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According to this story from American Rugby News, some criticism involving the transfer of All-American prop Michael Shephard from Indiana (the rugby home of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban) to Western Conference powerhouse Utah has arisen. 

From the story:

 

Indiana head coach Tom Phillips is upset over what he claims was a year-long recruitment campaign by his Utah counterpart and 2009 All-American forwards coach Blake Burdette to encourage Shephard to transfer.

I’ve seen this quite a bit in the collegiate ranks in the last 10 years or so. One of the teams out here would repeatedly reload the same scrum half year after year… after year… after year… until I swear he turned 35.  It appears that collegiate eligibility rules have been lax for many years, with the result being a dearth of talent throughout the country except for a handful of teams that have the resources to attract them.

It’s also a problem to let a handful of elite team’s coaches have access to the best collegiate players in the country.  Events like this lead to the belief, correct or not, that coaches take advantage of their position of national leadership for the benefit of their own team.

So what can be done?

USA Rugby should take the lead on keeping track of player transfers, keeping these athletes from jumping from school to school to find a team to play for.  It’ll take some effort and infrastructure development on USA Rugby’s part, but it’s necessary for rugby to be taken as a serious sport and not just a chance for frat boys to get together and drink.

This infrastructure goes all the way down, from the national union to each local union.  Referees have to ensure that players in collegiate games are CIPP insured, and that those each player has a photo identification to verify against their list from USA Rugby.

After developing this infrastructure, USA Rugby has to drop the boom on players who transfer schools.  NCAA college sports have a one-year wait for athletes who transfer schools. USA Rugby should have the same requirement.  It’ll suck for athletes who move schools for legitimate reasons.  But since there are very few schools who offer scholarships or other enticements for rugby athletes, students should be transferring for legitimate academic reasons.

 

All-American Cluster-#%@^

USA Rugby should also rethink who they get to coach the All-American teams.  There’s too much of a temptation for coaches currently working with college teams to (subtly or not) recruit these elite athletes.  If we as ruggers, former ruggers, and fans are not willing to make this kind of commitment, then we need to rethink how we want to feature collegiate rugby – one of the growth markets of the rugby world in the U.S.  Again, if we all want to make this commitment, then USA Rugby needs to hire an All-American coaching and scouting staff and make sure they are not working for, or enamored with, any one particular team.

This just in from the IRB:

New Zealand winger Carla Hohepa was awarded the 2010 Women’s “Personality of the Year” award from the International Rugby Board as a result of her outstanding performance throughout the Women’s Rugby World Cup tournament. Hohepa’s seven tries in this tournament tied her with Canada’s Heather Moyse as the most productive scorer in the World Cup.

Moyse, an athletic studette herself, as well as an Olympic gold medal winner in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics in the two-woman bobsled competition, scored her seventh try in the tournament against the United States as the two teams faced off in the fifth-place game in England.

Hohepa scored the first and only try for the Black Ferns in their championship victory over England earlier today.  Congratulations to Hohepa in not only her new award, but leading her team to the Black Ferns’ fourth consecutive World Cup Trophy!

Just finished watching the Women’s Rugby World Cup finals and I have to say, while I did say it would be a close match, I didn’t think it would be New Zealand 13, England 10 close!  And I whiffed it on the score prediction (just another reason I don’t usually do score predicts).  The match was exciting and while the Black Ferns racked up three yellow cards in the match (really? Three yellow cards?) 

The match started off with both sides facing down in front of the record 13,000+ fans at Twickenham Stoop.  The Black Ferns began with the traditional Haka, the Maori war dance performed by New Zealand sports teams before matches, and the English facing them off unafraid during the Haka.

After trading penalty kick misses by New Zealand’s center Kelly Brazier and England’s fly-half Katy McLean, the Black Ferns finally put the first points on the board with less than ten minutes to go before halftime by wing Carla Hohepa.  Followed by a successful Brazier conversion kick saw New Zealand carry a 7-0 lead into halftime, after a late penalty kick by McLean bounced off of the upright.

Quickly after the second half began, England finally put their first points on the board from a McLean penalty kick.  While the Brits drew the match even at 10-10 with 20 minutes to go, New Zealand squeaked out a win by the luck of Brazier’s boot – as she slotted the winning penalty kick with 15 minutes to go. 

The New Zealand All Blacks have been given notice going into the 2011 Rugby World Cup – the women’s team lived up to their end of the deal and now the men need to work up to their potential next year.

