Roberts suffers fractured skull
30 Nov 2008
Wales centre Jamie Roberts has been rushed to hospital with a suspected fractured skull.
Roberts clashed heads with opposite number Stirling Mortlock in the second minute of the Welsh victory, with Mortlock replaced and Roberts staying on until the end of the first quarter. Wales skills coach Rob Howley feared the burly centre could be out for six weeks, but stressed the positives despite the injury.
“Jamie has sent us a text from hospital telling us he has a fractured skull,” said Howley.
“That just sums up the team spirit – a guy is in hospital but sends a text message to the players who he has been playing with for the past three weeks.
“I think that is a testimony to the squad and the team spirit that Warren has achieved over the last three weeks.”
Wales’ 21-18 triumph was the only one for all the northern hemisphere teams over their southern rivals this November and coach Warren Gatland was in a better mood than in previous weeks. “Someone had to carry the flag for the northern hemisphere, didn’t they?” quipped Gatland.
“I think the result for us was the most important thing. We needed to get the win. I’m pretty proud of the performance and I think the best team won.
“The great rugby we played in the first half, I thought we should have been further in front. We get two, what I would consider, relatively easy shots at goal, which we miss.
“It was pretty tough being in the coaches box because we missed some scoring chances, I’ve got a few more grey hairs than I had this morning!”
Gatland emphasised how crucial the win was in his team’s development.
“We’ve pushed some of the best teams in the world very close,” he said.
“We’ve shown improvement and as a side we’ve earned some respect and admiration for Welsh rugby from around the world.”
136 Comments
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30 Nov 2008, 22:25 pm
#98 jerimiyah: I wouldn’t argue with that. Yes, and once you’re branded by the media you’re toast. However, I have to say, the Watsons, both senior and junior, attract controversy by their actions in public, with the full knowledge that they are likely to fan flames. Sometimes I wonder why we don’t simply get on with it and go to war because it seems like Nelson Mandela got it all wrong. Peace and reconcilliation is not the way. Or is it?
30 Nov 2008, 22:29 pm
#100 wooden spoon: was fast asleep Spooner. Didn’t realise it was Skoppie. Hullo Skops. Nice day or what?
30 Nov 2008, 22:29 pm
Hey Tassies
Just watched the AB/Pom game.
Not a good game of rugby
30 Nov 2008, 22:31 pm
England needs to rebuild totally, and select the correct players
30 Nov 2008, 22:32 pm
#103 CoachPete: Hi coach. Definitely not. Error filled. Pedantic/confused Irishfranco ref. Poorest allround kicking performance I’ve seen in a grade one international for as long as I can remember. Carters kicking at goal was v poor but Flood was abysmal.
30 Nov 2008, 22:32 pm
Some people just enjoy being controversial. And so do some families too, birds of a feather, apple not falling too far from the tree, and all that.
The Watsons’ certainly seem to enjoy being controversial. Pity the ‘struggle’ ended some time ago, they could’ve used their negative energies in a positive way.
#102 TASSIES: Hi Tassies, a leopard never changes its spots
30 Nov 2008, 22:33 pm
who’s this skopskiet everyone gets so hit up about over here, I heard he was dead and buried, seems like some ghosts you just can’t bury, like the tokkolosh maybe he’s hiding under your bed.
#101 TASSIES:
well who is fighting whom? who is the aggressor and who the victim? You saying Nelson Mandela was magnanimous in victory and held out the olive branch, well who has gratefully grasped it firmly in both hands and handed it back again? Anyone?
30 Nov 2008, 22:33 pm
#104 CoachPete: I thought this is what they are doing. You mean; start again?
30 Nov 2008, 22:34 pm
#108 TASSIES:
yes somewhat.
Care over Ellis is confusing to start
30 Nov 2008, 22:36 pm
Unmistakable prose and grammar. Yep, skopskiet for sure, just trying to evade the clutches of the admins seeing as his other disguises were banned for the second time last week.
