Imagine this Test series without Eddie Jones or Michael Cheika
By Sam Ryan
On Saturday night I sat down and watched the rugby with some mates, most of whom weren't typical rugby fans.
Usually, this is quite a painful experience and I spend the majority of the match defending the code and guarding the remote to avoid watching two league teams run into each other in front of 8,000 people.
But on Saturday night, something was different.
The peanut gallery sat enthralled as both sides put their bodies on the line in one of the most physical confrontations you could legally televise on prime time TV.
“Forget Origin, these blokes are real men,” one said to my absolute delight.
At half time they asked why this match was so different to most rugby games that they’d watched and after initially arguing that it wasn’t, I conceded that there was a difference.
The sides, I explained, were coached by two of the most passionate and intelligent rugby brains in the world.
Two former teammates, taught to play the game the way it was meant to be play