AUCKLAND, NZ– Our ears on the street have picked up some rather interesting sound bites…
RUMORS: Now that our buddy John Kirwan has stepped down as Head Coach of Japan’s Brave Blossoms, speculation is that either Eddie Jones or Masahiro Kunda, former the Team Japan front row, will be taking his place. This is all contingent on Jones not getting the nod to replace Peter de Villiers as the Big Bok for the South Africa, a job which may or may not be available – depending on who’s talking.
If Jones, currently under contract as Suntory Sungoliath Head Coach, does not get the Springbok job, we say he’d be the better choice over Kunda, the former ormer Toshiba and Japan U20 Head Coach, whose creativity to date has been suspect. But while Kirwan’s success with Japan shows they need to be creative, politics in Japan might force the issue of hiring a Japanese coach. We’d counter that thinking by reminding the Brave Blossom Big Wigs that Eddie Jones is half-Japanese, despite his heavily Aussie affectation of speech. Still, we’re not saying that Kunda can’t grow as a coach. He’s awfully intelligent as front rowers go!
RUMBLINGS: The fallout from Warburton-gate has some higher-ups contemplating what we’ve been suggesting all along, that a player can be red-carded and ejected from the match, without his or her team having to play short for the match’s entirety. The penalized team would have to play short-handed for a designated period of time.
We’d vote for this change in a the laws in a Bryan Habana second. Punishing a team for a misguided infraction by one player, for the duration of play in a sport that sees teams making 120+ tackles per game, is simply unfair. For those that argue that punishment anything less than what the existing law sets forth wouldn’t be harsh enough, we respectfully say… Go jump in a lake. Losing a player like Sam Warburton for 60 minutes is plenty harsh enough. Further, this writer happens to be the recipient of a spinal fusion from a rugby tackle – and I’m against the red-carding for that play.
Please feel free to weigh in below, make sure to tune in for England star Mathew Drew Turner’s antics tomorrow, and if you get a chance… please tell some of your mates about RugbyWrapUp.com. Cheers.
