Robinson appointed France's director of rugby league

[zac]

I hope he picks his time and has a succession plan rather than stringing it out. To me a common flaw with many great leaders in the game is that they stay too long and then have no succession plan.

those leaders without a succession plan are often egomaniacs who think no one can do the job as good as them. hope he's a career coach and stays with us for a couple of decades but he'll do the right thing when the time comes

[TheLoneRooster]

Tant que cela n'implique pas une sorte de voyage ou de politique pour laquelle le sport français est célèbre, il devrait être capable de faire les deux.

D'accord.

[King Salvo]

D'accord.

pas de soucis

[Thirteen]

Robbo isn’t building a massive house so he can move to France.

[King Salvo]

Robbo isn’t building a massive house so he can move to France.

Robbo et sa famille reviendront en France dans quelques années je prédis.

[Thirteen]

Robbo et sa famille reviendront en France dans quelques années je prédis.

Yes in your opinion.

[King Salvo]

Yes in your opinion.

Oui, on pourrait penser que l'épouse de Robbo aimerait rentrer en France pour vivre dans un avenir pas trop lointain.

Fitzy restera-t-il après 2021?

[Paddo Colt 61]

[QUOTE=The Skeez; Maybe he just wants to reverse the Nazi aligned Vichy ruling to outlaw rugby league back in 1940?

Yep that's exactly what happened. Rugby a Trieze (League) emerged in France as it did in England and here - the toffs made Rugby amateur in the late 19th to stymie working class involvement (they couldn't afford injury time off work). By the 1930s League in France rivalled the amateur code especially in the south but Fascist strategy was to ban any working class institution which had the potential to organise resistance. The Toffs, of course were fine because they were the fascists (and still are). The Right remains powerful over there. Interestingly the very last holdouts against the Red Army in Hitler's bunker sector in 1945 was a French SS battalion from the Charlemagne Division.
I dunno if Robbo uses class as a motivator, probably not as he seems to have a thing for the Western Front stuff as an exemplar of mateship. He might be encyclopaedic on footy but he's no historian.

[King Salvo]

[QUOTE=Paddo Colt 61;n865102][QUOTE=The Skeez; Maybe he just wants to reverse the Nazi aligned Vichy ruling to outlaw rugby league back in 1940?

Yep that's exactly what happened. Rugby a Trieze (League) emerged in France as it did in England and here - the toffs made Rugby amateur in the late 19th to stymie working class involvement (they couldn't afford injury time off work). By the 1930s League in France rivalled the amateur code especially in the south but Fascist strategy was to ban any working class institution which had the potential to organise resistance. The Toffs, of course were fine because they were the fascists (and still are). The Right remains powerful over there. Interestingly the very last holdouts against the Red Army in Hitler's bunker sector in 1945 was a French SS battalion from the Charlemagne Division.
I dunno if Robbo uses class as a motivator, probably not as he seems to have a thing for the Western Front stuff as an exemplar of mateship. He might be encyclopaedic on footy but he's no historian.

[/QUOTE]


Pétain et son gouvernement de Vichy collaborateur seront également une tache sur l'histoire de France qui ne sera jamais effacée.

[Paddo Colt 61]

[QUOTE=King Salvo;n865103][QUOTE=Paddo Colt 61: Pétain et son gouvernement de Vichy collaborateur seront également une tache sur l'histoire de France qui ne sera jamais effacée.

No it hasn't but it was Fascist before Petain. During the "Phoney War" graffiti everywhere proclaimed "Resiste Pourquoi". During the ensuing occupation the only real resistance was Communist led, as it was everywhere else. The Germans were confident enough in the level of collaboration to send back the captured French armies. Ordinary French people regularly gave up the Resistance and Jews and were, by and large, happy with the occupation. There was a French SS Division which fought fiercely on the Russian front - lotsa Rugger chaps in that lot.
Not unlike Oz in the 30s when you think about it - a politically ignorant population for the most part, ill educated, uninformed, unconcerned and interested only in the trivial and personal. We, too, had Right Wing armies predominantly made up of ex soldiers - Howard's old man was in the New Guard but there was another fascist outfit financed by Corporations - The Old Guard.

[zac]

I dunno if Robbo uses class as a motivator, probably not as he seems to have a thing for the Western Front stuff as an exemplar of mateship. He might be encyclopaedic on footy but he's no historian.

hard to paint any contemporary nrl club as the fibros but robbo's aware of the class background of the roosters and on occasion pays homage to it. he was interviewed on you tube recently and he does it there.

i think it's possible to pay homage to those who fought on the western front without supporting what you'd call a right wing agenda. what's the alternative? even if you see it as useless imperialist war, especially if you see it as a useless imperialist war, nothing wrong with paying your respects. you can pay your respects to those who died in a useless imperialist war.
mateship might be trumpeted by the right atm but that doesn't make mateship right wing. in our history it's been more of a left wing thing. truth is, probably best to leave the politics out of it.
i'm not sure where exactly on the western front my ancestors, sons of miners and rail workers, fought but i found a visit to verdun moving.

[Larry Long Balls]

I could see Robbo making such a significant contribution to the game in France that the French team begin to perform increasingly well internationally. I seem to remember as a kid in the 70's the Kangaroos playing against French teams. Am I tripping or was France a stronger rugby league nation back in those days?

[Paddo Colt 61]

[QUOTE=zac: "i'm not sure where exactly on the western front my ancestors, sons of miners and rail workers, fought but i found a visit to verdun moving."

The army records are pretty good Zac, you can find out there where people served. I found my lot in the NZ records but they were conscripts (in their 30s ffs). Unlike here, NZ accepted Conscription without demur.
And, yeah, the Right has, pretty much, appropriated Mateship, the Eureka flag and military service. It has always been thus in the case of the latter, you just need to look at the "conservative" (ie Right Wing) vote in places like Townsville where the are large military presences. Ex WW1 soldiers during the Depression made up the (not so) secret Right Wing paramilitaries here and everywhere else. Ironic that they probably had the arses out of their pants. Ironic, too, that MacArthur turned machine guns on protesting unemployed soldiers and destroyed their encampments in Washington in that period.

[zac]

The army records are pretty good Zac, you can find out there where people served. I found my lot in the NZ records but they were conscripts (in their 30s ffs). Unlike here, NZ accepted Conscription without demur.
And, yeah, the Right has, pretty much, appropriated Mateship, the Eureka flag and military service. It has always been thus in the case of the latter, you just need to look at the "conservative" (ie Right Wing) vote in places like Townsville where the are large military presences. Ex WW1 soldiers during the Depression made up the (not so) secret Right Wing paramilitaries here and everywhere else. Ironic that they probably had the arses out of their pants. Ironic, too, that MacArthur turned machine guns on protesting unemployed soldiers and destroyed their encampments in Washington in that period.

i was talking with a bloke about the western front and he was going on about this and that battle and then he asked me where my people fought and i replied 'in the trenches'. that'll do me

[bondi.boy]

A World Cup in Britain in 2021?

Best of luck with that idea.