Rugby Confidential: Wallabies feel the love at Che’s club, TMO’s time out, Genia’s beautiful gesture
WHEN the Wallabies entered Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara’s old rugby club in Buenos Aires, they were stunned to find a clubhouse full of colour portraits and memorabilia from past Wallaby teams.
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THE Wallabies might be struggling to win on the field but they’ve had another big victory in the boardroom after World Rugby announced it would trial a new system to limit the role of Television Match Officials (TMO).
Just a week after World Rugby agreed to change its rules on aerial challenges after Israel Folau’s ludicrous one-match ban in June, the sport’s top brass have backed Australia’s call for referees to have a bigger say on what happens on the pitch.
The trial will take place during the November Tests and will focus on empowering the whistleblowers to make their own decisions without unnecessary intervention and delays from video officials.
The key areas will include: making referees responsible for deciding on tries, ensuring TMO referrals are made quickly, clearly and consistently, removing ‘on the run’ chats between the match officials and TMO on foul play unless it's a clear and obvious serious act of foul play, but also allowing officials to review foul play when a game is restarted.
“While we hope that the revised protocol will have a positive impact in terms of time impact on the game and accuracy, as with any trial, we will undertake a full review after the November window before determining whether to proceed,” World Rugby Council Member John Jeffrey said.
WALLABIES TREATED LIKE REVOLUTIONARIES
THE San Isidro Club in Buenos Aires where the Wallabies were training before heading up to Salta to face the Pumas has a real soft spot for the Australians.
Such is SIC’s enduring affection for the Wallabies, their clubhouse features a full colour portrait as well as memorabilia from visiting Wallaby teams that played against them in the days when international tours were more than just the hit-and-runs they’ve become today.
Australia’s first ever match in Argentina was against San Isidro, back in 1979. The Wallabies won 17-12 but the locals exacted some revenge eight years later when they drew 22-22.
Coached by Alan Jones and captained by Simon Poidevin, the 1987 Australian team was stacked with stars, including future World Cup winners Nick Farr-Jones, Michael Lynagh and Troy Coker.
But SIC had some pretty handy players of their own that day, including Marcelo Loffreda, Diego Cash and Diego Cuesta Silva, Rafael Madero and Alfredo Soares Gache, who all played for the Pumas, and managed to tie the game with a pushover try three minutes from the end.
Though he never played for the Pumas and was executed more than two decades before the Wallabies visited his club, San Isidro Club was one of the teams that revolutionary Che Guevara played for.
GENIA’S BEAUTIFUL GESTURE
WHILE most of the Wallabies spent their one day off in Argentina touring the Boca Juniors soccer stadium La Bombonera, halfback Will Genia spent the day visiting an underprivileged community for children dealing with alcohol/drug abuse, violence and poverty.”
WALLABIES’ LOST LUGGAGE
THE Wallabies arrived in Argentina still bleary-eyed after their long trek from South Africa to discover that most of their luggage had been lost in transit.
While it’s not unusual for frequent flyers to arrive at their destination to be told one or two of their bags are missing - that takes on a whole different perspective for travelling rugby teams who often take their own training equipment with them.
For the Wallabies, that meant a staggering total of 156 bags had failed to make it to Buenos Aires at the same time as the team.
The sheer number and weight of the bags mean that ground staff were unable to load them all on the team’s connecting flight to Argentina during a brief stopover off in Brazil. It took almost two days to be reunited but they got back in time for the Wallabies’ first training session.
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Originally published as Rugby Confidential: Wallabies feel the love at Che’s club, TMO’s time out, Genia’s beautiful gesture