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14% ruck involvement from a professoinal openside. You think that is acceptable? He did count first into defensive rucks with that %, but he didn't count it when comparing against McCaw only (I guess because they weren't too different). He highlighted Hooper because of the perception of his...

My bad, you are right. Our backrow needed to be more involved in our attacking rucks - Hooper only made 7 of our attacking rucks all night, according to Scott Allen. Unless you are carrying the ball a lot, not good enough (he carried for 4 times). edit: so that's 11 involvements, from 102...

Yeah, 2 to 3 times the size going by aerial views from Google maps. Having been to both, this sits about right from my own feelings. Did you check that the legend was the same for both?

My avatar is a pretty nice example, too.

Even Hooper, as our best forward, has areas he needs to improve on next week. Hooper's work in defence and at defence rucks was way under par. His effectiveness was through the roof with his steals, but otherwise he needs to lift his defensive work rate (see Scott's analysis), particularly...

And Auckland are currently handing it to North Harbour. Harbour have barely even had the ball, their forwards are getting smashed.

Interesting to see the amount of Australian Super Rugby players increasing in the ITM cup. Would like to see some teams get better jerseys for games where they clash! There's been a few initially confusing games this weekend.

22 - 0 loss at Eden Park? edit: Deans tended to be very conservative in his game plans, which effectively stopped blow outs but made it hard to win.

Simmons seems to suffer from reputation more than anything here. I wondered about his selection, but for a lineout lock he did a fine job around the park. His two blemishes were the intercept pass and penalty to give away three points. No tackling stats yet, but from early stats Simmons had...

And Kearns whining about the scrum is a little sad. Someone needs to tell him that big props, not flankers, were required before the hit.

And if we insist on going from side to side, we either need two things (preferably both): - forwards over the advantage line, and - some deception in our attack. We just threw the ball through the hands and the All Blacks had a compressed drifting defence which picked it off every time. A...

The individual performance from most of our forwards was good, but that was the problem - they were individual performances (I think individually the only forward I was disappointed in was MMM, and maybe Mowen slightly). The All Blacks worked as a pack, we didn't seem to. Really, we made a...

To'omua's been OK. Distributing well, tackling is OK, although he has slipped off one or two. Would like to see two things from To'omua that has been missing this half: 1. Take the ball to the line a bit more 2. Pass in front of the man - To'omua's passing have been to or slightly behind so far

Ben Mowen didn't even average 5m / carry for the season and he did quite a few mid field runs and had a couple of long breaks. I'd bet that you won't find many tight ball carriers averaging 5m per carry, if any. 3m -4m would actually be pretty god for a prop or non-wide running lock, I'd say...

Could it have something to do with them mostly carrying it in the tight? Most of the tight forwards in the Oz teams who primarily carry in the tight "barely make more than 1-3 metres each carry". I would say that Pyle, for example, would average more per carry. But then, Pyle is a better...

Normally in a pack you have a forward or two who can carry well a bit wider, either targetting a lazy forward in the backline or running over the shoulder of a back. Without Higgers, Hooper is the next best. MMM, Mowen, Fardy aren't too bad at it, but they don't have the same impact as Higgers...

Fox sports fantasy rugby. I know, I know, not the most reliable of stats gatherers, but useful for a quick look. Would like to compile stats from rugbystats.com.au into a spreadsheet to quote, but suspect that may violate some copyright or something. Try this link...

Palu won't be that much missed in that regard actually, his carrying is not as effective as it once was. Higgers has more impact, I think. In regards to your questions, actually, a couple of times. Simmons even made 3 linebreaks and 13 tackle busts this year, although in the first half, and...

If Tomane was in good enough form to be the Wallabies starting winger, there's no way in hell that White would have selected Rathbone to start in those final two games.

Yup, but I'm slightly doubting of To'omua's ability to play a real up-tempo style of game. Not that the lad isn't capable of it, it's just that he has little experience in it. Even in high school, To'omua (well, his BSHS team) played a similar style of kicking / field position game. A running...