Just like the three top teams, I am talking unfortunately abouty the top three flyhalves: Carter, Giteau and Steyn, possibly in this order, Carter, Steyn,and Giteau.
What makes these three guys the best at that position in the world?
I can't really answer but I think ,artly, it is reliabilty and durability.
There isn't much of a surprise from either Carter or Giteau anymore. Steyn is still making his way known.
Giteau is not IMHO a natural number ten but still he ranks up there.
Both Steyn and Carter have the more reliable foot.
Giteau, like many Australian rugby players, doesn't appear comfortable. This is not a criticism. It is an observation. There is something unpoetic about the way they play rugby.
The New Zealanders are more balletic and the South Africans more pugilistic.
I split for a second.
What makes Carter the better number ten?
There is a certain calmness to his game. Of the three, although not an out and out natural leader, Carter is certainly looked upon as the field general and the man by his players and he accepts the role. I am not sure about Giteau and Steyn.
Carter has the better overall game. He can run , pass and kick better and with a more degree of finesse and difficulty than either Giteau or Steyn.
Giteau is the better jinker. Sten is a surprise runner, which can be useful.
Carter plays behind a confident, if unpredictable pack. Giteau plays behind a split personality pack. Steyn plays behind a predictably predictable pack which allows him to play more to his strengths.
I think from the standpoint of just talent or a whim, Giteau is the best of the three but will never really hold down that position because the position, despite what he says and what is said about him, just doesn't come naturally. There is a league element to his game for good reason.
Having said all this, I think that it is about time that teams start figuring out Carter but he plays with such a talented group of players it makes him appear more inscrutable.
Steyn the jury is still out on. Thus far he has proved to be a big game player. He has displayed the ability, and it is difficult, of not getting hurt. He also has shown the cagey abilty to score the odd try, which is usually reserved for Giteau and Carter.
Often times Carter will score in support whereas Giteau can create trys from thin air and Steyn , well, to his credit, he has simply been able top pull them out of his magic bag which might make him the most likely to be overlooked. That's how I see it in a nutshell.

yes, it is true. I believe in most conspiracy theories and I don't deny it. Somebody must believe and I have been selected.
Just who are these conspiratorial terrorists and just what are they conspiring.
Well.
I think that the RFU through Rob Andrew are conspiring to hold on to England's last bastion of hope in sport.
I also believe that John O'Neill, Jake White, Eddie Jones, Martin Johnson, Andy Robinson, Jack Hobbs, and all the other co-conspirators are conniving to keep rugby in the hands, or rather, make the rugby world know and fear these fellows. That is why all of these little minnow countries are governed by disciples of the RFU.
It takes a keen amount of public relations in the guise of smoke and mirrors to make the rugby world think unquestionably that the game of rugby football is and should be governed by those titled few at rugby headquarters(???gimme a break), Twickenham, or, as I have decreed, The Tower.
It's not easy to know and respect the All Blacks as the best players in the world when those who are unsure of the beast might swear that England has and could beat the All Blacks any given Sunday.
That, colleagues, is where the sham has begun. And that, friends, is why England cannot see the forest because of the trees. That , brothers and sisters, is WHY England has no imagination in the game they claim to have invented, homogenized and blessed.
It is in your capable hands that these poltroons, these jackanapes, must be vanquished.

How about dropping Lewis Moody for Jow Worsley? Moody has been his hurricane self I believe. Easter has been slower than sludge with Haskell not too far ahead of him. Or could it have anything to do with Moody of the Leicester Tigers jumping ship to Bath? Martin and Rowntree are Leicester Tiger Olde Farts afterall.

I received a song verse from the 1976 edition of Father Rugby Reveals, an olde rugby songbook. It's the third stanza of the song The Sexual Life of the Camel.
It goes somethingling like this and seems so appropriate in the wake of the Haskell and Lipman debacles. And Johnson too.

"The sexual life of the ostrich
Is as strange as the RFU man,
In the height of the mating season
She buries her head in the sand.
When along comes the male of the species
And sees this great arse in the air,
Does he ask if it's male or female?
No, nor does he really care!"

Have a beautiful day.