30 Nov 2008, 22:37 pm
Borthwick as captain? sorry theres the start
30 Nov 2008, 22:38 pm
#107 jerimiyah: and who is the catalyst perhaps? How about : let sleeping dogs lie. Or must it be : sleeping dogs die?
30 Nov 2008, 22:38 pm
negative – positive, its all so circumspect and subjective, one could go as far as to say those that think they’re positive are actually negative and vice versa depending on which side of the street you’re standing, or which side of the bread line.
30 Nov 2008, 22:41 pm
#111 CoachPete: Yes but perhaps the man needs a chance to develop. Care = young. What does Ellis bring that Care doesn’t? I understand their problem to start with the No 10 and work from there. The forwards completed some hard yards yesterday. They were wasted on a pathetically inept backline.
30 Nov 2008, 22:43 pm
#114 TASSIES:
Yes not sure about that center pair I just think Ellis is a better all round player
30 Nov 2008, 22:44 pm
I like kennedy at lock similar to Big vic
I like croft but they dont start him?
30 Nov 2008, 22:46 pm
I am sure it can be done the next 2 years or so
The english press needs to give MJ a chance first, but they are the english press who want it now and all the time
30 Nov 2008, 22:49 pm
you see there is a whole lot of fear and anxiety projecting from the insular and self protective so called intelligentsia, they believe that they are above the dividing line, the war as you suggest is being waged not on the streets just yet but in the minds of the avaricious and those that seek the protection of their own possessiveness.
Like any good revolution, some preconceived notions and ideologies have to get overturned, one can say that this is all so very negative, or else for others they believe it to be oh so necessary, so who’s to say who is right and who is wrong.
The pity is really that man in general is a very fearful and aggressive creature, he is constantly looking over his shoulder to see who is coming up behind him to take that which he has so masterfully horded for himself all this time.
30 Nov 2008, 22:51 pm
#113 jerimiyah: what I see is a bunch of folk determined to destroy something which isn’t broken. Previous examples : South African Soccer. The South African education system. The South African Railways. Roads. Electricity capacity. Boxing. Farming. Olympic Team and a host of other previously working entities. Shouldn’t take long for the Watsons, Khompela and his buddies to completely destroy the competitiveness of SA Rugby. I’d hazzard a guess; Nelson Mandela, in his final days on this earth, is a bitterly disappointed old man. Who can blame him?
30 Nov 2008, 22:53 pm
Johnson will get what he wants from these players in time, just like Woodward before him, you cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs, so right now he is having to break them eggs, next he’ll start making the omelet.
30 Nov 2008, 22:54 pm
#117 CoachPete: I’d say, no different from the South African press. Or the Kiwi press. or or
30 Nov 2008, 22:56 pm
#120 jerimiyah: for the Poms sake I hope so. Patience is a virtue which is rare in rugby. Occasionally it surfaces but only occasionally.
30 Nov 2008, 23:05 pm
#119 TASSIES:
I think you falling for the same trap as projecting those very fears we all so hopelessly tie our apron strings to. How do you know how bitterly disappointed Nelson Mandela is or whether he is at all, for all you know he may be over the moon at seeing some watersheds being broached and watching the river flow.
I also don’t think it is in any mans grasp to alter or change destiny as a whole, the most one can do is place you little cross in the ballot box and hope it all works out somehow, or else get hold of a machine gun and go to war, but that won’t solve anything at all either, will it?
We think we really have any say in what transpires or what pans out, no not really, some are better off than others, and that is how its always been, haves and have nots all hoping to get by one way or the other, with either a silver spoon or a leaden one in their mouths, and others just hoping for a morsel to get through the next day.
