Foxsports viewers can catch Round 1 Super 12 games live at the following times:

Today - Friday 25th

• 5.30pm (4.30pm Qld time) Highlanders vs Blues

• 7.30pm (6.30pm Qld time) Waratahs vs Chiefs

Tomorrow - Saturday 26th

• 4.00am (3.00am Qld time) Stormers vs Sharks <-- one of those 'do I stay up to watch' or 'do I get up to watch' times.. :)
• 6.30pm (5.30pm Qld time) Brumbies vs Crusaders
  
• 9.00pm (8.00pm Qld time) Reds vs Hurricanes

Natch there's replays and what not on over the course of the weekend as well, to check more info out head over to Foxsports.

My Round 1 tips.

A disclaimer before I start: The brighter tipsters amongst us all, even the not so bright ones will probably twig very soon in the tipping comp that it's often not a bad idea to see what I've tipped and then tip the completely opposite way. If you are silly enough to follow my tips then let it be on your own head.. heh :)

Here goes nothing...

Stormers vs Sharks - I'm going to go Stormers by 8 based purely on their past form

Highlanders vs Blues - A tough call but with the Highlanders regrouping and the Blues under David Nucifora I'm thinking the Blues by 4 at Carisbrook

Waratahs vs Chiefs - The Tahs by 2 :)

Cats vs Bulls - I'm tipping the Bulls and to win by 8... at least

Brumbies vs Crusaders - I have to go for the Brumbies, but either team can win this. Did you realise the Crusaders have won 4/5 of their last head to heads? Luckily for them the Brumbies won the last one which was the final.. heh :) ACT by a point?

Reds vs the Hurricanes - I want the Reds to win so I'll back them .... but only by one point.

So there ya go!!

Good luck with your Round 1 tipping :)

Good morning!

Well we've finally made it to Super 12 2005 kick off day! If you haven't got yourself organised with tipping comps yet you might want to get bit of a move on :) Click the link up top or here to join the one being run here (weekly prize and winner take all 2 x 2 night getaway breaks as listed top right of this page) . If you look a couple of posts down this page you'll find further details about the comp.

There's also tipping comps with great prizes that you can enter at optusnet and yahoo sports. If you have a yahoo account, don't enter your yahoo details to try and login because it won't work. You have to actually register specifically for the sports tipping.

Today's Perth Super 14 team coach selection soap episode can be read over at The Australian. In essence it says that John Mitchell and Andy Friend are neck and neck to get the appointment. And to think... just yesterday JM was the hot on favourite!?

Super 12 news though - that's what we're here for.

Tonight:

The Highlanders are planning on taking it to the Blues up front tonight in Dunedin. No doubt the Highlanders are hard to beat at home, but I suspect they're going to miss Tony Brown being on the field more than anyone wants to even consider.

The Waratahs are preparing for a hard game with the Chiefs tonight. I wonder what mastermind figured out that the Chiefs will probably play a very hard physical game. Rocket science!!

Over in Cape Town the Sharks and Stormers have been readying themselves for their first clash of the comp. According to a column in the Gold Coast bulletin there's been mind games going on all week, with Shark's coach Kevin Putt naming one side but likely to put a different side on the paddock. According to Luke Watson, ex-Shark now turned flanker for the Stormers, "He's (Putt) always full of games and little plans and ploys." It's all fun I'm sure :)) One very good thing for the Sharks' prospects this season is the return of Bok #10 Butch James.

Tomorrow:

Wish I could be in Canberra tomorrow night for the Brumbies Crusaders clash - it should be a cracker of a game! The Canterbury lads will no doubt be out to avenge being walloped by the ACT boys in last year's finale. Both side feature a cast of 'big names' in rugby, and it'll be hard to beat the Brumbies at home. Lots of rugby fans will be interested to see what the ACT crew look like now they have Fisher as their coach.

The Reds vs Hurricanes game at Ballymore should, on paper at least, be a good game as well. The Reds will be anxious to get a win under their belt first up; particularly after the drubbing they got from the Crusaders last week.

The last game of Super 12 2005 round 1 is between the Cats and Bulls over in Jo'burg. The Bulls have shown coach Rudy Joubert the door for Super 12 opting to go with Heyneke Meyer who steered them to Currie Cup success. The Cats have had a nightmare pre-season lead up with injuries galore, so they're going to struggle for quite a while this Super 12 season no doubt.

Back shortly with TV viewing times and *gulp* my errrr. tips for Round 1

Only one more sleep until Super12 2005 kicks off.. Yay!

The 'House of Pain' will host the first game of the season with the Highlanders taking on Auckland. Anton Oliver will hit the 100 super 12 caps mark during the game, the first kiwi to do so. I 'know' I'd rather have him hitting a mark than me on a footie paddock, but I digress. Even though he'll be making NZ Super 12 history on Friday night, he says in an interview on the All Blacks web site (see? there is no truth to the rumour that I always refer to the ABs as the All Bads... :) that he finds the game the most important of the season each year because he's playing for Gordon Hunter Memorial Trophy. So who's Gordon Hunter I hear you asking? Well he was a former Otago, Highlander and Blues coach. He also was a national selector and he sadly passed away in 2002. He and Oliver were good mates.

Meanwhile, Mat Rogers gave the Tah Tahs a bit of a scare yesterday when he jarred his hip at training. It seems he will live, so hopefully he'll take the field Friday night in Sydney when the Waratahs take on the Chiefs.

