Argentina v Australia II @ 5.10am 14/08

[Viking]

I'm struggling to pick a MOTM for Argentina:

Wright or Petaia?

Definitely Wright. I think he played himself out of a wallabies jersey for some time. He was just a complete dub on the high ball. Poor decision-making, a complete shocker.
Petaia was poor but at least had some nice touches.

 

[Viking]

How’d Longeran go with his first start?

i thought Arnold had some nice interplay before I switched off but sounds like that was his only feature

Yeh I thought Longeran was okay. He was not a physical presence but he wasn't a liability either. He goes for the turnover at the breakdown often and nearly got a couple which was nice to see. Think he will be good in a year or two.

 

[Viking]

There is just so many anonymous players in the team. Tupou, Arnold, Swain, Holloway, the more experienced players you expect much more from.

I think the only player who passed were Valetini. I like Tate from the bench too. His 50/22 was a beaut! Thought he passed well too.

We are screwed at fullback, or really any strategy to neutralize the contestable kicks. We simply don't have the players with the skillset to compete. I see a brutal series with SA and NZ on the way.

 

[stillmissit]

Stats are kind if interesting. https://www.espn.co.uk/rugby/playerstats?gameId=595485&league=244293

Possession roughly equal, though the Pumas with the advantage in the second half. Territory overwhelming to Australia! Pumas had to do a lot more tackling and both teams tackle success was pretty rough (86% and 88%). Wallabies with basically 50% more distance gained running. Set piece doesn't look so bad in the generic stats (I'll bet the analysts may have more to say about the quality of it though).

JOC (James O'Connor) (James O'Connor) got away more passes than we have seen from FH recently, and appears in the the top tacklers (Lonergan 13, Koroibete 12, Swain 11, O'Conner 10). Penalty count mostly spread through the whole team with plenty of players with one each. Tupou at 3 - scrum I guess.

In short, I don't think the stats at this level of analysis really show the game.

Valetini easy Wallaby of the match for me, Koroibete up there. Overall our defense stood up statistically but not in reality, and then we had no oomph with the territory advantage which in reality worked for Pumas whatever the stats say.

Huge game for Argentina.

Dru, to show up in the tackle stats you have to actually attempt a tackle!!!!
Agree rough stats won't show the poor D and the continuing problem of throwing 50/50's when our catching ability is 20%...

 

[stillmissit]

Yeh I thought Longeran was okay. He was not a physical presence but he wasn't a liability either. He goes for the turnover at the breakdown often and nearly got a couple which was nice to see. Think he will be good in a year or two.

Agree assuming he puts on 10-15Kg

 

[Lightblue]

If we score that try and go ahead 17-14 in the first half maybe the game plays out differently? We just had too much inexperience in several areas and missed a few players that normally hold it together. The bench did not bring much outside of Tate and the yellow for McReight was not justified. Could easily have been a yellow for Kramer in the first half. Should have been.
Tough game for the Wallabies.

Is that the no try where there were two forward passes in the one movement?

 

[Derpus]

Are we actually this bad? Rennie has an absolutely terrible record. Worst ever loss to Argentina to throw on the pile.

Seems a decent bloke but maybe not the greatest coach?

Or, maybe that's just copium and this reflects where the game is at.

Either way, well off it.

 

[Viking]

Is that the no try where there were two forward passes in the one movement?

I thought both passed were borderline, could have easily been a try depending on the refs. Was beautiful to watch too.

Although, if it had been a try I don't see a different result. The high ball game, or lack thereof, would have led to the same result.

 

[Lightblue]

There is just so many anonymous players in the team. Tupou, Arnold, Swain, Holloway, the more experienced players you expect much more from.

I think the only player who passed were Valetini. I like Tate from the bench too. His 50/22 was a beaut! Thought he passed well too.

We are screwed at fullback, or really any strategy to neutralize the contestable kicks. We simply don't have the players with the skillset to compete. I see a brutal series with SA and NZ on the way.

We need to have a 10 that can mix it up and question the defence … JOC (James O'Connor) is not the man .. either is Lolesio…

 

[Viking]

We need to have a 10 that can mix it up and question the defence … JOC (James O'Connor) (James O'Connor) is not the man .. either is Lolesio…

I agree. I think the back-3 was more of a worry though. No idea how we are gunna solve the contestable kicks issue. None of the back-3 options give me confidence under the high-ball.

Our 10 also drops back to fullback often, and all of Cooper, JOC (James O'Connor), Lolesio, are also liabilities under the high ball. They make for easy kicking targets.

 

[Lightblue]

Are we actually this bad? Rennie has an absolutely terrible record. Worst ever loss to Argentina to throw on the pile.

Seems a decent bloke but maybe not the greatest coach?

Or, maybe that's just copium and this reflects where the game is at.

Either way, well off it.

Basically …. We don’t have the cattle to play a mixed game that questions opposition team’s defence… we are predictable… whether that is poor coaching or a coach that knows he has to keep it simple because the players he has at his disposal don’t have the skills?

