Rugby World Cup final 2007

[Rasputin]

The Australian Rugby Union (ARU) and Western Australian Government today announced a new four-year agreement to stage Rugby Test matches in Perth until 2010.

Tourism Minister Sheila McHale joined Wallabies Matt Giteau and Cameron Shepherd for today’s announcement, which coincides with the public release of tickets for the Wallabies’ upcoming Test at Subiaco Oval against Fiji – the first match in the new deal.

Tickets for this year’s Perth Test, to be played on Saturday, June 9, went on sale at 9:00am (AWDT) this morning through Ticketmaster.

“This is a significant coup for Western Australia, the tourism industry and rugby fans in general,” the Minister said.

“Rugby fans, especially from England and South Africa, are some of the most passionate in the world and travel far and wide to see their heroes in combat.

“This new agreement with the ARU will have great economic benefits for the state, and is expected to generate about $10m over the four years.”

ARU Managing Director & CEO Gary Flowers said West Australian fans have demonstrated they love their rugby and he is delighted Tests have been guaranteed for Perth for the next four years.

“We have played Tests in Perth annually for almost a decade in front of great crowds and at a Super 14 level, the supporters of the Western Force have been turning out in huge numbers,” he said.

“I am certain the fans will continue to support the coming years of rugby Test matches in Perth in a big way.”

Under the new agreement the Wallabies will play Test matches against England and South Africa in Perth between 2007 and 2010, although specific years are still to be confirmed.

Also on hand to mark today’s announcement was a Fijian cultural group who performed the island nation’s traditional dance, the Meke (pronounced meck’ay).

[Rasputin]

The attempts by rugby union officials, and writers. to portray Lote Tuqiri’s decision to stay with the Waratahs is a major “win” for the code needs closer scrutiny.

And when it is put under genuine scrutiny, the evidence that is forthcoming shows that rugby league is a winner as well….and maybe the biggest winner of all.

I have sympathy for the South Sydney Rabbitohs who tried genuinely to recruit Tuqiri. But they can recruit elsewhere, certainly more cheaply, and possibly even more successfully.

But the real “win” for rugby league is that the Australian Rugby Union, and its state/territory components, have somewhere between $5 million and $6 million LESS to spend on recruiting rugby league players.

If the reports are evenly remotely close to the mark, Tuqiri is to get in the region of $1 million a year for five years under his new contract. Good luck to him – and good luck to the ARU because it will need all the luck it can muster to get its money back. And the ARU will be hoping Lote’s performance improves massively as well!

But it also frees up money under the overall NRL salary cap to retain our existing first grade players, and ensure the rising starts, such as the Junior Kangaroos, stay with the greatest game of all.

The NRL CEO, David Gallop, got the balance about right on the Tuqiri matter. The NRL was supportive of the efforts by Peter Holmes a Court and Russell Crowe to recruit him……but the NRL clearly did not regard the recruitment of Tuqiri – for a ridiculous contract – as a priority.

The game’s priority must be the nurturing of the enormous reservoir of young talent we have – and keeping it from rugby union’s grasp.

And the second priority must be to stop the ARU raiding our elite players to prop up its sagging ranks. We have been remarkably successful in doing so in recent years – as the Mark Gasnier, and even Andrew Johns experiences confirm. But we need to be on guard – because the other rugby code is going through troubled times on the field.

I think the recent recruitment of Daniel Roach, the son on one of our greats, Steve “Blocker” Roach, from the ranks of rugby union is even more momentous than the signing of Tuqiri would have been – because it’s a strike at rugby’s heartland!

Rabbitohs fans should not despair. You have owners who are entrepreneurial, cashed up, and extraordinarily well connected.

And you can gain comfort from the real possibility that Tuqiri was never really serious about returning to rugby league – and the tacky events of the last four or five months were more about extracting more dollars from the ARU than anything else.

I thought it was a no-go when the Broncos pulled out of negotiations because they came to the view he could not be afforded and was really intent on staying with the Waratahs, and the Sharks pulled out when he went to the beach rather than attend a meeting with the club to discuss a possible contract!

Our game enters the 2007 season is excellent shape. The same cannot be said for the game Lote Tuqiri will play his career out with.

Rugby union might regard yesterday as a win – I am confident it will turn out to be no less a “win” for rugby league as well!

[donsaeid]

تيم راگبي آذربايجان شرقي، نايب قهرمان مسابقات كيش


در پايان نخستين دوره مسابقات بين المللي راگبي جام خليج فارس در جزيره كيش، تيم راگبي استان فارس قهرمان شد و آذربايجان شرقي در جايگاه دوم ايستاد.



