hard in the off-season.
"I'm in a really good place right now and I'm just loving how I am on the field and off the field, and how life is."
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There is nothing particularly significant about Ireland in this regard compared to other Tier 1 nations. To look at 'strategy' for illegal play its best to see what teams push boundaries with new laws. SA have milked two tries at ruck block downs. The strategy is to charge the first few before the ball is out at about 4 seconds but pull out and put up hands in reigned apology. The referees usually allow the scum half to clear without awarding a penalty in this scenario. The problem with that being that the scrumhalf is now taking over 5 seconds through no fault of his own. Having achieved a few slow balls > 5s , the SA forward can now pick a scrum to charge dead on 5s. Now if the scrum half waits, he will concede a penalty, as we saw against Scotland. With the new rule in place, any early charge should result in an immediate penalty.
SA also got an offside block against England which was pivotal again after a couple of 'apologetic' offside aborted charges forcing England to clear slowly.
Go to commentsYep, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed are you?
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