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2025 Bledisloe Cup Series

2025 Bledisloe Cup Series

  • NZ in disarray, the time is now.

    Votes: 19 31.1%
  • Aus to win the Bled

    Votes: 15 24.6%
  • Split series, NZ retain Bled

    Votes: 21 34.4%
  • Aus lose both tests

    Votes: 8 13.1%
  • NZ win both tests

    Votes: 4 6.6%
  • Joe Schmidt to switch booths at halftime

    Votes: 5 8.2%
  • "Dear Wallabies, please take Razor"

    Votes: 6 9.8%
  • the long suffering Wobs deserve this

    Votes: 11 18.0%
  • pole long and hard

    Votes: 8 13.1%
  • pole just long

    Votes: 6 9.8%

  • Total voters
    61

KOB1987

John Eales (66)
Yeah the objective of professional sport is to win, not just compete
It’s actually to provide entertainment and sell bums on seats, media deals and sponsorships. But yes every team strives to be the best at their sport, that’s just not us right now. And I’d add the professional element is mostly at the tier below, these are the representative teams selected from there.
 

The Ghost of Raelene

John Eales (66)
I don't know how we expect to win when we are playing imo our 4th or 5th choice 10. Losing carter in 2023 has had a massive impact. Noah, lynagh, carter, Donaldson, JOC (James O'Connor) (James O'Connor) are all better than Tane. Tane doesn't have the minutes in him this year to be starting against the all blacks. I think Joe got this wrong. Donaldson or JOC (James O'Connor) (James O'Connor) would have been better starting options. Jocs kicking is very poor and I think that's why Joe went with Tane. But Donaldson is the better option with JOC (James O'Connor) (James O'Connor) on the bench. Same can be said at halfback. Jake hasn't had a lot of minutes this year.

I was pretty sauced up last night so I appolagies if I was ranting about the ref in the first half. Wallabies were not up to it last night. Was good to see jorgenson get more ball than normal. The all blacks delt with him well.
Difficult to say Carter was the guy either. One semi decent but more fun season to watch in a team that came second last.

Donaldsons never had a dominant season in his career at 10 and who knows if he’ll even play a full season for the Force at 10

None are elite and they would just want one guy to have a good Test and grab it for a stint.
 

Heavyd

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
In a fairly frustrating evening the thing that pissed me off the most was the massive promo for the NRL GF at half time. Ultimate cuck behavior from rugby
The challenge of rugby being in bed with a broadcast partner like channel 9 that actually hates the sport and do everything to not promote it.
 

Ignoto

Geoff Shaw (53)
back to the lions test. Everyone said they couldn't clean out tizzqno any other way and what is he supposed to do. No penalty. Hoopers the same In a way
I'll say what I said for the clean out on Tizzano.

If you can't perform a legal clean out, it means you were too slow to the ruck. Hooper took too long to get there just like Sheehan did on Carlo.

There's an argument to be made that your head shouldn't be lower than your butt but it was a bad clean out by Hooper.
 

griffins

Bob Loudon (25)
It just rolls on the same issues every game with a couple of exceptions. We were beaten in the breakdown badly, we must support the ball player better, if the AB's and most teams above us can do it, then we need to be at that level to step up.
Gordon always worries me when he starts pointing and shouting at guys.
Bottom line, we were beaten in the forwards, and at times our backs looked chaotic. The tackling was very poor, JAS being often among the poorest.
Can't blame the ref for this one.

Reckon you're falling back on a couple of old favourites here. NZ fans could well say the same thing re the breakdown, with McReight having another good night stealing and slowing their ball. We did get counter rucked a few times but at least one of these occurred following a contestable kick, with NZ flooding the breakdown and overwhelming Daugunu and Lonergan. Both teams had periods where the packs generated momentum but the only area NZ were clearly dominant was our lineout.

As for JAS's tackling, he seemed pretty aggressive/less passive last night and landed some pretty good shots. He did get sat down at one point but I think his reads are improving.
 

Tomthumb

Jim Lenehan (48)
I don’t think a couple of tweaks is the issue here. The whole defensive system and execution is absolutely horrid. All Blacks made easy metres every time they had the ball, scored every time they got into our 22.

It’s the same chocolate soldier stuff we have had for years
 

Hogan

Ward Prentice (10)
Difficult to say Carter was the guy either. One semi decent but more fun season to watch in a team that came second last.

Donaldsons never had a dominant season in his career at 10 and who knows if he’ll even play a full season for the Force at 10

None are elite and they would just want one guy to have a good Test and grab it for a stint.
None of our young 10’s including Carter have been consistent and that’s the problem although Noah might argue the point and Donaldson from memory won the Nathan Sharpe medal last year I believe.

Schmidt needs to decide who his two best 10’s are post JOC (James O'Connor) and stick with them and stop rotating.
 

stillmissit

Jim Lenehan (48)
I think it was a mistake not to play LSL (Lukhan Salakaia-Loto) in this game (assuming he was not injured). I am over Frost, I thought he was gaining some mongrel and smarts, but he ain't. He avoids the tough stuff that most forwards expect from a lock, his only strength IMO is the occasional lineout win. He also rarely goes over the gain line, compare him to Harry, Bobby V, Slipper, AAA or even Ikitau. Skelton was sorely missed last night.
 

The Ghost of Raelene

John Eales (66)
None of our young 10’s including Carter have been consistent and that’s the problem although Noah might argue the point and Donaldson from memory won the Nathan Sharpe medal last year I believe.

Schmidt needs to decide who his two best 10’s are post JOC (James O'Connor) (James O'Connor) and stick with them and stop rotating.
Clubs awards don’t really do anything for me unfortunately. Especially when the sides haven’t excelled. Gleeson won the Tahs but I reckon Walton would have been high on their tally…

Problem with sticking to the best 2 is it’s not fair on 3,4,5 who are arguably playing at the same level.

Just chuck Len there tbh.
 

rugbyAU

Ken Catchpole (46)
In a fairly frustrating evening the thing that pissed me off the most was the massive promo for the NRL GF at half time. Ultimate cuck behavior from rugby
it's the NRL Final and it was promoted at halftime, it's completely normal for broadcasters to promote their other sports/shows etc.
 

Tomthumb

Jim Lenehan (48)
Just listened to Schmidt’s interview with Stan postgame, wasn’t too thrilled with it. Was really just making excuses and saying how proud he was of the team and that they were unlucky. Said they showed obvious improvement, which he can’t seriously believe considering we have got worse every game this rugby championship

I hope that’s not actually what he’s telling the players, because what they have dished up the last 3 weeks hasn’t been good enough
 

rugbyAU

Ken Catchpole (46)
Just listened to Schmidt’s interview with Stan postgame, wasn’t too thrilled with it. Was really just making excuses and saying how proud he was of the team and that they were unlucky. Said they showed obvious improvement, which he can’t seriously believe considering we have got worse every game this rugby championship

I hope that’s not actually what he’s telling the players, because what they have dished up the last 3 weeks hasn’t been good enough
Yeah it's literally been backwards every single game, there's no winning mentality anywhere
 
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