Wales v Australia - 17/11/2024 (16.10)

[Lé Ddanno]

Who?

Not you Al, you're alright if a tad paranoid

 

[Lé Ddanno]

You've got Joes now bro, it's going to be ok.

Bang on, they're BACK

 

[Geordie]

England fans
" We're in a crisis"....

Wales fans
"Hold my beer"

 

[dullonien]

Gat's can do one. The 20 min. period wirh a man up says it all. We look like Aus did at the WC, getting dicked by an average side!

 

[Tooting Carmen]

I am shocked. I thought Australia probably would win, but not like that. It seems that the Welsh players just gave up.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Honestly I genuinely want Aus to trash Wales

Dreams come true

 

[Tooting Carmen]

I have defended Welsh rugby for a long time despite its manifest failings and difficulties, but this is the last straw. Nothing short of mass resignations and root and branch reform will do.

 

[Amiga500]

The WRUs main concern today will be a crowd of 56k.

Yep - now that there is stormy weather hitting the top of the tower, they'll pay very heavily for ignoring all evidence for years that pointed to fundamentally broken foundations.

Is it recoverable?

You go back to 2017 before you find the Welsh U-20s finishing outside the bottom 3 of the U-20 6N. Those guys are now 27 years old.
They actually won it in 2016 with a grand slam. Those guys are now 28 years old.

If they haven't impacted the senior squad by now, they won't.

This years U-18s look a bit better, only going down to England by a point and beating Ireland.
But the sporting world is absolutely littered with examples of folks who had the world at their feet as a 17 year old then were totally derailed by the time they were a 22 year old.

So can't see any brightness this side of 2028. Will the WRU be a going concern by that point if attendances drop off?

Maybe the volume of travelling away fans in 6N games may save them. After all, who wouldn't want to travel to Cardiff to watch their team put 50 on the Gwyndafs?

 

[dirty harry]

Wales is a small microcosm of Rugby union as a whole.

Losing global market share, run by relics, and most clubs not run by private owners willing to lose a fortune are on the bones.

I recently laid it out bare to a development officer, non Welsh PGCE students, in increasingly over subscribed PE teacher courses in uni are gaining positions in welsh city schools (Newport, Cardiff, Swansea). These PE teachers aren't rugby people, they're mostly football, and between that, and changing cultures oflver the last 15 years in major welsh cities, football absolutely dominates.

I can give you 7 high schools in and around Cardiff that barely run rugby teams, or has rugby on the curriculum.

In a small country, being culturally changed radically by their government, rugby is a old fashioned custom that is dying out.

 

[Amiga500]

Was Welsh rugby always fairly equally divided up between cities and valleys? [or was it like Scotland where the borders were the real bedrock of the game?]

 

[dirty harry]

Was Welsh rugby always fairly equally divided up between cities and valleys? [or was it like Scotland where the borders were the real bedrock of the game?]

Slightly, but city teams were always competitive, and there was always a number of Cardiff high schools who were renowned for producing skillful teams and players.

Recently though, there are increasing troubles putting teams together at all. At least 2 high schools in central and east Cardiff don't have year 7 or 8 teams currently.

Welsh government has just announced they want to change white behaviour in Wales, so that should hell lol

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Not that I want it to happen but where would a tour grand slam rank among Joe Schmidt's achievements if he pulls the next two weeks off?

I wouldn't begrudge him it at all (in fact I'd be delighted for Joe seperate to the disappointment of Ireland losing) but we do owe him one after the QF last year.

 

[Derpus]

I've basically lost track of what is and isn't a card these days but that red card to Kerevi seemed pretty harsh. Both blokes where basically bent horizontal at the waist and it was shoulder to shoulder. Plus there have been multiple direct head on head contacts that have been play on over the last few weeks so you'd assume he'd get off pretty easily on appeal.

Buuuut anyway lol **** you Wales. I reckon you'll turn it around quick enough once you ditch Gatland. As EJ has proven, a bad coach results in a really bad time.

 

[dirty harry]

I've basically lost track of what is and isn't a card these days but that red card to Kerevi seemed pretty harsh. Both blokes where basically bent horizontal at the waist and it was shoulder to shoulder. Plus there have been multiple direct head on head contacts that have been play on over the last few weeks so you'd assume he'd get off pretty easily on appeal.

Buuuut anyway lol **** you Wales. I reckon you'll turn it around quick enough once you ditch Gatland. As EJ has proven, a bad coach results in a really bad time.

As world rugby have highlighted, anything can be a red card these days, but luckily they've devalued the red card so it's a big yellow card...

What fans want is no cards, what world rugby heard was lots of more cards, devalued.

 

[Welsh Exile]

Sack Gatland and put AWJ in charge against SA and we'll win by 50 points.

Joking aside I wouldn't put it past the WRU to not have put in a break clause of some description in his contract so we might not be able to sack him to be fair or if we do we'll have a tenner left to hire a new coaching team.

 

[Derpus]

As world rugby have highlighted, anything can be a red card these days, but luckily they've devalued the red card so it's a big yellow card...

What fans want is no cards, what world rugby heard was lots of more cards, devalued.

Nah accidental head contact not ruining entire games makes sense to me. Full reds for serious misconduct still exist. No one wants to watch a sport that's guided by litigation strategy when drafting its laws.

 

[Horacito]

Are the Wallabies back? They look menacing af

 

[Bluemoon]

Is it recoverable?

The short answer is yes, but I'm not sure the right people are in place to make it happen. We managed with crap national sides throughout the years. There's a generation of people still interested in watching rugby despite performance so I don't see it dropping off all together that quickly, but the clock is ticking on future generations in my view.

 

[dirty harry]

Nah accidental head contact not ruining entire games makes sense to me. Full reds for serious misconduct still exist. No one wants to watch a sport that's guided by litigation strategy when drafting its laws.

Which is exactly what's happening...

When you reduce the line for red, so much so that you have to reduce the impact of red cards you have ****** up.

When rugby is struggling world wide, making the rules more complex every season, and adding more and more cards is only going to hurt

 

[Lé Ddanno]

Are the Wallabies back? They look menacing af

They are BACK

Gatland needs to be sacked tomorrow. But the people that can do it are just as culpable and need to be gone too

Never ever thought I would feel sorry for Wales, but this is horrific, embarrassing and undeserved