No Chop Suey for Dingo

So the All Blacks beat Australia last night in a very, very average test match.


The gameplan for both teams was made obvious from the outset [with some bourbon-marks on the table helping me to demonstrate to those less obvious] - All Blacks kick for territory, knowing the Australians will run it back and 'play what they see in front of them'. Sure, they can do that in the freezing night-climes of Eden Park, but Hong Kong? With 80% humidity? C'mon Robbie.

Referee Alan Lewis has drawn a lot of criticism, but I think he did well. While the game did not flow flawlessly which is what the crowd wanted to see, I think this is simply a flow-on of the adjustment to playing two different sets of rules. Talkback today was claiming Lewis over-reffed the scrums, but I disagree. How many times in the past few years have coaches complained that scrums aren't watched enough? Or called for new rules? There is no point introducing new rules when the current trend for scrummaging requires them to be reset five times. In my opinion, the game would be better removing scrums completely. They just make it look clumsy and slow. If we're trying to 'promote' the game to new markets, what kind of signal does this send?

Don't get me started on the pitch quality either.