3rd Place Play Off - Wallabies v Wales.

[light]

What a shit way to end what was previously a pretty good thread. Thought we would be more gracious in defeat than how some posters are being, we lost to NZ and they deserve to win the thing, get over it. This bickering is shit to read when it's got nothing to do with the thread topic and has been covered numerous times already.

I enjoyed watching AUS v WAL, Ryan Jones was tremendous at the breakdown and probably outplayed Pocock. With the help of Warburton I don't think the Wallabies would have won this one, he was sorely missed as was their first choice prop. Would have loved to have seen the Cooper-Barnes combination a bit longer, it looked threatening and that's what we have been missing all tournament. AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) needs to pass more, the opponent doesn't expect it, and as we saw the one time he did pass he almost created a try out of nothing.

Ratings.
Slipper - 7.5. Our best prop performance of the tournament, he was all over the place.
Polata-Nau - 6. Scrum wasn't great, still doesn't throw as straight as we need but was a good hit out for him.
Ma'afu - 6. Held his own but looked under pressure from Jenkins at all times
Horwill - 7. Captains knock, did everything we wanted from him and was one of our best.
Sharpe - 6.5. Injury looked to have slowed him down early but really showed heart and controlled the line-out well.
Higgenbotham - 7. Played well, made a statement for starting 6 jersey but didn't play tight enough for my liking.
Pocock - 8. Never has a bad game
McCalman - 7. His best performance in gold, we need to persevere with him. Would like to see more impact and better runs.
Genia - 5. Poor game by his standards, has looked sub-par all tournament. Dissapointing.
Cooper - 6.5. Injury ended what looked to be a resurrection of sorts. Was playing with confidence and finding his mojo again.
Ioane - 7. Didn't get involved as much as we would have liked, outplayed North. Showed promising signs.
Barnes - 8. Ran the show after Cooper left. Kicked alot but was pretty accurate and had a solid performance.
AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) - 7. Held his own at FB but needs to make better decisions regarding passing. Kicking game looked good.
JOC (James O'Connor) - 7.5. Looks to be in great form, another one of his better games. Looked threatening everytime he got the ball.
Beale - 6.5. Same deal as Cooper. Unlucky bugger.

Alexander - 5. His worst game of the tournament, looked shaky in the scrum and just didn't show up on the night.
Fainga'a - 6.5. Didn't see too many bad things from him and made good decision for second try.
Simmons - 6.5. Good performance off the bench, looks to be the future of our locks. Defence was good as was his crash ball.
Samo - 5.5. Made little impact and just has looked out of touch all tournament.
Burgess - 7. Good swansong, would have liked to have seen more of him. Set up McCalman try and just had energy Genia lacked.
Fainga'a - 6. Good in defence, needed to offer more in attack.
Horne - 7. Made penetrating runs and looked solid in defence. Surely our future 13 without doubt now.

Wales
Ryan Jones - 8. Their best, was a menace in the rucks. We need a No.8 like him
HM: Halfpenny, North, Roberts, Lydiate, Bennett, Phillips, Jenkins.

 

[qwerty51]

Harsh on TPN and Ma'afu? Our scrum was much better I thought, Ma'afu was actually dominating Jenkins.

 

[light]

By TPN's standards it was a poor game. As for Ma'afu he got lucky a few times I thought when the referee was on the wrong side of the scrum. He was under serious pressure, but as I said he did hold his own and was quite good around the park.

 

[Jay]

Your just saying what exactly?
That QC (Quade Cooper) deserved to cope such a bad injury.... hey?

You are a bit bigger than the average sh*tstirrer by the sounds of it.

You stay classy now Jay.

I'm just saying McCaw's jedi tricks may not be confined to clouding the vision of the ref.....

 

[Inside Shoulder]

By TPN's standards it was a poor game. As for Ma'afu he got lucky a few times I thought when the referee was on the wrong side of the scrum. He was under serious pressure, but as I said he did hold his own and was quite good around the park.

TPN's days are numbered: no one doubts the courage of a kamikaze but you cant build an ongoing battle plan around him. The incident that saw him eventually leave the field was just plain stupid - he achieved nothing by what he did and I doubt he could have even if he got it right. And its not the first time he's been injured on a play that had little potential return for his team.