You want to know how powerful the Olde Fart Union is? Just ask Michael Lipman. Let me tell you that ARU bigmouth is an olde fart to the core, maybe not an original but certainly somewhere between first and second generation.
For the same offense, the ARU welcomes back The Plank or The Plague, however you want to read Justin Harrison, who was a a genuine coke sniffing SOB in Britain and now a well repected man about town with the Brumbies. Hypocrisy!!!
Michael Lipman was banned from an interview with the Melbourne Rebels because the RFU can't stomach the fact that he stood down the RFU and refused to acknowledge his coke sniffing allegation.
The RFU can't stand to be trumped by a player.
His other friends have made their peace. Higgins has retired permanently and Crockett has cried himself back into starting over in the minor rugby leagues.
Lipman decided he would simply go away from the groping RFU but to his dismay found that he has been, at the moment, sentenced like the others to The Tower for, you got it, TREASON.
Damn you, John O'Neill!! You will do anything to brown your nose in the arse of the RFU.
When will those Australians ever learn?

Tell the truth Andy Powell. Was JPR Williams in that golf buggy naked with you that infamous evening after the Scotland match?
Legendary fullback JPR Williams was handed a seventeen month ban on driving after being convicted of being Karl Miffentoffish. The statute was amplified after police claim Mr. Williams , Mr. South Africa 99, attempted to deceive the cops by placing coins in his mouth.
Mr. Jean Louis, Mr. Williams chauffeur, was riding shotgun as the great fullback wanted him to see how a rugby player can drive blindfolded with a magnum of champagne between his legs.
Mr. Louis claims that after being pulled over Mr. Williams tried to pretend he was Bulgarian by placing a pocketful of change in his mouthj.
Unfortunately the bewhisketred Mr. Williams was recognized by his hometown constabulary.
And for all that, I award JPR Williams, the DooDooLog Award of the month March.
There will be no more writing this evening as willys are at half mast.
Suspicious?

Without doing any thinking, I can already tell you the first side of the S14 all tournament team.
#1 Lady GaGa
#2 Andrew Hore
#3 Owen Franks
#4 Victor Matfield

#5 Isaac Ross

#7 Richie MCCaw
#6 Schalk Burger or Juan Smith
#8 Pierre Spies
#9 Will Genia/Fourie DuPreez
#10 Dan Carter
#11 Zack Guilford
#12 Berrick Barnes
#13 Stirking Mortlock/Wynand Olivier
#14 Sivivatu
#15 Corey Jane

Now somebody be so kind to tell me the 6N , Guinness Premiership or T14 or Magners League All Tournament side.
Tell me that isn't a load of shite or tripe?
In the SH everybody is as predictable as dirty water.
So go ahead and throw the bathwater and the baby out of the window too in trying to make rugby some sort of mass appeal. These guys are interested in nothing but money. That's why John O'Neill and the IRB should be lined up on the banks of the Tyne and machine gunned.
How's that for politics, Lord Anonymous?

Like I said , yesterday I agreed with Stephen Jones in the context that Southern Hemisphere is out of control and basing all of the law changes on entertainment, which struck as an odd way to structure a game. It's almost condescending to those of us who love the game of rugby.
The whole episodic phycho first found its way into my mind with the 18 try festival last week between the Cheetahs/Lions and ending with the woeful kickfest between the Sharks/Waratahs.
So, after evaluating my stand, I am at a loss as to where to go. If it hell, I'll stay with the SH; purgatory is Magners League, heaven is questionalble; hell on earth is the Heineken Cup, torture chamber in the Tower is the Guinness Premiership; agnoticism would be the T14, and atheism the 6N.
WWJD?

Just what happens today between Sale/Northampton and Ospreys/Edinburgh is mind blowingly anti -climactic.

I have officially retired from trying to understand the S14. I NOW agree with Welsh journo that the SH rendition of playing rugby is pure "TRIPE." The SH have the better players and should stick with that. If you rugby people want entertainment, go to the circus or go to a brothel. Take your pick but don't drang me down with this competition any longer. I'd rather sift sand!!!

The Cheetahs tore into my side and gave them a new asshole. It's a phenomenal victory. I disgustedly turned it off at the 78th minute but I have always been a huge supporter of Meyer Bosman, Kabimba Floors, Henirich Broussow, and Naas Olivier when he was with the Stormers. Good for them. So phenomenal that the touter on Planetrugby had it all the way. Lesson learned. Bet with your mind, not your heart.
Hate is not a Christian virtue.
I'll try to remember that in the future when it comes to the Blackadder and the Crusaders and McKenziw and the Reds.
Try is the key word.
Gotta love those Chjeetahs, Naka.