 

[stillmissit]

Agree with most of you regarding the High Ball game but Petaia is not a short arse and Wright being out jumped by shorter players was embarrassing.
I thought we went back to our put 2-3 guys in the breakdown and that left McRight like a lone soldier, you can't blame him for the tight 5 going into 'when's the flight home?' mode.
Forcing passes has been out a weakness for a long time and Rennie should have cut this out of our game, we aren't the bloody AB's who catch everything thrown at or near them...
Best game from Valetini I have seen but I still think he is a great 6 running around at 8. Holloway did nothing to suggest he should be at 8 which is disappointing to me.
Let's all agree that the Arg. forwards handed our forwards their arses...Tupoa being the biggest arse...closely followed by Arnold.

 

[Viking]

Are we actually this bad? Rennie has an absolutely terrible record. Worst ever loss to Argentina to throw on the pile.

Seems a decent bloke but maybe not the greatest coach?

Or, maybe that's just copium and this reflects where the game is at.

Either way, well off it.

Yeh I don't really see any red flags around our strategies. It seems most loses are based around execution and some individual poor decision making. And the culture in the team looks okay from the outside (but we will never really know unless we were part of the team).

This game was easily won by Argentina by simply making contestable kicks. I don't blame the coach for Wright not being able to catch. That's down to the individual players. Same with our loss to the England, so many poor passes and lack of clinical play.

But having said that, whilst I don't see huge signs of him being a poor coach, there aren't that many signs he is a great coach either given our record. For me, Rennie is sitting safely in the neutral zone.

 

[eastman]

Definitely Wright. I think he played himself out of a wallabies jersey for some time. He was just a complete dub on the high ball. Poor decision-making, a complete shocker.
Petaia was poor but at least had some nice touches.

I think some of the criticism of Wright is a bit over the top- we know that performances like this come with the territory and you hope it doesn’t align with Petaiai.

For a third/ fourth string fullback and a top wing he still has a lot to offer and despite the mistakes at least he’s threatening ball in hand.

 

[Dismal Pillock]

Rennie has an absolutely terrible record. Worst ever loss to Argentina to throw on the pile.

Seems a decent bloke but maybe not the greatest coach?

I would still take him in a RED HOT SECOND to run the AB's over everyone's friend, fuzzie wuzzie Fozzie.

At least Rennie would have ZERO QUALMS about dropping 5/10 tenured AB motherfuckers like Beaudy and Cane to have an actual look at players like Perofeta or Papalii or Hoskins Sotutu to see if they were up to it.

 

[Tomikin]

I just watched the replay in full and have now flicked through the match thread and completely forgot Arnold was playing until I read this post which was put up 11 minutes ago.

Aside from that I have nothing to say about the game except that was atrocious, I’ll give some leeway due to the run of injuries, but without naming them there were several players out there today who should clearly not be in the team, with varying levels of experience.

The bright note was that we’ve gone two consecutive games without a card, I do think that discipline is a focal point for Rennie, and with that comes a bit of short term pain as players have their bad habits trained out of them.

McReight got a yellow

 

[Viking]

I think some of the criticism of Wright is a bit over the top- we know that performances like this come with the territory and you hope it doesn’t align with Petaiai.

For a third/ fourth string fullback and a top wing he still has a lot to offer and despite the mistakes at least he’s threatening ball in hand.

I disagree. I also think he is becoming predictable. He almost always dumbies and runs it back. So far it has worked most of the time but it is a high risk low percentage play and it is quickly being worked out by the opposition. I would love to see more of the low percentage stuff cut out of his game, then maybe I would be able to tolerate a poor game with the high ball.

In comparison, Banks was a low percentage player, he seemed to mostly make the right call to kick or run it back. You could tolerate a game or two when he wasn't great under the high ball cos you know he is mostly making the right decisions. This is why he was incumbent before injury.

 

[RugbyReg]

I don’t think there’s a better coaching team available that we could put together. I think there are immediate player issues and longer term systemic issues with Australian rugby that are more to blame than the coaching team. I would’nt be changing them or blaming them.

All probably with the proviso that perhaps we have to explore what’s going on with the number of injuries we’ve had of late. But I’m no expert in that area so won’t make any assumptions.

 

[eastman]

I disagree. I also think he is becoming predictable. He almost always dumbies and runs it back. So far it has worked most of the time but it is a high risk low percentage play and it is quickly being worked out by the opposition. I would love to see more of the low percentage stuff cut out of his game, then maybe I would be able to tolerate a poor game with the high ball.

In comparison, Banks was a low percentage player, he seemed to mostly make the right call to kick or run it back. You could tolerate a game or two when he wasn't great under the high ball cos you know he is mostly making the right decisions. This is why he was incumbent before injury.

Wright has spent 90% of his professional rugby career playing on the wing. He’s only playing at the back due to injuries and genera talent- he shouldn’t be compared to a career fullback at this stage.

 

[Tomikin]

I think it was before they scored, when there were a couple of other transgressions. He may just have been the unlucky one to get singled out? I thought he was good, along with Valetini who was excellent.

It was 3 penalties in a row before the Argues scored. Offside for 2 and think side entry... Was him each time as well.