به نقل از سازمان تربيت بدني آذربايجان شرقي، در پايان اين مسابقات با بررسي امتيازهاي كسب شده، تيم فارس قهرمان و تيم آذربايجان شرقي نايب قهرمان نخستين دوره مسابقات بين المللي جام خليج فارس شد و تيم راگبي كرمان مقام سوم را كسب كرد و گرجستان الف چهارم، خوزستان پنجم، جمهوري آذربايجان ششم، تهران هفتم وتيم گرجستان ب هشتم شد.

براساس اين گزارش در اين رقابت*هاي بين المللي كه براي نخستين بار توسط سازمان منطقه آزاد كيش در ايران برگزار شد، 98 ورزشكار رشته ورزشي راگبي در قالب 8 تيم خارجي و داخلي به صورت دوره*اي با يكديگر رقابت كردند.

يادآور مي*شود: دو تيم از گرجستان، يك تيم از جمهوري آذربايجان و تيم*هاي تهران، آذربايجان شرقي، فارس، كرمان و خوزستان، تيم*هاي شركت كننده در رقابت*هاي بين المللي راگبي مردان جام خليج فارس در جزيره كيش بودند.

[Rasputin]

Wales coach Gareth Jenkins wants to lead a second-string squad to Australia in June to rest his senior players for the World Cup.

Jenkins is keen to ice his best players after Wales finished fifth in the Six Nations and to offer new and fringe players a chance to make the World Cup squad.

Wales meet Australia on May 25 in Sydney and on June 2 in Brisbane, then have three games in August against England, Argentina and France before the World Cup starts in France in September.

Wales ended a run of five straight defeats and avoided the Six Nations wooden spoon by defeating England 27-18 last weekend.

[Rasputin]

Timana Tahu agreed to a four-year contract with the Australian Rugby Union that will see him become the first Australian rugby league international to switch codes in five years.

The 26-year-old Tahu will play out the 2007 National Rugby League season with the Parramatta Eels before joining the New South Wales Waratahs for the 2008 Super 14 competition, the ARU said in a statement last night.

Tahu, who's played five Tests for the Kangaroos, becomes the first league international to switch to rugby's 15-a-side version since Lote Tuqiri in 2002. Tahu, a center or winger, said last month that he wasn't interested in playing union.

``A few weeks ago I was quoted as saying that I wouldn't switch to union as I would want to touch the ball more than once a game,'' Tahu said in the statement. ``This was a direct quote to stamp out any rumors regarding my interest in rugby. I wanted to make this decision on my own.''

Tahu's signing comes a week after Tuqiri agreed to a new contract with the ARU after the governing body set the Wallabies and Waratahs backline player a deadline to accept its latest offer or return to league.

[Rasputin]

JIM Telfer has often been attacked for his handling of the introduction of professional rugby, and yesterday he admitted that he had "misjudged" the attraction of the pro game to people in the Borders.

However, while critical of the current SRU leaders and Borders rugby public in equal measure, Telfer insisted that the decision which he believes will leave the Borders as a rugby "dustbowl" owed much to an "Edinburgh-Glasgow mafia" now controlling Scottish rugby.

He said: "Clubs have lost influence in the running of the game because of the changes to the old district system they voted in a couple of years ago and the Borders no longer has any influence because of the Edinburgh-Glasgow mafia that now exists at board level. The whole of Scottish rugby is now driven by the central belt and very few of the people on the board have any experience of being involved in professional rugby. I just hope they know what they're doing.

"I was very unhappy at the disenfranchising of Caledonia and have watched teams from Aberdeen, Dundee and Stirling struggle to keep themselves among the top clubs, but now they've disenfranchised Caledonia and the Borders. That's fair enough - they feel they had no choice - but as they centralise the pro game in Scotland I hope there is some long-term planning there for these important areas in the north and south."

Telfer's critics will feel he has no room to talk, and while he would argue many decisions were taken in his time over which he had no control, the same could be said for rugby figures now involved at Murrayfield. The former Scotland and British and Irish Lions player and coach became the SRU's first director of rugby in 1994 and with a staff which had researched professional sport around the world drove the game down the four districts route. His decision and forthright manner brought condemnation from clubs insistent they should be given new money from European competition and allowed to develop themselves as professional entities.

But Telfer drove the SRU on with four part-time district teams in 1996 and then signed up more than 120 players to enable Scotland to join the professional revolution with four full-time teams in 1997. However, within eight months the finance division had decided the salaries could not be maintained, despite crowds of more than 5,000 watching each of the four teams in the short run of European games.

