On the upside, Rugby Australia finds a black prodigy it likes

13 Responses to On the upside, Rugby Australia finds a black prodigy it likes

1. C.L. says:

   17 June, 2022 at 6:18 pm

   Captain James Cook’s name will no longer appear on the trophy that England and Australia play for in Test matches. The crystal Cook Cup is to be retired and will be replaced by the Ella-Mobbs Trophy.

   The RFU and Rugby Australia have agreed to “better represent” the history of both nations after Cook became a divisive figure down under.

   The new trophy – named after the great Wallabies fly half Mark Ella and the English war hero Edgar Mobbs – will be unveiled in Perth on July 1, the eve of the first Test of England’s summer tour to Australia.

   Ella, a former team-mate of the England head coach Eddie Jones, won 25 caps between 1980 and 1984 as an Indigenous Australian – only the second to captain his country – and is revered as one of the great No 10s of his age.

   Mobbs, a brilliant three-quarter who played seven times for England, captaining them in his final game in 1910, was killed at the third battle of Ypres at Passchendaele during the First World War in 1917 when part of the “Sportsman’s Battalion”, which he had formed.

   He led 264 men from the 7th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment in three battles.

   Cook, the Royal Navy captain and British explorer, is credited with the discovery of Australia in the 18th century.

   But his statue in Melbourne has been vandalised, including during January’s Australia Day celebrations, with protesters painting it red in scenes akin to the defacing and toppling of Victorian monuments in Britain. Those protesters feel such figures represent an oppressive age of the British Empire.

   The trophy played for in Tests between England and Australia has been known as the Cook Cup for the past 25 years.

   “The Wallabies’ eToro England series will see a new trophy introduced for all future series between the nations,” an RFU spokesman confirmed.

   “Australia and England first played against each other in a Test match in 1909 in London. With such a vast history between them, Rugby Australia and the Rugby Football Union made the decision that the trophy should better represent the proud rugby history of both nations.”

   In 113 years of matches between the sides, England lead Australia by 26 wins to 25. They have not lost to their rivals under Jones in eight Tests since 2016.

   ———
   – Will Kelleher for The Times in The Australian
2. NoFixedAddress says:

   17 June, 2022 at 7:33 pm

   Not a problem to honour 2 distinguished players from each side with a change of trophy name.

   But surely they can come up with a more inclusive woke name for the activity rather than the term rugby.

   That name is very Anglo elitist.
3. Jannie says:

   18 June, 2022 at 3:03 am

   Mark Ella was probably the most naturally gifted rugby player I ever saw play, live or on TV. He is also by all accounts a good bloke.

   James Cook was a Great Explorer, and probably the first European to get a fix on Eastern Australia, and because of him our Nation came into existence.

   This decision is a travesty. But who cares, the Australian Rugby Union is woke, and lost me when they persecuted Israel Folau for his personal faith.
4. Rockdoctor says:

   18 June, 2022 at 8:46 am

   As a boy born to the western suburbs of Sydney and by default a league man, I loved Union during the ’90’s. The likes of Campo at first then the next cadre with the likes of Gregan. Always a tough entertaining game with no woke message overtly being shoved down your throat.

   IMO professionalising the sport set it on it’s present path partly. I started losing interest when all these half baked RL has beens started infiltrating the national team on fast track. I will give exception to Lote Tiquiri and Mat Rogers who had some talent and previous association with Union. It was at this time I started watching less and less, the results didn’t match the hype. Then they started the lecturing and I haven’t watched a game since.
5. C.L. says:

   18 June, 2022 at 9:32 am

   This decision is a travesty. But who cares, the Australian Rugby Union is woke, and lost me when they persecuted Israel Folau for his personal faith.

   Lost me even before that. Rugby has been the Teal of men’s sports for a long time now. The game is so overburdened with perfectionist rules that open play never lasts for more than about 45 seconds.

