Bledisloe 2. Eden Park, 24th Sept 7.05pm NZT. 5.05 pm AEST, 3.05 WA

[Dan54]

Anyway, I thought the ABs won the test in the tight 5, front row were good and BBBR and SW were much better than their opposites. AB backline was able to function pretty well with bloody good ball, and Jordie Barrett wasn't far off best player on the field. He played a game not to dissimilar to Havili, but with a bit more power I thought.
For Wallabies I thought tighties were pretty average, Pete Samu was bloody good in losing pack, felt a lot for Valetini as he had to do a lot of tight work so blunted his strength I thought. Backs I thought never really got enough front foot ball to do anything, and perhaps lacked any players that could turm it for them.
And perhaps the 26 or whatever missed tackles by Wallabies didn't help, I actually felt for Petaia, he looked a little lost defending at centre.

 

[Tomthumb]

This one is a lot easier to take than last week. No point blaming the ref when you lose by 26 points

Australian rugby just keeps getting worse. I genuinely wonder if we will ever become a top rugby team again, it’s been 20 years of utter dross

 

[Dan54]

This one is a lot easier to take than last week. No point blaming the ref when you lose by 26 points

Australian rugby just keeps getting worse. I genuinely wonder if we will ever become a top rugby team again, it’s been 20 years of utter dross

I still not convinced Australia are that bad at rugby Tom, someone on one of sites reckon they have dropped in ratings, but that's rubbish anyway, how can you drop behind teams you aren't playing, especially as they not playing. I still maintain Wallabies are in top 6 in world, and not a hell of a lot between them all. Doesn't take much of an off day in rugby these days to find yourself losing.

 

[Tomthumb]

I still not convinced Australia are that bad at rugby Tom, someone on one of sites reckon they have dropped in ratings, but that's rubbish anyway, how can you drop behind teams you aren't playing, especially as they not playing. I still maintain Wallabies are in top 6 in world, and not a hell of a lot between them all. Doesn't take much of an off day in rugby these days to find yourself losing.

We Haven't won the Bledisloe in over 20 years, haven't won the Rugby Championship since 2015, just had a winless Northern Tour that included a loss to a Welsh team that looked bereft of ideas and incapable of beating anyone else

I understand you want to think the Wallabies are strong, but the facts don't back that up. Argentina just beat you in NZ. Australia hasn't done that since 2001

 

[Dan54]

We Haven't won the Bledisloe in over 20 years, haven't won the Rugby Championship since 2015, just had a winless Northern Tour that included a loss to a Welsh team that looked bereft of ideas and incapable of beating anyone else

I understand you want to think the Wallabies are strong, but the facts don't back that up. Argentina just beat you in NZ. Australia hasn't done that since 2001

Fair enough mate, I do tend to think ABs perhaps lift against Wallabies at home here in NZ more than Pumas. But take your point, although I said in this tread earlier, I am never overly confident when we play Wallabies, so maybe that clouds my judgement a little?

 

[Kenny Powers]

there is also an obvious consistency issue with refereeing in world rugby.

To solve this just as they say you have to have your back office in order in order to produce a winning team so must the officiating.
Being the on field referee is the hardest role then as you go down the list it gets relatively easier assistant, TMO and citing panel.
If the citing panel can’t be run with consistency what chance do you have of that culture being applied to on field referees. The panels do it without time pressure and can engage in extensive discussion.

At the moment it’s a bit like telling a police officer to go out and enforce the law but then when it gets to a judge they will randomly decide whether that law applies or doesn’t apply this particular day.

 

[KOB1987]

I was at a function, the game was on in the background with no sound, I was into it initially and then lost interest when Jed got carded for cleaning out a player who was virtually upside down trying to steal our ball yet Lomax got a pat on the back for intentionally tipping a player last week. After that aside from the scoreline the other things I noticed were Wilson’s knock back that resulted in a try being disallowed, Koroibetes schoolboy error and the two wife bashers getting away with other illegal shit.

Bullrush, go to the silver fern to gloat, you are in better company there. Brumby Runner, I actually agree with your inference that we would probably go better if we selected the Australia A side + Valetini. And if we do get this big private equity investment that we keep hearing about I reckon we should buy the 15 best & cleanest rugby league players in the country and start from scratch.

I will probably watch the replay at some point but I’m not going to use up a good Sunday for that.

