There is a rumour going the rounds that australian John O'Niell has suggested a notion of either a SANZAR or an ANZAC team to face a British Lions team in 2015 in celebration of Galipoli.
The game would be difficult to play in Turkey, but should be a spectacle if Played at Twickenham.
what would you think if such a team would play and would you go an watch?
We should have few other tours rather. Go tour South/North America and Canada. Have the Pacific Islanders tour us. It will grow rugby far more.
Twickenham is crap, always over priced and filled with English :P I prefer Murrayfield! The Scots are fantastic and whole area shuts down and everyone ends up in the street. Took my wife to watch Boks vs Scotland in 2010 and it is the best time I have ever had at a game.
i always enjoy this type of festival once in a lifetime games. but then again it would only add to yet another very long season for the players.
i support the notion to play it on murrayfield. my hate for anything english will support anything that is not to the benefict of the poms. the scots or even the welsh should host this game i feel
Historically How can you validate a better connection for Murrayfield or the Welsh with Galipoli than the English? Won't the British connection be better filled with a London test?
I honestly can't speak with regards to history.I only make my statement from actually going to both venues.
Twickenham is just typical english building grey, clean and clinical. I just don't find any atmosphere there. It might be that 90% of the population are football supporters, I don't really know. But' there is no build up, no excitement. Even on the train to the stadium and walking down the road. Just plain and boring and nothing going on even in the stadium.
When in Edinburgh it always feels like an event, the city gets excited everyone is talking about the game and excited for the home team. And afterwards the main road is rammed with spill over from the game and all the hotels along the road have fires outside and meals and drinks. It is just so special.
I have not been to Millenium Park but I must admit it does look amazing. I have only spent a very short amount of time in Cardiff and it was pretty nice. It wouldn't be fair to judge.
Yeah, Millenium Stadium does look awesome. Don't give it to the Poms, they can watch their ballet aka soccer. The Welsh as a nation are much more rugby mad...or wait, here is an idea if it is just a once off thing, play a best of three games, one at Twicks, one at Millenium and then the Scots and the Irish must have an arm wrestle to see who gets the last one.
Imagine a SANZAR side of:
15. Beale 14. O'Connor 13. Frans Steyn 12. SBW 11. Digby 10. Carter 9. Genia 1. Beast 2. Bismark 3. Franks 4. Etzebeth 5. Bekker 6. Pocock 7. Thompson 8.Read 16. Hougaard 17. Cooper 18. JP 19. Robinson 20. Moore 21. Whitelock 22. Spies
Mouth watering prospect Saff. I'd make a couple of changes, Beast for one, but what a team it would be. One could even argue that it would be the two best teams in history playing against each other.
i like the idea of a SANZAR team, but player fatigue is a massive issue and im sure that the players from all three countries would prefer to play for their own nations over a SANZAR team.
motivation would be important for players to want to go out and play and a connection to the team based on history and love that u had for that team which makes the Boks ur No1 team or the ABs mine. i dont see the players getting that kind of motivation and at best it would be a TriNats barbarians team.
the british and irish lions are different, even though theres no love between those nations, the lions have been around for ages and there was a connection under the UK of sorts.
i sill like the SANZAR XV idea though, here would be my team,,,
1 c oosthuizen, 2 b du plesiss, 3 o franks, 4 j horwil, 5 e ezebeth, 6 k read, 7 d pocock, 8 w palu, 9 w genia, 10 d carter, 11 d ioane, 12 f steyn, 13 SBW, 14 b habana, 15 k beale
16 t polotu nau, 17 b franks, 18 s whitelock, 19 w alberts, 20 a smith, 21 j oconner, 22 i dagg
coach - graham henry
It would really be interesting to see a team for Sanzar, question is would we include Argentina then I doubt for ther relevance of the game as it is a Galipoli thing the inclusion of south Africa is also a thin line as there weren't that many Saffas at Gallipoli as far as I know, the Saffas where mostly at EL Alamein in WW2. But we will stand by the ANZAC guys then :)
but still i would love to see this type of a match to be honest
Another question not related to the Galipoli type match.
More related to this type of Game.
would you rather want to see a Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere game or a SANZAR/ANZAC vs British lions type game.
Maybe a once off every year North vs South would be really nice festival. then they can oscilate the venue between the north and south an the countries involved.
Ek
Just a historical correction. The battle of Gallipoli took place in Turkey in World War I and did not involve any South African troops. The battle was fought by Turkish troops against the Allies and was a real disaster for the Allies. .
The South Africans were involved in what was then Deutsch West Africa ( today Namibia) and Deutsch Ost Afrika (today Tanzania) . My grandparents always used the term Duitswes to refer to South West Africa and one of my mother's uncles went there after the war and started a huge farming operation covering 41 000 hectares near Gobabis - he was extremely wealthy.
There could have been individuals from South Africa in the British Army at the Battle of Galipoli - but almost all the troops were from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - so participation of South Africa in this case would be inappropriate historically.
Uhm Mike if you read up you will notice that i was refering to Saffas not having much to do with galipoli. :)
Saffas biggest battle in the WW's was the El Alamein one in WW2 .. neve mind you know what i am sayning
But thanks for the historical lesson none the less.
Damn, this is quite a high brow thread! It includes history lessons and everything! And while I have a great interest in all things World War related, I suspect we have digressed some way from the topic at hand. Anyway, tomorrow's 3 major battles are between North and South, and are bound to be won by the allied forces from the South!!