As a quick note, I’d like to give the International Rugby Board big props for livestreaming Sky News’ broadcast of some of the Women’s RWC matches, including the championship. It was a great way to help build the women’s rugby fan base and while the broadcast rights to the Men’s RWC have already been locked down (way to go NBC!) I hope there will be a way to catch the matches live online as well.

 

The scores from the other WRWC matches:

 

Third Place Match – Australia 22, France 8

Australia racked up their best Women’s RWC finish ever, beating the French 22-8.  The Aussies kept it close against England, and except for a few missteps might have seen themselves facing off against the Black Ferns in the finals.  Australia stormed out to a 22-3 lead at halftime, but played the second half a bit deflated while the French defense tightened up and held the Aussies scoreless the rest of the match.

 

Fifth Place Match – United States 23, Canuckistan (Canada) 20

The United States, former Women’s RWC champions in 1991, slipped past Canada in a match that went back and forth throughout the first half. Thanks to a flurry of play, the Eagles found themselves facing an early 3-10 deficit to the team from the Great Frozen North.  Thanks to a one-woman advantage, courtesy of Canada’s Sarah Ulmer who was sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes, the Eagles took the lead when wing Vanesha McGee hit captain Ashley English for their first try of the game.  Although Canada went into the half with a 17-11 lead, the Eagles scored twice in the first ten minutes of the second half to regain and extend their lead, holding on against a furious Canuck onslaught as the game drew to a close.

 

Seventh Place Match – Ireland 32, Scotland 8

In this face off of Celtic rivals, Scotland never appeared to get their feet solidly underneath them as Ireland sprinted out to a 15-0 lead before the first 20 minutes of play ended.  While the Scots scored to cut the lead to 15-5, and started to assert themselves more, adding a three-point penalty kick before halftime to reduce Ireland’s lead to 15-8, Scotland got no closer to victory. 

 

Ninth Place Match – Wales 29, South Africa 17

Wales returned the 15-10 loss they suffered to South Africa during pool play in this years RWC with a ninth-place win, and hopefully a positive mindset to carry into this off-season. Welsh fullback Naomi Thomas scored two tries in the first half and fly-half Awen Thomas took over kicking duties from fly-half Laura Prosser (who was having an off-day with two missed penalty kicks and two missed conversions) to put Wales ahead 17-0 at the break.

 

11th Place Match – Kazakhstan 12, Sweden 8

In a game that might have made mythical Kazakh reporter Borat smile, the Asian regional champions notched their first win of the 2010 Rugby World Cup campaign with a victory over Sweden. While Kazakhstan, who had not scored a try the entire tournament, finally found the goal line, it was Sweden who was off target – as captain and fly-half Ulrika Andersson-Hall missed three kicks, and replacement Lina Norman missed an additional conversion for the Swedes. 

The championship game of the 2010 Women’s Rugby World Cup tournament has arrived, and the English Women’s Rugby team is hoping to finally break the strangle hold that the New Zealand Black Ferns have had on the World Cup since 1998. 

According to Sky News’ Julie-Anna Needham, the New Zealand Black Ferns are the best women’s team in the world, the equivalent to the All Blacks.  And as recent history has shown, the Black Ferns have won when it counted – which has been pretty much every game they’ve played – especially in the World Cup, where they haven’t lost a match since the 1991 championship match, losing 7-0 to the United States.

Needham’s story states: 

 

So England have a challenge on their hands but it is one they are ready for, says Joanna McGilchrist who plays in the second row.

 England has racked up a recent win against the Black Ferns, beating them 10-3 in Twickenham, home of today’s Women’s World Cup finals today.  And while England has focused on redeeming themselves from their 2006 loss to New Zealand, 25-17 in Canada, the championship is a pinnacle the English lasses won’t reach this year.  Today’s prediction is a fourth-straight WRWC championship for the Black Ferns, 35-14.

Has the salary cap had the unfortunate side effect of reducing the amount of competition in the Aviva Premiership? 

Or is it, as we’ve seen in the NFL, just that some organizations are more fortunate than others as managing not only their finances, but their teams as well?  

According to this article in The Guardian, since the salary cap was instituted, three teams have won the championship, with Leicester winning seven of the past 12 Premiership championships.

Much like in the NFL, certain teams in the Premiership seem to be able to take better advantage of their situation. Teams like Leicester in the Premiership, or the New England Patriots in the NFL, are always able to attract the talent they need to reload to compete year after year, and provide the facilities needed to not only attract the players needed, but also develop and grow the fan base. 