30 Nov 2008, 23:06 pm
#119 TASSIES: beating my drum again : what really irks me is/was the destruction of the education system. It didn’t take long. Offer all white teachers attractive packages to exit the system, to make way for unqualified blacks to teach young blacks very little. Result : one stuffed up public education system, populated by mainly poorly educated blacks. The whites merely migrated to the semi-private model C institutions, together with rich blacks and continued to enjoy quality education. The poor blacks were screwed. Still are. I stand to be corrected but I’m sure I recall us being measured as having the lowest performing maths literacy in the world recently. What an achievement. It only took 14 years to destroy. Today we have a crisis on our hands. Now apparently it’s rugby’s turn. This is why the Watsons are bloody unpopular. Extremely unpopular, amongst rugby folk. Khompela is unlikely to know what to do with a rugby ball.
30 Nov 2008, 23:15 pm
#123 jerimiyah: it has been reliably reported recently that Winnie Mandela announced that NM was very(extremely) disappointed with the ANC and the current infighting taking place. This is a manifestation of non-delivery and the greed and ineptitude of one bunch within the organisation. The surface of what lies underneath if you like. I am merely pointing out what I perceive to be happening underneath. I drive 50m from my home before I’m confronted with the first beggar at the first of many street corners. They are the visible sign of things going horribly wrong. Watson and rugby are perhaps another sign of the same rot. Watson = destroy = perhaps
30 Nov 2008, 23:18 pm
anyway cheers boys/Skops. I’m off to read chapter 10 of Mark Gevisser’s interpretation of our ex-President’s life. I asure you it’s worth a read if you have the time.
30 Nov 2008, 23:20 pm
#124 TASSIES:
Well maybe you are right, perhaps it is all regressing back to the dark ages for all we know, I cannot really say, what would you propose, go back twenty years to the brilliant formula of well governed minority standards we had back then
There are still huge class distinctions but fundamentally the 20% are still living relatively comfortably while the 80% are eking out a survival, but it is changing slowly, the black youth under twenty today is not that far removed in terms of capability or expertise as their white counterparts in most middle class environments, it is still in the rural areas and in the townships that the standards are less than adequate.
But this is a legacy of our history, as an example Zimbabwe for all its political turmoil and cataclysm still has better educated children than we do by and large across the mass spectrum.
30 Nov 2008, 23:28 pm
#125 TASSIES:
Always the case when greed and ineptitude take over from a zealous counter culture or revolution, George Orwell’s little treatise spelled it out quite aptly, and this is common to human trait throughout history and throughout political and social evolution, what makes us think ours would be any different to the next? Simply the ebb and flow of the tides of cultural exasperation, every group and individual clamoring for the sun trying to escape the shade.
It all takes time, if this planet or universe were perfect, you reckon any one of us would be here?
30 Nov 2008, 23:34 pm
why is everyone keep calling me skop, who’s this guy they love to hate over here?
1 Dec 2008, 00:23 am
#129 jerimiyah: Ha ha, you got me yesterday!!
No idea!
1 Dec 2008, 00:25 am
#79 grant10: Hope you have got the T.V fixed for Barbarians Match…..
All OK in Clifton?
1 Dec 2008, 00:53 am
#77 grant10: Come out and play, it is only 10.50pm here!! ……..Hey look with you it is 1st December.
Still 30th November here, strewth nearly Christmas!
1 Dec 2008, 01:39 am
#129 jerimiyah:
Come on Skoppie, everyone knows your writing style
1 Dec 2008, 06:54 am
wales thirrd ratee
1 Dec 2008, 11:17 am
#123 jerimiyah: Nelson Mandela has been sidelined by the very party he helped to put together. Between them and the NMCF which is run by his children, the poor old man is more disappointed and witness to more infighting than you’d find at in parliament.
Some work was done with an NGO of which he is a board member and even so to get to him is almost impossible with the greed surrounding his fund.
I am quite sure he is bitterly disappointed.
1 Dec 2008, 13:37 pm
#4 Pekkie: Totally agree Pekkie. Argentinia rocks and they are cool. South Africa should do more to improve rugby ties with them.
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