Against Telfer's wishes and contrary to the reasoning by the executive at that time that it was "for rugby reasons", the four district sides were merged into two and the feeling that the merger was a farce crystalised when the new teams soon dropped their 'Reivers' and 'Reds' epithets and became Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Telfer led the push for the return of the Borders when funds were said to be sufficient, recruiting Gary Armstrong, Doddie Weir and George Graham, and Tony Gilbert, the former All Blacks assistant coach.

Now retired from rugby, he is sceptical of the union's commitment to improve the professional game with this latest move. He said:

"We are already seeing a migration of people from the Borders to cities for work, further education and other opportunities, and this will only increase that because even young rugby players serious about playing rugby as a career will have nothing to aim for in the Borders anymore.

"The Borders will become a dustbowl. Nobody is going to see pro rugby in the heartland of the game in Scotland; it will all be in the cities and the past ten years have proved that there isn't huge support for pro rugby in Scotland's cities."

He had to concede, however, that the crowds at Netherdale had contributed to the belief that pro rugby in the Borders had no bright future either. Andy Irvine, the SRU president,

said the Borders were by far the best supported team in Scotland per head of population, but added that gate receipts for two years would not even cover the six-month salary of Wallaby scrum-half George Gregan, who has signed for Toulon for about £270,000.

Telfer said: "The Borders people do have a lot to answer for - those who call themselves rugby supporters. I misjudged them when I said we had to have the Borders team back in 2002 and if I had the decision to make again, in hindsight, it may have been better to site it in Caledonia.

"There will be some people down here pleased with the decision, but the people I've seen in Galashiels today are absolutely gutted. There seems to be shock among rugby people, and a genuine fear about what this means for the game in the Borders, and Scotland as a whole."

THE BORDERS PRO RUGBY TEAM: A BRIEF HISTORY
27 August 1995: Rugby turns professional, but Scotland waits a year to join the revolution and no Scots teams take part in the inaugural Heineken European Cup.

1995-96: Debate rages over whether clubs or districts should represent Scotland in Europe. Melrose, league winners in five of the last seven seasons, champion the case of the clubs, but the SRU gets its way and districts win the day.

12 October 1996: The South district side, renamed the Scottish Borders, makes an inauspicious start to life as a part-time pro side, losing 85-28 to Pau on their Heineken Cup debut.

17 October 1996: Scottish Borders bounce back, beating Llanelli 24-16 on a historic night at Mansfield Park, Gary Parker landing eight penalties. It's the first win by a Scots side in the Heineken Cup.

1997: Rebranded the Scottish Border Reivers, the side becomes full-time with players now tied to the pro outfit rather than their clubs.

16 March 1998: As financial reality bites, the Borders side is merged with Edinburgh to create 'Edinburgh Reivers'. The two other pro sides, Glasgow and Caledonia, are also merged. Sixty players are made redundant.

7 August 2001: Reivers name dropped and the pro side becomes simply 'Edinburgh'.

2002: The Borders pro team is relaunched with Tony Gilbert as coach. They join the Celtic League.

27 March 2007: SRU announces Border Reivers are to close at the end of the season with the funding redirected to the Glasgow. Between 15 and 20 players to lose jobs.

[Rasputin]

South Africa coach Jake White hailed the World Cup win as a massive boost for the Rainbow Nation.
The Springboks edged England 15-6 with four penalties from Percy Montgomery and one from Francois Steyn to two from England's Jonny Wilkinson.

"It's important for our country and I think everyone back home is rejoicing," said White. "It's unbelievable.

"To see the president of our country sitting on the players' shoulders, it doesn't get much better than that."

South Africa also won the World Cup on home soil in 1995, when the then president Nelson Mandela wore the number six shirt of captain Francois Pienaar, and White said he hoped this victory would play a similar part in uniting his country.

I hope this creates a scenario that binds everyone together and we start forgetting about counting numbers and colours

Springbok captain John Smit

"People ask why we take the World Cup so seriously. It's much bigger than any other event, what it did to us as a nation," he said.

"We've now won a World Cup away from home. We had our president sitting in the changing room. He was saying how proud he was of being a South African."

Springbok skipper John Smit added: "We have had the responsibility of carrying the hopes of a nation on our shoulders and now we have a team that is taking the trophy back home to the nation.


South Africa president Thabo Mbeki celebrates in Paris

"I certainly hope that being able to lift this cup and take it back home can create a scenario that everyone binds together and we start forgetting about counting numbers and colours."

Smit was also keen to dedicate the win to the long-suffering South Africa fans.

"This is for all of you. Thank you very much for all your support, even in bad times," he said.

"I'm sitting here and trying not to cry. It's a feeling you can't put into words.

"Twelve years ago, I sat watching the final at Ellis Park and wondered whether it was possible to do it again. Dreams come true.