Is it coaching, or tradition that attracts better players to an organization?  Before the New England Patriots rise to their current success, the team was mediocre outside of a few good years.  But then after bringing in first Bill Parcells, and then Bill Belichick, the team began its rise to the current championship contender status they enjoy.  There are lessons there to be learned by other sports organizations.

What do other teams need to do to reach this level of success?  What comes first in this situation – the chicken (stronger fan base) or the egg (top flight players)?  According to the story: 

 

(Rugby rival Northampton chairman Keith) Barwell points out that Leicester, who enjoy a capacity of 24,000 at Welford Road, earn £3m more a year in gate income than Northampton and that his club’s annual turnover is £12m compared to £18.5m. “We cannot afford to stand still,” Barwell says. “We would have to decide whether it is worth putting the club into significant debt by paying for the redevelopment ourselves or share a stadium somewhere else.”

Stadium size is important, because if you have the fan base to build the stadium, that translates into more money.  But you need that initial investment of capital to provide the  facilities needed to attract players.  The story goes on to explain that some of the Premiership teams can’t afford the £4.1 million salary cap, putting them further back in a competition as long as the Premiership runs.

So should teams look for additional sponsorship?  Split stadium costs with other teams (much as the N.Y. Giants and N.Y. Jets do)? Do they need to reduce some of the teams in the Premiership?  These are some of the questions that teams need to answer as they try to challenge for the Tigers juggernaut in the upcoming season.

 

 

This in from the BBC, Dr. Wendy Chapman, the doctor behind the Harlequins “lip cutting” incident in the Heineken Cup tournament, has received a warning for her actions.  I said it earlier, she shouldn’t lose her medical license – but I still don’t think that her “getting back with her life” should include her working in a sports medical facility. If I were her attorney (or barrister as they call it across the pond) or her PR flack, I’d be informing her she needs to be seen giving back to the community for a while, maybe earn her way back into the good graces of professional sports.

 

I really, truly, don’t want to write anymore about verbal slip ups by South African coach Peter de Villiers, but it seems every time he opens his mouth, something amazing falls out.  Something that has to be commented on.  There’s a story coming soon about South Africa fighting its way back from the Tri Nations cellar and hopefully reversing the team’s course with just over a year to go until the 2011 Rugby World Cup.  But first…

de Villiers, fresh off of South Africa’s first Tri Nations win of the series, and after going a whole three weeks without making an idiot of himself or his team, decided to jam both feet in his mouth with a recent statement that:

 

“the (Springboks) support (accused murderer Bees Roux) 100%, not on the deed, but rather on the circumstances that led to the situation developing.”

OK, for those who don’t know, Roux, a player for the Blue Bulls, was recently arrested for allegedly murdering a South African police officer who, it is reported, pulled Roux over for possibly drunk driving.  Roux has been given time off from the Blue Bulls as this situation continues to play out.

Now according to the Times in South Africa, de Villiers might face yet another disciplinary hearing – this one for bringing the game of rugby into disrepute with his comment.  This, coupled with his recent comments about alleged referring favoritism in recent Tri Nations matches with New Zealand, might finally push him out of his coaching role for the Springboks.

According to Sports Illustrated, U.S. Men’s soccer coach Bob Bradley will be awarded a new four-year contract as of yesterday.

Why is this important to the fans of the Rugby Super Site, it probably isn’t – except for a few quick notes.

1. The U.S. Women’s National Rugby Team lost to England in the Women’s Rugby World Cup this weekend – and there’s not even a footnote in any mainstream news source I’ve found.

2. The Men’s soccer coach is an American. I’m not one to bash on current coach Eddie O’Sullivan, I think he’s done a decent job given the hand he’s been dealt, but there are precious few American rugby coaches (outside of the University of California rugby machine) that could be ready to coach the U.S. men’s Rugby team at the drop of a dime, so either we go back to Cal calling all of the shots, or start developing our own top tier talent and coaches until youth rugby starts to pick up, which will cost money.

3. No one outside of rugby really cares about the state of things right now.  We have a long way to go if we ever want to see rugby advance beyond a third-tier sport played by drunken sods (as it’s seen in parts of the U.S.) and building a grassroots outreach program should probably be the main priority, with the U.S. sevens team (which will be seen in the Olympics in 2016) as a close second (to develop a broader viewership.)  There are too many damn rules in the game to immediately impact U.S. sports fans, who expect rules they can grasp, and set plays (see first through fourth down in football, or a sketched out play after a basketball timeout) rather than a sport as free-flowing as rugby.

