Good morning G&GRs and welcome to Friday’s Rugby News. Unfortunately, our hairless fearless leader Hoss is still away from the keyboard his week, so you’re stuck with my ramblings to lead you into the weekend that may be. Before we get into the rugby news and some random thoughts, let’s grab a brew and take a moment to reflect on everything that was good about the week.

For me, a work project that started in February as an idea was signed off on Thursday night, and while in some ways it was a simple thing, it took a huge effort from a group of people to make it happen, and it’s a relief that it did. Also, because it’s Friday I’m only one work day away from going on holidays for a week of scuba diving and snorkelling at Heron Island on the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. The second best bit about the Island is that the phone doesn’t work, except to take photos of the sun rising and setting over the ocean, how cool is that. I can say that Heron Island is my favourite holiday destination that I’ve found to date.

This week’s rugby news

For a week without a Wallabies test, there were still a lot of games to cover and a lot of news to chew over and discuss. To recap, we had Bris’s excellent efforts in covering last weekend’s games on Monday, some plodder opined about Super Rugby AUS and other matters on Tuesday, Yowie gave us an excellent summary of the midweek news on Wednesday, and Karl stepped in to relieve Nutta on Thursday with a history of the Boks v Wallabies contests and some news about the Australian Sevens players.

This weekend’s rugby games

There is a bit happening this weekend with the finals of the Pacific Nations Cup taking place in Japan and the second round of the WXV Global Series happening at fields across Europe.

Pacific Nations Cup

Grand Final

The Pacific Nations Cup final kicks off on Saturday with the Japan hosting reigning champions Fiji at the Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium. This should be a cracking match, the number 13 ranked (but improving) Japan host the 9th ranked Fijians at 7:05pm local time. Japan showed some good form to knock over Italy in Nations Championship, pushed Australia in the first test in Osaka but lost tests to Ireland, France and Australia. It should be said that somehow the Irish got away with making the Japanese travel to Newcastle for a home game against the Irish, rather than Ireland having to travel to Japan and then back again.

Japan beat the USA to make the final and I’m sure they’ll be looking to improve on their performance the last two years when lost the grand finals.

Fiji had a tough time in the Nations Championship, after agreeing to play their “home games” in the UK (assuming they got paid better for it), they lost to Wales (in Cardiff), England (in Liverpool), and Scotland (in Edinburgh). They did recover though to beat Canada in the semi-final of the Pacific Nations Cup and advance to final against Japan.

Fearless prediction

This should be an entertaining match, both teams love to play at pace and adventure, though the Fijians have a few more years practice at that. Countering that is the notion (held by me) they seem to get the raw end of the refereeing deal more than any other team I watch.

Having said that, I am going to go with Fiji by 8 points in a high paced contest.

Bronze Medal match / third place play off

Sunday will see Canada take on their southern neighbours USA in the third and fourth place play off.

On paper it is an uphill battle for Canada who are ranked 24 in the world as they take on the 14th ranked USA, who have recent good form having won four of their last five games while the Canadians have three losses, a draw and a win in their last five. Both teams lost last weekend to Japan and Fiji while Canada won the most recent meeting between the two sides last year. Both sides have qualified for the World Cup in Australia next year, so they’re playing for a trophy and some bragging rights.

Logic says that the USA will be too strong for the Canuks but, supporting the Seppos in anything at the moment feels a bit dirty. I’m tipping the Canadians in a thriller by four points, if for no other reason than to see their most capped player, Lucas Rumball (how cool, or how terrible is that for a name?) get a victory against the old enemy. Go Canada.

France v Wallaroos

The Wallaroos are set to take on France this weekend in Aix-en-Provence. I was going to write about the Wallaroos stepping up against France after their encouraging game against the Red Roses when I was reminded that the Wallaroos won their last outing against the French by 29-10 in the 2023 edition of the WXV.

The Wallaroos have named a strong squad for the game in the south of France this weekend, skippered by the impressive and inspirational Palu Sekona, and backing some youth and developing players with Ellis starting at flyhalf and Whitaker and Halse at wing and fullback. It’s easy to forget how young Halse is, given how well she played at the World Cup last year and the presence she brings on the field.

It’s a strong side with plenty of players backing up from the English game including Merlo, Pohiva, Leaney, Leonard, Tapsell, Duck and Palu Sekona in the forwards and the entire starting backline. The Wallaroos are looking for another win against the French and if they can put in a similar performance to the English game it’ll go a long way to securing the victory.

Fearless Prediction – Wallaroos by 10 with the forwards leading the charge to create room for Ellis, Halse and Hinds to wreak some havoc.

Super Rugby AUS

It’s week two of the Super Rugby AUS with numerous Queensland and New South Wales sides heading to Roma for the Santos Festival of Rugby. The two women’s Sevens teams play three games over the course of Saturday with the first game starting at 9:30 on Saturday morning. The day will see the Queensland and New South Wales Under 19s men’s teams get it on at 10:00 am before the Vintage Reds take on the Vintage Waratahs in 10s at 2:00pm followed by a Super Rugby women’s match, leading into the Queensland v New South Wales Super Rugby AUS match to finish off the festival. A full list of matches for the Saturday is:

Saturday September 19

9:30am: Queensland v New South Wales (Women’s 7s) Game 1

10:00am: Queensland v New South Wales Under 19s

12:00pm: Queensland v New South Wales (Women’s 7s) Game 2

12:30pm: Classic Wallabies Clinic

1:30pm:  Queensland v New South Wales (Women’s 7s) Game 3

2:00pm: Vintage Reds v Vintage New South Wales (10s)

3:30pm: Queensland v New South Wales (Super Rugby Women’s Exhibition)

5:45pm: Queensland v New South Wales (Super Rugby AUS)

Both Queensland and New South Wales have named a host of emerging and developing players in their squads for the weekend. From a Queensland perspective, it’s great to see Tom Lynagh get some more game time and, hopefully, he can go well. It’s also good to see Matt Faessler playing again, and for mine, Joe Brial is under-rated as a hard working talented footballer that does the hard work and can run great support lines when the Reds have the ball. Similarly, John Bryant is a seriously good footballer and hopefully destined for higher honours in what is the most competitive position in Australian rugby.

The teams are listed below, and good luck to the Reds.

Force v Brumbies

The Force will host the Brumbies at the North Coast Rugby Union Football Club in Butler (Perth) this Saturday. Both teams have named extended squads with 25 players on the call sheet. The teams have a development feel about them, but the Brumbies are able to call on some recent Wallabies in Nick Frost, Tane Edmed and Corey Toole as well as a host of regular Super Rugby players. Their backline in particular looks threatening with Edmed, Toole, Feliuai, Sapsford and Reilly set to start with Pritchard and others on the bench.

The Force have some quality players with Mac Grealy, Nick Champion de Crespigny, Tom Robertson, Nic Dolly and veteran Kurtley Beale starting along with Zac Lomax. It’ll be interesting to see how the Force go in the lineout with Will Harris packing in at lock against Nick Frost and Toby MacPherson. The teams are listed below.

That’s a wrap for this week.

Conga th to the team they qre tying doo co0vvured tio b e mimine

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