 

[Lee Grant]

We're being a bit precious in this thread. Let us just agree that whichever crowd does what, and whatever Quade The Goose did, and whether he deserved the boos or not, (and he probably did, to some degree), and whether we understand why the Kiwis did it (I do), or not - that the behaviour of the Kiwi crowds reflected poorly on them and their country in an otherwise brilliant and feel good event.

There may be some objection and deflection of that but let's put a sock in this - it is getting boring.



Getting back to the game. I thought it was a bit of the same old stuff from the Wobs and a disappointing performance, their worst of the RWC, from Wales. Their back line penetration was like the Wobs against NZ and as bad as their goal kicking. The Kiwis would have munched both sides up and spat them out though it must have been difficult to get up for a 3rd/4th playoff.


As for the Wobs: it's as though nothing much has changed since the days of Macqueen: bright spots but a lack of consistency during the game; and the same goes for the whole of 2011. Counter rucking that was present in other games, was absent; getting quickly off the line was good in this game but not in the last one, and yarda, yarda, yarda.


My point is that if there are, say 20 things that are important in a game of rugby Oz can do most of them very well, but I don't know of any other team as highly ranked as Oz that can do one thing so well in some games and can't do it in the next one. Take NZ out of the equation, because most teams have trouble against them, and the observation still holds: inexplicable inconsistency.


It would be easier to cop if Oz could do only 10 of the 20 things well and they kept doing most of them in every game, but it is frustrating to see them fail, often unforced, to do something they executed well not long before.


A part of that is not having a large pool of players in each position to pick the most consistent of them in the national team, and a part of it is not picking the right players in the first place.


I'm not sure what the answer is. We all blame the coach and in truth, sometimes the Wallabies play as though they are poorly coached, but every Oz coach of the professional era, even Macqueen in his first two years, had the same consistency problem - and Macqueen eventually got a team of champions whose careers aligned for 3 or 4 magic years and made it easy for him.


This inconsistency problem was present when Deans arrived and I wrote then about it, and expressed my hope that he would be the one to turn this one step forward and one back scenario around, but he hasn't.


To be fair he had the youngest team in the RWC to work with but that observation won't have legs for very long.
.

 

[Loki74]

And although they were missing warburton, we were missing Moore, who has been one of our better performers all cup. Higgers had a good game but wouldn't say he is clearly better than Elsom. Elsom looked tired against the ABs but not surprising. Thought Slipper had a great game. Let's hope he continues to develop. Back line looks more precise and less rushed with Barnes. Few people have said he kicked too much, but that made sense to me once Cooper and Beale were gone and they were rejigging the back line on the run.

 

[ACT Crusader]

By TPN's standards it was a poor game. As for Ma'afu he got lucky a few times I thought when the referee was on the wrong side of the scrum. He was under serious pressure, but as I said he did hold his own and was quite good around the park.

TPN hasn't shown a whole lot of great form at international level full stop, so the bar isn't particularly high for him at the moment IMO

 

[Inside Shoulder]

LG - about your post above

I was all set to hit agree and then you implied that McQueen was handed (i.e. "got") a team of champions. The one thing McQueen did, which we are still not doing, was to make the Wallabies treasure possession. From continuity came the platform to reliably win games. To suggest that the players were already like that is unfair and simplistic.

 

[QuadeCooperFan]

When he's not injured, Horne now has to be our first choice 13 surely. He has proven in the little game time he's gotten this world cup that he is our best 13.

 

[Hawko]

Harsh on TPN and Ma'afu? Our scrum was much better I thought, Ma'afu was actually dominating Jenkins.

Too true. After the first twenty minutes our scrum started to really dominate. Several times we pushed Wales backwards significantly, without much reward. I liked how Barnes tried to ref each scrum on its merits - Maafu was penalised early but as he established dominance that situation was reversed. Other refs would have continued making decisions based on the first one.