The Springboks have finally broken their Tri Naitons jinx – notching up their first win in what can truly be called a “never say die” effort, beating Australia 44-31 in Pretoria.  While that cliché tends to be overused, in this instance I think it should be applied – after four minutes in the first half, the Wallabies had jumped to a 14-0 lead, and it looked like we were going to see another South African beatdown.

But the Springboks maintained their composure and played a gutsy game, repeatedly coming from behind to pull close to the Wallabies they showed flashes of the team that won last year’s Tri Nations.  They might not have played the flashiest game with rugby flair, and they may have locked up their victory by grinding it out, but at the end of the day a win’s a win.  And I’ve given the ‘Boks a hard time here, so allow me to also say, “Congratulations guys, you really earned this one.”

–          Benson

For those of you who don’t know the case, last year in a Heineken Cup quarterfinal match between London’s Harlequins and Leinster (based in Ireland) – the ‘Quins were down 6-5 as the game was coming to a close when winger Tom Williams was struck down with an “injury” where he was bleeding from the mouth. As a result of the injury Harlequins was able to bring back in kicking stud Nick Evans, who it was hoped would be able to slot any late potential penalty kick to win the game.  Nothing wrong with that, right?  People get hurt all of the time on the rugby pitch, my two fragged knees, jacked up neck and concussions are a testament to that.

The only problem was, Williams faked the injury, biting down on a fake blood capsule in order to bring Evans back onto the field.  Williams was then rushed off of the field and taken into the locker room to be examined by the team’s doctor, who should have been able to recognize a fake injury.  But instead of reporting the fake injury, the team’s doctor, Wendy Chapman, “under pressure from the team and player” decided to cut his lip, making it appear that the injury was legitimate. The scandal was later dubbed “Bloodgate.”

Only after the scheme started to fall apart, facilitated by Williams’ admission of the scheme (to reduce his ban), did the truth finally escape. Harlequins was fined a serious amount of bank, Williams’ ban was reduced from one year to 4 months, Harlequin rugby director (and former rugby legend) Dean Richards was banned from coaching rugby ANYWHERE for three years, chairman Charles Jillings resigned, and team physiotherapist Steph Brennan was banned for two years.

Then there’s team doctor, and lip cutter, Wendy Chapman. She’s been in front of a disciplinary committee to determine what happens to her future.

I need to get this out of my system before I explode. “Dr. Strangelove” doesn’t deserve to lose her medical license, or her ability to practice medicine in some way, shape or form. But there is no way in hell she should ever work an athletic event again.  She was hopeful to get a spot working in the 2012 Olympics in London, and I’m sure there’s a chance she’ll get in because people want to forget that this little lip-cutting event happened.

Her defense is essentially “but, but, but I was under SO much pressure from the player and the club to cut his lip and make this injury look legitimate that I didn’t know what to do.” Bullshit. You know something, you’re a sports doctor – you need to know what’s right and what’s not right, and you need to have enough of a spine to stand up and say “no.”

In my mind this is worse than Bakkies Botha going “WWE” on the All Blacks a few games back, because that happened on the field and while you need to be able to control yourself on the pitch, sometimes these things do happen – and Botha paid the penalty for his actions.  But what Chapman did was a violation of the trust she had as a medical professional.  She’s essentially forfeited her privilege to work on a pitch’s sideline. She needs to spend a little time working for a hospital or a school in the country, taking care of people who can really benefit from her expertise. Maybe after a little voluntary self-exile then she’ll gain some perspective.

It’s not just her.

Don’t get me wrong, the entire Heineken Cup structure is just as guilty.  As Williams was being carted off of the field the team doctor for their opponents was demanding to see the player, since he thought this was a fake injury, designed to bring another player into the game (which, surprise, it turned out to be). Harlequins did everything in its power to bar the doctor from examining Williams. At that point, had the ‘Quins won the game the Heineken Cup governing body should have stopped the game to investigate if Williams had been truly injured or not, and why another doctor was not allowed to examine the player.

I dunno, maybe it’ll be necessary for all medical personnel to be provided to teams by a central body, making sure doctors don’t get cozy with teams.  Perhaps the competition should take care of organizing doctors, letting the teams pay them for doctors then paying the doctors from those payments.