Super Rugby Pacific's week-by-week Player of the Year voting system has been bringing fans an insight into which players have been impressing opposition the most in 2025.
The rarity of these tours means this crop of Australia players, this crop of Wallabies, must work harder than they’ve ever worked before to ensure Wallaby coach, Joe Schmidt, has no other choice but to pick them.
Super Rugby pre-season on both sides of the Tasman was in full swing over the weekend with Australian and New Zealand teams playing a handful of derbies.
As for switching George Ford for Marcus Smith, I can understand the logic. I remember Austin Healey saying before Ford entered the fray...
I know over in New Zealand there is a lot of hand-wringing over the South Africans leaving Super Rugby but it’s not as big an issue as it’s made out. Put it this way, they didn’t struggle to impose their physicality on our shores back then. I’m not sold on that argument but it’s difficult to deny their crown has slipped somewhat in recent years.
You see, if you look at where they are today, it’s not because of what happened last week, last month or last year, it is because of the decisions made a decade, even two decades ago. They closed their academies. Why? I can’t fathom it.
The Six Nations has given me bit of head space to reflect about rugby and its direction of travel. It’s funny, I remember Frik du Preez, the great Springbok captain was once asked...
The Waratahs got the first Kiwi scalp of the season taking down the defending champion Crusaders, Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua played out a thriller, and the Hurricanes, Blues, Chiefs stayed undefeated.
If Saturday was a measure of where South Africa and Ireland sit before they met in France, both sides will be happy.