Super 14

Mick Sawyer wrote:

embee wrote:They do ...but I sometimes wonder if they would have the "talent" on field if they were boring as bat's piss off field ...of course some of them just use that line as an excuse to act like total ****** all their life

No question that an elite anything has qualities that are not widely held. Was this X Factor at work here? I truly doubt it - feck he was the first Wallaby sent home in 40 years - guess I should be grateful he's not my father.

That could be the "good but not good enough" rule ...Sailor and Tuquiri had similar incidents and managed to stay on tour and 'dell had to really ****** up before he was sacked

Mick Sawyer wrote:Anyone see the new laws in action for the first time. Reactions?

Watched the Waratahs- Hurricanes game. Looked like glorified 7s tbh although that could be down to it being early in the season and players brains are still on holiday.

Timana Tahu will probably be quite good under these rules.

That could be the "good but not good enough" rule ...Sailor and Tuquiri had similar incidents and managed to stay on tour and 'dell had to really ****** up before he was sacked

Read an Eddie Jones comment on this the other day - he said directly and emphatically that Henjak was not the fallguy for the other two.

Whities have always had to operate by a stricter set of rules

Looked like glorified 7s tbh although that could be down to it being early in the season and players brains are still on holiday.

Timana Tahu will probably be quite good under these rules.

I honest to god detest sevens but I liked playing tens rugby. I do have a bias to a more open game. I've now watched 7 or 8 games played under the ELVs and I'm more optimistic about these than any changes made in my lifetime.

No doubt most matches, at times, look unstructured with the cliched leadership groups reduced to a committee of headless chooks.

Tahu is a plain & simple good footballer. The game was alreading trending this way but his ability to make accurate offloads in traffic while be even more valuable with these changes.

Matt Henjak ready to lift lid on Western ForceArticle from: PerthNowFont size: Decrease Increase Email article: Email Print article: Print Submit comment: Submit comment Wayne Smith

February 21, 2008 10:00am
THE Australian Rugby Union will decide Matt Henjak's future but the fall-out awaits his Western Force teammates on their return from South Africa.

RugbyWA has passed on to the ARU the recommendation of its code of conduct tribunal that Henjak's Force contract be terminated, but the troubled half-back's future will remain in limbo until the national body examines the hearing transcripts.


Even if the ARU endorses the recommendation, Henjak then has five business days to lodge an appeal - although it is unclear whether, like Wendell Sailor following his two-year drug ban, he will bother to go to the expense of challenging his effective ejection from the game in Australia.

However, sources close to Henjak said the former Australia half-back disputes some of the alleged facts and findings of the tribunal, opening up the possibility of an appeal if the ARU tears up his contract.

Either way, there is a distinct possibility that Henjak will not go quietly. He is also understood to be seriously considering "lifting the lid" on the culture of the Western Force and RugbyWA's handling of a number of disciplinary incidents.

If Henjak is shown the door by the ARU, it is unclear where he will go. His former Force boss Peter O'Meara said the 26-year-old had told him recently that he had no interest in switching to rugby league, which may be fortuitous because attempts by Henjak's manager, Greg Keenan, to offer his services to NRL clubs appear to have evoked no interest whatever.

The player's best option would appear to be to remain in rugby overseas.

As hardline as ARU chief executive John O'Neill has been on disciplinary matters since returning to the job in mid-2007, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the ARU could review the tribunal's findings and decide to lighten Henjak's penalty to a heavy fine and a severe suspension.
Yet that is a long shot at best, especially in light of the unusually graphic language contained in the official statement released following the marathon eight-hour tribunal hearing in Perth on Tuesday night. In one passage, the tribunal members said they were satisfied Henjak "punched (teammate) Haig Sare when Haig was sitting down vulnerable and unable to defend himself ... the committee was unable to find any justification for that assault which probably caused Haig Sare's jaw to be broken".

While the ARU is left to wrestle with the finer detail, the Force already has turned its attention to two broad questions that flow from the February 10 blow-up at a Fremantle bar.

Why were as many as eight of their players out socialising just two days before the team's departure for a three-match Super 14 tour of South Africa?

And why did the players not intervene to separate Henjak and Sare, particularly as their dispute spread over three distinct phases?

The initial argument occurred in the toilets of the bar, flared up again in the middle of the busy establishment, and then erupted a third time outside in the street.

Force captain Nathan Sharpe, speaking from South Africa, said the team had discussed the issue at some length.

"We've got to act quicker," Sharpe said.

"It's disappointing as a team that we let it get to the point it did. But the two of them left the pub on the intention of talking things through outside and they were left on their own."

Acting Force chief executive Mitch Hardy intends to press for an explanation of why the players were in a bar in the first place.

Although former Force half-back Chris O'Young has quit Glasgow Warriors to rejoin Perth club, he will not be named in the 22 for the round-two match against the Cheetahs, with James Stannard to make his starting debut at half-back in place of Henjak.

I'm puzzled by the ARU delay. FFS that had a week and a half to do all the checking & arse covering needed. Maybe O'Neill is crook again & no one is game to step in front of a camera in his stead.