   Ella says he supports the change because Cook still traumatises “the elders.” They must be pretty old.
6. Roger W says:

   18 June, 2022 at 10:01 am

   50 years ago, rugby was worth watching.
   Then they changed all the rules, supposedly mainly for Health and Safety. It is now a metaphor for the modern world.
7. Lee says:

   18 June, 2022 at 11:29 am

   Ella says he supports the change because Cook still traumatises “the elders.” They must be pretty old.

   There was a recent Quadrant article on this intergenerational “trauma” BS:

   https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2022/06/the-invention-of-indigenous-intergenerational-trauma/
8. Cassie of Sydney says:

   18 June, 2022 at 11:48 am

   I wrote this on Catallaxy, on the old Open Thread last night…..

   In Paddington Sydney, right near Moore Park, there’s a hotel which was once called, until 2020, the Captain Cook Hotel. After the death of that all round sleaze bucket and porn star in Minneapolis back in 2020, when the whole world went barking mad, and there were BLM marches here in Sydney at the height of a so called Covid lockdown, and a so called Liberal government, NSW police and MSM all chose to look the other way….. because as you all know there’s one rule for the left and lots of rules for the rest of us, there was a lot of grotesque self flagellation about waaacism and statues, particularly of Captain James Cook and a statue of Cook in Sydney’s Hyde Park was subsequently vandalised by some Green staffers (who work for a rather nasty Greens politician by the name of David Shoebridge). These two Green staffers were, of course, given a slight slap on the hand by the judiciary for their vandalism but, I digress. The owners of the Captain Cook hotel in Paddington, who you’d think in a time of Covid lockdowns would have better things to concentrate on decided, in a touching display of anti-waaaacism, to rename their hotel to the “Captain’s Hotel”. LOL, anyway, you have to laugh because on one side of the hotel is a huge painted mural of Robert Hawke drinking beer, because as we know, Hawke loved a beer. So the proprietors of the hotel, in July 2020, due to hysteria about all things waaacist, removed the name of Captain James Cook, who was perhaps the world’s greatest mariner, and who was by all accounts a fundamentally decent and good man, yet they’ve left up a huge mural of Robert Hawke, serial adulterer and philanderer, serial sex addict, and who possessed a host of other unsavoury character defects.

   Captain James Cook = bad. Robert Hawke = good.

   Clown world.
9. C.L. says:

   18 June, 2022 at 11:53 am

   The new trophy is called the Ella-Mobbs Cup.
   Edgar Mobbs was a British rugby player who led a sportsmen’s battalion in WWI and was killed in action during the Battle of Ypres. His body was never found.

   Ella told Fairfax that when he heard the new name, he thought it was ‘Ella Mob’ – meaning it was named after he and his brothers. Pretty funny but he didn’t say anything nice (in fact, nothing at all) about the other honoree – Mobbs – who merely died for his country. Ella was a great footballer, yes, but he has led a soft, privileged life. A respectful word for Lieutenant Colonel Mobbs – a highly revered figure – would have been appropriate. But nah.
10. Lee says:

    18 June, 2022 at 12:08 pm

    Inarguably one of the greatest ever sailors, and probably a better person than the vast majority of his haters and critics, Captain James Cook ‘s biggest “crime” was exploring the east coast of Australia.
11. NoFixedAddress says:

    18 June, 2022 at 10:17 pm

    If soccer is ‘wog ball’ then rugger is ???

    I wonder what Poidevin would say.
12. Hugh says:

    20 June, 2022 at 7:38 am

    The great player Mark Ella and the allegedly traumatized elders would never have known one end of a rugby ball from the other had not the brilliant English seaman Captain Cook discovered the East Coast of Australia. Which is not to suggest of course that Cook himself hopped off the Endeavour at Botany Bay and blew a whistle.

    The chapter of Western civ. history in recent decades should be titled “How to saw off the limb you’re sitting on.”
13. Old School Conservative says:

    20 June, 2022 at 2:32 pm

    Cook, the Royal Navy captain and British explorer, is credited with the discovery of Australia in the 18th century.

    Do I detect a sneering tone and the hint of an element of doubt in “is credited”?
    A bold “…discovered Australia…” would obviously upset the woke brigade.