L Plates for the Ref?

Another frustrating night at a Hurricanes match. Honestly, if I had not gone last night or watched on TV, and then read 5 yellow cards and one red card were handed out, I would think I had missed one hell of a dirty match ... but it was not.

The pedantic Matt Goddard killed it and 'technicalities' resulted in binnings willy nilly from the start. I think the only signal he knew was “incorrect entry at the gate”. He did not police the offside sufficiently, and Fourie du Preez was almost in the Hurricanes backline late in the second half. And as for Bakkies Botha getting rucked a bit when he was blatantly offside ... Eaton gets pinged and now goes to the judiciary.

I missed the Warriors game, for this pseudo rugby display?

It leaves the Bulls at the top surely, and in control now. South African teams are doing better on the road these days, and this (along with the Webb Ellis Trophy) gives SARU power.

I have to wonder about all this talk of rejigging it to a pools based compettion of 15 teams too. So, the New Zealand teams basically play each other, home and away, in NZ and the best teams progress to an international knockout stage?

Sounds like the original Super 10 of the 80s to me. What is the logic of bascially operating a openly two tier domestic system? We might as well crap the bloody Super 14, and let the best Air NZ Cup teams make it through. It may well reinvigorate things by having players play for teams where they come from, and spread the All Blacks around some more - so that fans can actually see them play.

The finals obsession thing seems to be a knee jerk reaction to Northern Hemisphere criticism ... the way they hold the Heineken Cup up as the ultimate. I'll agree, a bit; I loved the HC finals when they came around, but all those teams that qualify come are based in a separate domestic league (Guiness Premiership, Magners League, Top 14 and whatever goes on in Italy).

Both NZ and South Africa have very established domestic competitions they respectively claim to class as sacred and ‘ring fenced’ from the test calendar and Super expansion, but the NZRU has gradually eroded away the old NPC's aura. Q: Who does not have a domestic competition, and in fact scrapped it after only 12 months? A: Australia.

Its claimed that Aussie is the place to grow the game’s audience for Sanzar, but we are really subsidising their game and propping them up. Who really wants to see the All Blacks play the Wallabies four times a year? In Australia, club sport is king, not regional or state teams - league and AFL prove that.

The franchise thing is dull. Make provinces stronger again, and restore the Ranfurly Shield’s status; how long before an All Black never plays in Shield rugby except when he is coming back from injury?

Ah well, its up to the back room boys now. I just hope someone here is strong enough to stand up to John O'Neill, otherwise we will end up following Australia and screwing rugby here.

The Canes were lucky though. Had Steyn got all his kicks, the Bulls could have won by another 15 points. One more loss, and the Hurricanes are out. And fercrissakes, Cooper ... can you please give David Smith a start!