Spiro Zavos on Crusaders
Rugby
Numbers right and Izzy should start for Wallabies
Spiro Zavos IT'S probably a journalistic instinct to preserve a thought but I often find myself scribbling notes as the rugby play surges on before me.
Flawless Smith sure to get Test tick as bungler Cooper stays in the cold
Spiro Zavos A FEW days before NSW played their first rugby match against a British rugby side, on June 2, 1888, a Probables- Possibles match was contested in Sydney to work out a starting XV.
Rugby
Beale must concentrate on tackling his demons
Spiro Zavos IT seems a blink in the mind's eye, but several years ago the ABC presented a live telecast of Joeys playing Riverview in the GPS rugby tournament.
Rugby
Hard-nosed packs give Kiwis a wake-up call
Spiro Zavos AFTER the sensational Highlanders - Chiefs match, the new backs coach of the Waratahs, Daryl Gibson, contacted his former Crusaders teammate Justin Marshall with the claim that the New Zealand...
Spiro Zavos
Cheika ready to lead the Waratahs to glory
Spiro Zavos ACCORDING to blink theory, first impressions are often the truest impressions. The first time I met Michael Cheika, the new coach of the Waratahs, was at Manuka Oval decades ago.
Spiro Zavos
Democratic or dictatorial, best coaching system is a winning system
Spiro Zavos There has been a fierce debate this week about the good rucking Richie McCaw has given his former coach, Robbie Deans, in his rugbiography The Open Side.
Spiro Zavos
McKenzie's blunder raises questions over his tactical nous
Spiro Zavos In the 20th minute of the engrossing qualifying final between the Reds and the Sharks, Ewen McKenzie made a fateful and wrong decision.
Spiro Zavos
Reign of Foley has run its course as Horror-tahs fail to kick their habit of dispiriting fans
Spiro Zavos ROD Kafer is bringing down the house at rugby lunches with this barb: "I congratulate the Waratahs on being in their 16th year of their three-year plan to win the Super Rugby tournament."
Spiro Zavos
Race to the Super finals is reaching fever pitch
Spiro Zavos NOW, where were we, before the June Test series stopped this year's Super Rugby tournament in its tracks …
A tale of wrong referees and unfair advantage
Spiro Zavos TOM Keneally, wordsmith, describes the hype before big matches as the foreplay. Not unexpectedly, the qualifying finals between the Crusaders and Bulls and the Reds and Sharks have generated intense...
Spiro Zavos
Conference table key to landing Super title
Spiro Zavos THE iron law of winning the 2012 Super Rugby tournament for the Waratahs is: ''Win the Australian conference.'' The Reds did this last year.
Spiro Zavos
Conference format is a winner - and South Africans cannot be allowed to wreck it
Spiro Zavos THE Australian and New Zealand unions beware, the South Africans are coming to make a mess of the Super Rugby tournament.
Spiro Zavos
The fine line between winners and losers
Spiro Zavos 'MOST ball games are lost, not won," Casey Stengel, the eccentric, folksy manager of New York's Yankees and Mets once told a gaggle of sports writers.
Spiro Zavos
Bulls' allegations raise question of fairness
Spiro Zavos SOME strange Super Rugby action, some of it good and some of it not so good, has been coming out of South Africa. The good could result in a South African team winning the tournament.
Spiro Zavos
Gouge claims leave Bulls open to scorn
Spiro Zavos The ''Gougegate'' affair is becoming murky. There are too many unanswered questions relating to it that need to be resolved by SANZAR if public confidence in the new process is to be maintained.
Spiro Zavos
Personal agendas rear ugly heads up north
Spiro Zavos A month ago the Brumbies were at $13.25 to win the Australian conference of this year's Super Rugby tournament.
Spiro Zavos
Bring back Campo: Waratahs' back line could do with some help
Spiro Zavos Let's have more afternoon Super Rugby matches, please. It was just like old times on Sunday walking down Moore Park Road to the ground to watch the Waratahs play the Crusaders.
Spiro Zavos
Hot air over depth of Australian conference neglects cold hard facts
Spiro Zavos PHIL KEARNS talked about it on the Rugby Club. John Plumtree, the New Zealand-born coach of the Sharks, says the same thing.