The Chiefs are no doubt pleased that their captain and lock Jonno Gibbes is fit to take the field on Friday night.

I'm pleased to report that someone seems to have pushed the 'start' button over in South Africa as well with sarugby.com reporting their latest Super 12 news. Yes, it's this year's :) Anyway, here's the link to the Super 12 news page. You'd better bookmark it incase I inadvertently forget to ever mention that link ever again.....

The Reds meanwhile appear to be blaming laws, refs, and different referee interpretations of rucking laws for.... well as much as it hurts to say.... their thumping in the forwards by the Crusaders last trial game. Get on with it guys! You can read all about how the Reds are now thought of as pussycats over here at Foxsports.

Thank God Super 12 kicks off tomorrow night, I just read that the Perth Super 14 coach could be named by tomorrow!! The daily goss, speculation, and wild tales surrounding the WA rugby coach selection that has kept us all on the edge of our seats... will be no more. Geez, I can't even feign disappointment. What does crack me up though is that John Mitchell is now tipped to be the man selected for the job. He's had more lives than any cat in this selection process, well, it seems that way at least.... it's just been going on and on and on.... kind of like a dentist with his drill down your throat!

Later!

I just want to clarify something to do with the competition.

There's actually 3 leaderboards inside the competition. One is for 'winners', one if for 'scores' and one is for 'margins'.

Competition winners will be based on... the 'Tip the Winners' leaderboard.

In the event of a TIE - (which can't happen because I don't have enough prizes.. heh.. ) then to break the tie the leaderboard 'Tip the Scores' will be used, and if there's STILL a tie after that, the 'Tip the Margins' leaderboard will be used. If there's still a tie after all that - I give up and we'll do what they do in a rugby world cup final when they've exhausted their avenues... toss a coin :)

Good morning :)

As you can see if you look to your right ---->
I've gotten around to putting up the prizes for the 2005 Super 12 tipping competition. Basically it's going to run this way.

Signing up for the comp is free. Sign up by clicking on the link above. It will take you to toptipper.com who host and manage this particular comp for cup-rugby.com (please note: if you use Norton's Security you might get a message saying it has blocked access to the site. You'll need to open your Norton's program and alter the settings in there so that toptipper.com domain can be accessed)

Register for the competition :)

Submit your tips weekly for the competition. The first round starts tomorrow night .

You'll see in toptipper that there's a 'leaderboard'. The person who has position #1 on that leaderboard each week gets the glory of being the Round winner and a $5 scratchie. Should you be sitting at the #1 position at the END of the comp - the whole Super 12 2005 comp then you will be the winner.

The winner wins the prize as indicated over there on your right. You'll have to spring for your own transport/transfer costs I'm afraid, unless of course someone from an airline lands across this site and offers to sponsor/provide flight tickets.

The decision about who wins, prizes awarded etc remains with me.

Right, now that's out of the way - some rugby news coming up....

But first, I have to go and change some things in toptipper - some colours don't look so good in IE. Firefox looks good though :)

WIN PRIZES!!

For the Super 12 2005 tipping competition that is...

I'll send out a '$5 instant scratchie' each week of the Super 12 pool games (is that what they're called? the rounds... you know, not the quarters etc - I'll have something else for those) to the weekly winner according to the leaderboard stats...

Are you excited?

No?

Geeez.. you know, this site costs me money to run.. but.....

I'm just sorting out some details with a 'prize sponsor' .

More details tomorrow - 'hint' get in and register if you haven't already by clicking the link above.

There's other Super 12 tipping comps around as well - links are in this blog.

Cheers!

I'm mucking around with the layout of this place.... again... sorry guys! Most women rearrange furniture, not me, I rearrange web sites.. heh :) Should be finished soon - I hope.

You'll see I've enabled people to post comments. I am hoping I am not going to regret that move too soon!

Just one more thing.......

Happy Birthday Josh Valentine :)

Happy Birthday David Croft :)

I hope both of the boys have a fantastic day!

Ben Tune is not in the Reds squad to take on the Hurricanes in Brisbane this Saturday. Instead, BT will play for the Queensland A side in the curtain raiser match. Coach Jeff Miller and co have pointed out that they expect that Tune will be a major part of the Red's Super 12 campaign this season, they just feel that he needs to get some more match play in. That's a fair call! Pretty tough to throw him in the side ahead of other players too when he's been out for so long. You can of course 'read all about it' over here on the QRU site.

Meanwhile the Waratahs have left Stephen Hoiles out of their side to take on the Chiefs in Sydney on Friday night. Brendan Cannon has been disposed as starting hooker in favour of Adam Freier. Wycliff Palu at flanker, Peter Hewat on the wing, and Lachlan Mackay at halfback all will be making their Super 12 debuts.

And... if John Mitchell doesn't get the Perth Super 14 gig then he's said that he would consider joining the Wallabies coaching mob and being an assistant to Eddie Jones. You just knew I'd have to mention something about Perth right?? :)

Cheers

Argh! Matt Giteau broke his hand in the Brumbies trial against the Hurricanes. The Brumbies won the game 33-26 but that's little consolation for losing one of the super stars of their team. Poor bugger! That's heartbreaking for him... the story's over here at Foxsports. Giteau's misfortune means that Stephen Larkham will be on the starting side instead, he's just coming back from injury.

Short and brief today!!