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Australia v England Test 1 Sat. July 2 @1955

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PhilClinton

PhilClinton

Mark Loane (55)
Surface at Optus was like an ice rink last night during SOO.

A number of players hitting the deck when trying to change direction quickly - probably my QLD bias but I found it very noticeable!

Is that normal for the surface? I imagine if it continues to play like that for the test match, scrums may become tiresome.
 
GaffaCHinO

GaffaCHinO

Peter Sullivan (51)
PhilClinton said:
Surface at Optus was like an ice rink last night during SOO.

A number of players hitting the deck when trying to change direction quickly - probably my QLD bias but I found it very noticeable!

Is that normal for the surface? I imagine if it continues to play like that for the test match, scrums may become tiresome.
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I was surprised by that as well. For AFL matches its a super fast hard deck and the players all wear moulded soles. It was a warm day and night so shouldn't have been much dew it almost looked like the grass wasn't cut very short and had been watered. Wonder if they did that on purpose because the ground is so hard normally.
 
Braveheart81

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Slipper playing reserve tight head certainly makes sense. Bell is a pretty clear starter now so we're getting our best four available props in the matchday squad without compromising on the starters.

A shame that Holloway is injured. Would seem a debut was likely without it.
 
Up the Guts

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
PhilClinton said:
Surface at Optus was like an ice rink last night during SOO.

A number of players hitting the deck when trying to change direction quickly - probably my QLD bias but I found it very noticeable!

Is that normal for the surface? I imagine if it continues to play like that for the test match, scrums may become tiresome.
Click to expand...
They mentioned it had been wet but did look extremely slippery. It was very fast last year for the third Bledisloe.
 
PhilClinton

PhilClinton

Mark Loane (55)
Up the Guts said:
They mentioned it had been wet but did look extremely slippery. It was very fast last year for the third Bledisloe.
Click to expand...

Yeh, it's never good when the commentators keep mentioning it, and several players had notable falls.

There were some sizeable divots after a couple of them as well, the surface looked loose, possibly too long and recently watered as Gaffa points out above.

I am sure the grounds staff will take the feedback on board, they have a week to get it right. Some of the slipping caused a few tackles to go wrong, with attacking players falling into the defence as they stepped at the line. I would hate for the surface to be the cause of a sin binning.
 
WTF?

WTF?

Tom Lawton (22)
Looking forward to it. I am travelling over from the East to watch (hopefully) an Aussie win.
 
Dctarget

Dctarget

Tim Horan (67)
So Neville starts with Philip/Swain and the other on the bench. Forward pack nearly locked in then. Same goes for who gets the 6/8 combo.
1. Bell
2. Porecki
3. Ala'alatoa
4. Neville
5. Swain/Philip
6. Leota/Valetini
7.Hooper
8. Valetini/Wilson

Then you’d assume the backline will be fairly consistent. I doubt they’ll move people around too much.
9. White
10. Cooper
11. Koroibete
12. Kerevi
13. Ikitau
14. Kellaway
15. Petaia
 
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