 

[Lee Grant]

LG - about your post above

I was all set to hit agree and then you implied that McQueen was handed (i.e. "got") a team of champions. The one thing McQueen did, which we are still not doing, was to make the Wallabies treasure possession. From continuity came the platform to reliably win games. To suggest that the players were already like that is unfair and simplistic.

I said: Macqueen eventually got a team of champions whose careers aligned for 3 or 4 magic years and made it easy for him. Chicken and egg - he did have some champions in that period and they beat the All Blacks 3 times in 1998, won the 1999 RWC and beat the Lions in 2001. One of the attributes of champions that they are consistent in their performances, and they were. Sure Macqueen had a bit to do with that as did the natural evolution of that group of players into champs. Chicken and egg.

 

[Lee Grant]

When he's not injured, Horne now has to be our first choice 13 surely. He has proven in the little game time he's gotten this world cup that he is our best 13.

I don't think that many folks who have seen him play regularly would disagree apart from his forcing the pass a bit too much. Passing a step earlier will fix that. At his best he is like Horan playing 13 but he's not going to picked if he is injured all the time. Even if he is healthy there is always the possibility that he is going to be injured in the next game; so the selectors will take pause when his name is discussed, not wanting to risk a spot - or be forced to have a 4/3 bench when they really want to have a 5/2.

It was good to see him play 12 in the game against the USA - it was like watching him for NSW Schools again.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

I said: Macqueen eventually got a team of champions whose careers aligned for 3 or 4 magic years and made it easy for him. Chicken and egg - he did have some champions in that period and they beat the All Blacks 3 times in 1998, won the 1999 RWC and beat the Lions in 2001. One of the attributes of champions that they are consistent in their performances, and they were. Sure Macqueen had a bit to do with that as did the natural evolution of that group of players into champs. Chicken and egg.

he inherited a rudderless bunch of misfits - "made it easy for him" - they lost their first game in Argentina as I recall and he built them from there. You're being churlish.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

The RWC Referee thread has been closed.

I thought I'd just comment that I now understand why the residents of Darknessville have "issues" with Mr Barnes's refereeing. It seems he consistently misses howlers. Probably not entirely his fault, the Touchies have failed him with That Pass (2007 QF and 2011 3/4 versions), That Try (2011 3/4), That Goal Kick (2011 Saf/Wal).

It is fortunate that the howlers today did not fundamentally change the outcome of the match. I can only imagine, given our track record in Gaggerland, the endless abuse the poor bastard would have got on a "Barnes is Shite" thread if we had lost the game.

At least we can say that he has been consistent , and after all consistency is what we all seek from referees. If he can eliminate these errors from his game, then he has the hallmarks of making a top class referee.

 

[Dan54]

I would just add some comments now it is all calmed down a bit. I was a little disappointed with last nights game, but then as was pointed out, the wallabies(and welsh) were probably a bit buggered after last week. I had said to couple of mates during S15, I thought Reds were relying on the Cooper Genia axis a lot, and perhaps at some stage of season they would need a break, you can't keep going to same well it will run dry, and wonder if this has been one of problems for both during cup, we have all noted QC (Quade Cooper)'s form, and I think Genia has lookes a little tired, especially last couple of games. Was talking to a welsh supoorter over here alittle while ago, just as he finished phonecall to his brother who was at game, was interesting to hear his thoughts on game, won't go into it, just said he was even more gutted than last weeks loss.

 

[Jnor]

Interesting - how could anyone be more gutted at losing a 3 v. 4 playoff than a semi?

 

[Dan54]

You mean like when the ABs complained that the WBs didn't respect them?

After yesterday I'm supporting France.

Lol I would suggest you were alsways going to support French, or any team playing ABs, you don't have to make excuses you know.

 

[Dan54]

Interesting - how could anyone be more gutted at losing a 3 v. 4 playoff than a semi?

I actually thought the same Jnor, I think he was more or less saying or inferring they did'nt win last weeks game because of Red Card, and with 15 on field had thought they would win.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

The Men in Gold vs Wales @ full strength @ home, now that should be a great game. Roll on December.

Pity that it looks like we won't have QC (Quade Cooper) for this gig, but such is life. It is still an tantalising prospect.