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No Irish, Scots or French as Wales dominate Stephen Jones 'Best XV He's Ever Seen'
By Online Editors
Outspoken Sunday Times rugby columnist Stephen Jones has done it again, raising the ire of countless rugby fans with his latest selection.
Jones has never been shy of kicking the hornet's nest, and the rugby contrarian's 'Best XV I've Ever Seen' certainly doesn't fail to deliver. The selection revealed on his latest The Times's rugby podcast will do little to dissuade people that his desire to troll New Zealand and Ireland fans is diminishing with age.
Just two All Blacks make the team, while not one Irish, Scottish or French player was deemed good enough to make the starting XV. There was also no room for any Fijians, Samoans or Tongans.
The team however is populated with many of Jones' pet favourites, as readers of his Sunday Times columns will attest - England lock Simon Shaw and centre Jeremy Guscott make the cut, as does Argentina's Juan Martin Hernandez.
The was no room however for Wales' Brent Cockbain, who Jones championed to lead the 2005 British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand.
There were however four Welsh selection, three Argentines, two Englishmen, two Aussies, one Italian and the aforementioned two All Blacks.
15. Chris Latham (Australia)
14. Gerald Davies (Wales)
13. Jeremy Guscott (England)
12. Frank Bunce (New Zealand)
11. David Campese (Australia)
10. Juan Martin Hernandez (Argentina)
9. Gareth Edwards (Wales)
8. Sergio Parisse (Italy)
7. Sam Warburton (Wales)
6. Dan Lydiate (Wales)
5. Patricio Albacete (Argentina)
4. Simon Shaw (England)
3. Olo Brown (New Zealand)
2. Mario Ledesma (Argentina)
1. Garry Pagel (South Africa)
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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