What does it take to be a good captain?

Richie Mccaw, the all black captain.

Well before i go into that I'm going to break the most common myth's concerning being a captain, you don't need to be the best player on your team!
Being the captain is so much more than being the best, and the best doesn't always have what it takes to be a captain, but I would say that it is important that the captain is a good player and has a descent knowledge of the game because the captain will at times have to make important decisions and needs to know the game to make the best decision they can; aswell as that they need to have the respect of the players and its unlikely a bad player will have that.


Okay so what attributes does a good captain need?

- The respect of your team, this is important in any leadership roll, so how do you get them to respect you?
The most important thing is to try to have a good relationship with the whole team, you always have to have a carm head on because you may at times get frustrated at your team mates but its important to always be supportive, so if someone does something stupid tell them not to worry about it and if there's fighting within the team sort it out, if you keep the team toghether, even when you're team's getting annihilated, you will find that they will respect you for it.

- Respect the ref, we're not footballer's! I've had some very crap ref's but i know that nothing ever good come's about by answering back, being rude etc. so as much as it pain's you always be respectful towards the ref.

- Always keep you head up, If you drop you head when your team's losing then so will the rest of your team so always keep plugging away so that even if you lose you can be proud of your performance and if your teammate's are giving up, give them a boot up the backside!



Rugby Christmas presents.

I've had a great Christmas, I estimated that i consumed around 10,000 calories on Christmas day (okay more an exaggerated guess than an estimate but probably not as far off the mark as you think!), done very minimal exercise or work and its been great!

We received two brilliant, rugby related gifts, the first was the 2011 rugby world cup DVD, which first shows an overview of the world cup starting with the group games and moving up, it then proceeds to show plenty of the best tries of the tournament (around 70 minutes off tries a think) overall a great watch, if i had a grievance it would have to be the new zealander who voiced over it, I can't pinpoint what annoyed me about his voice, Mabay kiwi's just don't have good voices for voice-overs?
Prove me wrong! anyway there were many great moments in the world cup (Newzealand winning for a start, wooh!) a couple I'm most fond of are, firstly the final Haka which France challenged, and a moment of brilliance by Israel dagg which you can see right at the end of the video below-  2:58.

Another present was the world rugby records 2012 containing different records for each nations such as most tries scored, most capped player, largest wins and defeats and lots of other interesting facts, I haven't read much yet but what of what I have I've enjoyed it very much.

I hope you guys had a good Christmas aswell and have fun working of those pounds :).

Challenging The All Blacks Haka

The all blacks Haka is a war dance done by the New Zealand rugby team, its terrifying and magnificent at the same time, it derives back to the Maori's who did the Haka before going into battle.
The Haka is done as a sort of challenge to the opposing team and throughout the history of the game there has been times where the opposing team has accepted the challenge by challenging them in return.
For me the challenging of the Haka is an epic sporting moment but sadly the IRB disprove of it; the most recent  occurrence of the challenging of the Haka was in the rugby world cup final between France and New Zealand where France came forward in an arrow shape.

The IRB fined France 10000 dollars for getting closer than 10m to the Haka as its 'disrespectful' but the All blacks and I think the rest of the nation respectively disagree with them.

Other occasions of the Haka challenges:

Both Ireland's and France's challenges were incredible but by far my favourite challenge comes from Richard Cockerill in 1997, watch this its legendary-

More Reason's To Watch Rugby.

Here's some more hot rugby chicks, for those who can't find any other intelligible reason to watch rugby.

seriously, why doesn't we have adverts like these in the UK??

We could really learn a thing or two from the Irish!

Another hot chick in Kit!


Still loving those cheerleaders




Lets have a funny one to finish with :)

What's going on with the scrum collapses?

'Currently 60% of all scrums collapse in Tier 1 internationals and 40% of scrums are required to be reset while the average time taken to complete a scrum has risen from 41 seconds to 53'

The last ten years the amount of scrums collapsing has defiantly been on a increase and its become a major annoyance for both players and fans! And not only this but penalties are being given from the ref by guess work. I don't blame the ref's, if it was that easy to understand what was going on in the scrum we would of come up with a solution by now but something does need to be done and hopefully sooner rather than later.


So what could be going wrong then?

- Could the problem be with the skin tight shirts?
Skin tight shirts are good for a couple reasons, they make it almost impossible for someone to scrag tackle a player through grabbing there shirt which most people would agree is a good thing. Also we all know the material which loose fitting jumpers are made of can pick up an insane amount of mud and water and by the end of the match your practically wearing a 5kg shirt (may be a slight exaggeration but you get the point).
But although the shirts are an improvement they may also be one of the problems!
They make it harder for the props to get a binding on the opposite prop leading to the prop slipping leading to a collapsed scrum.
But do I really think that the shirts are the main problem!?
The truth is no. There has to be be more of a problem than just the shirts but it may be worth thinking about changing something like putting a small loose patch on the prop's shirt where they can bind.


- Maybe the problem is with the size of players.
There's no doubt that as the years have gone by rugby players have got bigger and bigger and the margin for error is less, so lets think a bit of physics, the bigger the two forces acting on each other a change in one force creates a bigger consequence so lets say the change of force is a prop slipping its a lot harder for him to correct it and the chances are the scrum will collapse.
I have noticed that the collapses are more common as you get up to international level scrums where players are a lot bigger rather than lower level rugby like club so this also backs the theory.
So how could this be corrected then, well its about reducing the chance of error, for example making it easier for the props to bind along with other things which I'll talk about below.