"It was a colossal game, but to be able to win a World Cup, I think I'll only realise in a couple of days' time."

People talk about pride, passion and teamwork, and England have proved they will not go out without a fight

South Africa coach Jake White

White said England deserved credit even for reaching the final in Paris, following their 36-0 mauling by his side in the group stages.

"I think it would be wrong not to compliment England," he added.

"People wrote them off. People talk about pride, passion and teamwork, and they have proved they will not go out without a fight.

"They gave everything they had, but winning back-to-back World Cups is always difficult.

"It just shows how important defence is. They were a bit unlucky not to get a try but we showed a bit of attitude on the line.

"We were defending so well and we never really felt that they were asking questions of our line.

606: DEBATE
England are back in the ascendancy but South Africa were too good for us on the day and were the best team in the tournament

Flabby Alonso

"When we were two scores ahead and we turned their line-out over, we knew they would have to chase it. We slowed the game down and we have learned that over the past four years."

Lock Victor Matfield, who won the man-of-the-match award for an outstanding display in the line-out, hailed an emotional victory.

"This is awesome. We worked for four years for this. We knew we were going to have to take it to England up front," he said.

"The emotions are greater than I ever thought. I can't wait to get back home. I can't wait to see all the South Africans."

Star winger Bryan Habana was unconcerned about failing to add to his tally of tries in a tight match.

"I just wanted to help the team effort," he said.

"Everyone in the squad made a contribution from number one to number 30. Every player who's represented the country in the last four years made a contribution.

"(The 1995 victory) planted the seed that made me want to be a part of this great game."


Veteran Springbok prop Os du Randt, 35, the only survivor in the side from the victorious 1995 team, confirmed his retirement after the game. Du Randt bowed out with 80 caps to his name.
"I don't remember the first one, it's too long ago," he said, "but I'm still enjoying this one. It's definitely good to win.

"I think all the guys put the hard work in and it's just great to be out here."

[abadani69]

تيم ملي راگبي آفريقاي جنوبي شنبه شب با پيروزي ۱۵بر شش توانست تيم ملي راگبي انگلستان را شكست دهد و عنوان قهرماني جهان اين مسابقات را به خود اختصاص دهد.

به گزارش خبرگزاري فرانسه از پاريس، تيم ملي راگبي آفريقاي جنوبي در يك رويارويي در برابر تيم انگليس در ورزشگاه "سن دنيس" فرانسه به پيروزي دست يافت.

اين بازي با نتيجه ۱۵بر شش به نفع تيم راگبي آفريقاي جنوبي به پايان رسيد.

حدود ۸۰هزار نفر اين بازي را در ورزشگاه سن دنيس به داوري "رونالد" مشاهده كردند.

تيم راگبي آفريقاي جنوبي در سال ۱۹۹۵ميلادي نيز عنوان قهرماني جهان مسابقات راگبي را كسب كرده بود.

برپايه اين گزارش، جالب توجه است كه حدود ۱۵هزار فرانسوي نيز شنبه*شب در نزديكي برج "ايفل" از طريق تلويزيون*هاي غول*پيكر، اين بازي را دنبال مي*كردند.

[abadani69]

تيم ملي راگبي ايران در ادامه رقابتهاي قهرماني آسيا روز سه*شنبه مقابل تيم پاكستان با نتيجه ۳۲بر ۳به برتري رسيد و به مرحله بعد صعود كرد.

به*گزارش روابط عمومي فدراسيون بيس بال ، اين مسابقات با شركت ۱۲تيم از جمله تايلند، مالزي، پاكستان، قطر، چين تايپه، قزاقستان، هند و سريلانكا / ميزبان / به مدت ۸روز در كلمبو برگزار مي*شود.

تيم ايران براي نخستين بار در اين مسابقات شركت كرده است.

احمد زارع منش، فرشيد صديقي، مرتضي رسول اوغلي، محسن آقايي، عليرضا ايرج ، پدرام بني عامريان، داود ايوبي، فرامرزرنجكش، بهزاد هدايت،حميدرضا تقوي نژاد، رضا دغاغله،يوسف جلالي، نادرمنتظري،مهيار عسگري، احمد اتحادپور، امين حسين زاده، نيما عسگري، مجيد رجبي ، سجاد ايزدي، حسن نورزاد، جلال جهانبخش، محمد خليلي و فرهاد خسرو شاهي اعضاي تيم ايران را در اين رقابتها تشكيل مي*دهند.

تيم ايران در سومين ديدار خود كه فردا/ پنجشنبه/ برگزار خواهد شد مقابل تيم هند به ميدان خواهد رفت.