Rollo Manning has been a rugby tragic all his life since being named after a Wallaby winger and educated at a private boarding school in Sydney, Australia. Manning has been working in publicity and public relations for 40 years, and during that time has commented on the "game they play in heaven" through radio, magazines and newspaper coverage.
As a correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, he has broadcast in magazine style programs and live coverage of games. He is currently a regular contributor to www.scrum.com and radio shows in his hometown of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Manning has been contributing to eSports for six years and relishes the opportunity to express his views on the first of the two rugbies. He is currently completing work on a study of the inter play between rugby league and rugby union over the past 100 years, when league was formed as the professional arm of an otherwise purely amateur game.
Since 1995, both have become professional and the drift of players is going back from league to union. Where will it end? That is the question Manning is now asking himself.
The New Zealand All Blacks returned to centre stage of world rugby in Sydney with a blasting performance against the Australian Wallaby team.
The New Zealand All Blacks returned to centre stage of world rugby Saturday night in Sydney with a blasting performance against the Australian Wallaby team.
It’s back to the past for supremacy in world rugby as the All Blacks joined the Springboks at the top of the Tri Nations ladder after an impressive 30-13 victory over the Wallabies in Sydney on Saturday 13th August 2005.
Before the professional era began for rugby union in 1996 season and right up until the time South Africa was exonerated for its racial policies in 1971 it was always the Boks versus the All Blacks clashes that were the star attraction for top of the world rugby tree.
Now it could be that the All Blacks have shaken off their 10-year period of adjustment to the professional game and the Springboks have found what it takes to win since their re-entry in 1992. It has been a long time coming for the two previously proud rugby nations where it was a matter of which church to go to on a Sunday -- the religious one or the one analyzing the previous day’s rugby. Their battles were fierce and the style of play boring but countries like Australia had little hope of beating the two supremos. The grinding forward play and incessant kicking for touch was the feature of the clashes and the Northern Hemisphere rugby greats in the four home countries and France sought to emulate the two champions with a similar style of play. For Australia, it was a matter of being the "also rans" as the code in Australia saw 55 of its Wallabies switching to the professional game of rugby league from 1948 to 1995.
Last night in Sydney, at the stadium that hosted the 2000 Olympics, the All Blacks won their own gold medal in the form of the Bledisloe Cup which they had dominated since its inception as the symbol of trans Tasman rivalry back in 1932. In the last ten years they have had to share it with their antipodean cousins.
The All Black forward pack was back to its dominate and spoiling best cleaning out the rucks with ease as they stole possession from the floundering Wallabies who could at least score 13 points to have the half time lead at 13-10. It was after the half time break that the ABs were relentless with two tries coming from some hard won possession and shimmering backline play. The game was a classic in terms of a spectacle and time after time the play went beyond four phases of play as both sides fought out the battle for possession as if it was the only thing that mattered in life for the 30 players on the field. Sadly for the Wallabies, and too often, after failing to break the "in your face" defence and often off side defensive line, turned over possession as if it was in frustration over their failure to penetrate the line. The All Blacks forwards were reveling in the slack manner in which English referee Tony Spreadbury, policed the off side in rucks and spoiling tactics of the Abs loose forward of Collins. Soi’ilalu and McCaw -- the latter being the only one to be penalisded as the others should have been.
Although the Wallabies were torn apart through injuries the young guns called in to replace Latham, Larkham and Sailor, in Mitchell, Gerrard and Turinui did nothing to be ashamed of and look as if they will be an integral part of the Wallabies campaign towards the next World Cup in 2007. Drew Mitchell, only months after captaining the Australian under 21 years team, showed that he has the determination and skills to make it at the highest level. The loss of Giteau with injury was a blow but was more than ably replaced by the experienced "Mr Cool" Elton Flately. It was the Wallaby forward pack that lost the game for the home side being continually out scrummed, out jumped in the lineouts and cleaned right out of the rucks at the breakdown.
Next week the Wallabies will try and regain some lost form against the Springboks in Perth while the week after that the All Blacks take on the Springboks again on their own turf and this should be a cracker.
The Wallabies meet the All Blacks in the final Tri Nations game in Auckland on September 3 but the money for the day has to be on the men from the "land of the long white cloud" who are back to their ferocious best with some generous help of a confused and shattered bunch of Wallabies.