- The problem could possibly be lying within the hit.

Many people seem to think the problem is the hit, linking to the point above the hit only seems to increase the likely hood of an error especially if one team wins the hit by quite a margin the other team is likely to crumple; the hit has been recently complicated more by the elongated paaaaause... engage because now the the opposite scrums, in the hope to win the scrum, are trying to predict when the ref will say engage leading to more instances where one team's scrum get the jump on the gun and dramatically winning the hit.

I think that the hit is one of the bigger problems but how can we fix it?

The thing is I really don't see the IRB doing anything about it and I don't blame them because its become such a major part of the scrum and for me, who's played with the hit all my life, would find the scrum a lot different without the hit.





I think all elements link together to create the mess of a scrum we see today and I still believe that they need to make some big changes to sort it out.
What do you think? comment or do the poll in the sidebar.

Rugby Tips, How To Tackle In Rugby.

As you probably know, tackling is one of the most important skills in rugby so its worth learning and perfecting.

Rugby tackling rules (skip section if you already them):
- You must tackle below the shoulders.
- If you pick the up the player you must put him down (you can't drop him) and you must make sure you don't put him down of him neck.
- After you tackle a player you may get caught at the bottom of the ruck, here you must roll away so that the opposing team can get the ball.
Its important to follow these rules because you won't always just get a penalty against you, you may get a yellow or red card.

The main points of a rugby tackle:
- 'they can't run without there legs', you should always try to tackle a player round there legs aiming to wrapping and tightening both your arms around them so they can't move resulting in the player falling to the ground.
- 'cheek to cheek', it is important when tackling in rugby to have your cheek next to there bum-cheek.
When you tackle with your right shoulder you should always have your right cheek next to there bum-cheek and visa versa for your left shoulder, this is a safety thing on your part.

This tackler is tackling round his legs and tackling 'cheek to cheek'.

- When your tackling in rugby confidence is key, your a lot more likely to get hurt when you go into a tackle half-hearted and that's the wrong way round, you should be hurting them! So focus on going in big and knocking them back.

Its important to remember when your tackling in rugby that most the time a player won't run right at you so you'll have to tackle them from the side or from behind but the main principles stay the same, tackle there legs, remember the 'cheek to cheek' rule and be confident!

How to to tackle people bigger than you:

Most the time tackling someone bigger than you should be the same as with anyone else, 'they can't run without there legs' but what do you do when they running hard and straight at you?
- What you do here is the same as always but instead of trying to hit them back you fall back with them.
Unlike a usual tackle hit them a slight angle so that when you fall back they don't land on you, also focus on getting a very tight grip around there legs, that's all there is to it!

Now you've read the post all you have to do is practise, practise and practise some more!
Alot of being a good tackler is being confident so you can develop your technique.

Good luck and have fun tackling those big-in's!

This Is Rugby - UK Rugby Info and Directory, check out this website for great rugby news and other things to do with rugby.

What Is The Haka - Complete explanation.

The Haka is many things; it is a war dance; a form entertainment; a challenge, it can even be used for celebratory reasons.

To understand the mighty Haka we have to go to its roots, where it all started.

History.

The Haka being performed.

The Haka was first performed by Maori tribes ( tribes in new Zealand) as a war dance to frighten and discourage opponents before a battle, similar to the all blacks Haka now, except now its a lot more to do with tradition and presenting the challenge to the opposition.

Any way there was one more reason it was used, and it was the most important one of all, to call the god of war on behalf of them; quite a scary prospect in its self don't you think, imagine how angry he'd be if they got it wrong!

To say that the Haka was only used before battle is a misconception, as I said above it was used for different occasions such as greeting guests and celebrating a great achievement, it was part of their culture and was used by children, women and men alike.

What is the Haka now?

Nowadays most people know the Haka as the dance the all blacks do before a rugby match, it is a exciting and intimidating display which is used as a challenge to the opponents and also seems to get them very pumped up; personally I love to watch it but if I was the one it was directed to, I would be terrified!
The type of Haka that the All blacks traditionally use is the 'ka mate' which includes the slapping of legs and arms while chanting (which you can see below).
There are also other teams who have adopted the Haka as well from the all blacks who have personalised it.

                                                New Zealand Haka against France.

rugby gift ideas

I just found the perfect present for my rugby nut of a brother!


I saw it while looking at lou16's, great squidoo lens Gifts For Rugby Union Nuts.
I also loved the iPhone cases but i was shocked to see they cost £44! seriously! :

no blood, no foul.

One of the suggested sites was zazzle, and after looking at some of their other shirts i'm seriousily tempted to get my-self a Christmas present!

Convincing reasons to start watching rugby.

Hot chicks, what more do you need?
Note that the thing that made me do this was http://wgrd.com/insanely-hot-chicks-demonstrate-proper-rugby-video/
Cheer leaders- they do a wonderful job, great choreography, daring tricks, entertaining performances but most importantly... well i think you can guess!


But common lets not forget the beauties who play the game-


urrrrmmm....



ahhh that's more like it!

Finally how about those fans!



Here's a little extra i found for you- enjoy :)


More reason's to watch rugby.