 

[wamberal]

Yesterday we had the AFL Grand Final, and an NRL Preliminary Final. Both huge events, full houses, loads of publicity, and on FTA.

These are the two leading winter sports in this country, by a long way. We are the only one of the top rugby nations who are in this sort of situation. In virtually of the top nations, rugby is the most popular contact sport.

We are up against it, by just about every metric. The only advantage we have is the international one, and that only comes to the fore when there is either a Lions Tour, or the occasional RWC.

Compare our situation with New Zealand. Rugby is a huge sport, played just about everywhere, and it has the pick of most of the best possible playing strength.

I have said it before, if we can maintain a ranking in the top 8 we are doing well.

 

[Pfitzy]

Fact: for long periods of our history, Australia has been second-tier at rugby.

People like to compare everyone to our RWC winning teams - particularly Eales era - without understanding how freakish those sides were.

Can we produce talent like that again? Sure. Absolutely. But with the supporting systems below that entering a decline, those will be the exception rather than the norm.

 

[Pfitzy]

I see a few people on the socials asking why Rennie isn't being pressured to resign with his winning record.

Fair enough question. My questions back:

1) Who are the candidates for new coach?
2) Which games are we pinning on the coaching from TRC? Pick from the following:
- 41-26 win over Argentina
- 17-48 loss to Argentina
- 25-17 win over Boks
- 8-24 loss to the Boks
- 37-39 loss to the ABs
- 14-40 loss to the ABs

 

[Tomthumb]

Fact: for long periods of our history, Australia has been second-tier at rugby.

People like to compare everyone to our RWC winning teams - particularly Eales era - without understanding how freakish those sides were.

Can we produce talent like that again? Sure. Absolutely. But with the supporting systems below that entering a decline, those will be the exception rather than the norm.

Isn’t 20 years long enough for the exception to be here by now? It’s been that long since we were good

no one is asking for an unbeatable team. We just ask every couple of decades if we can have a competitive one

 

[Pfitzy]

Isn’t 20 years long enough for the exception to be here by now? It’s been that long since we were good

no one is asking for an unbeatable team. We just ask every couple of decades if we can have a competitive one

We made a RWC final in 2015. We have recorded wins over the Boks and ABs regularly. The issues are the losses and the nature of those losses.

What is lacking is our consistency. And discipline.

Another fact: we can replace the guys with shit discipline with other players, but we lack the depth for that.

 

[Tomthumb]

I see a few people on the socials asking why Rennie isn't being pressured to resign with his winning record.

Fair enough question. My questions back:

1) Who are the candidates for new coach?
2) Which games are we pinning on the coaching from TRC? Pick from the following:
- 41-26 win over Argentina
- 17-48 loss to Argentina
- 25-17 win over Boks
- 8-24 loss to the Boks
- 37-39 loss to the ABs
- 14-40 loss to the ABs

1) That should never be a reason to not fire a coach
2) Not specific games, it’s more the fact that the team just hasn’t improved since he took over 3 years ago. Not all his fault but he looks completely out of ideas

what is the fear in getting rid of him and replacing him with DC or MacKellar or any local coach? We can’t really get much worse

 

[Tomthumb]

We made a RWC final in 2015. We have recorded wins over the Boks and ABs regularly. The issues are the losses and the nature of those losses.

What is lacking is our consistency. And discipline.

Another fact: we can replace the guys with shit discipline with other players, but we lack the depth for that.

We were a terrible refs decision away from losing in the quarterfinals to Scotland, and got pelted in the Quaters of the last World Cup

Beat the AB’s regularly? We have won 1 out of the last 10 test vs them, 3 out of the last 22. Is that regularly?

 

[stillmissit]

White has been poor too and Ref's absolutely hate him. Surely the refs are at least subconsciously wanting to officiate against us since half our players whinge to them so much. Nic White seems to be the leader in that department.

When is the last time we had a Captain who actually knows how to talk to a ref without pissing them off?

Time to give Tate a start.

Viking: McRight is the captain but can't hold a starting spot, several times after he came on I watched him geeing guys up and was trying to lead from the front. Tate is a bit like White back chats the ref and gets down when the game is not going to plan as it often does.

 

[KOB1987]

Yeah the coach isn’t the problem, the player drain and discipline are.

 

[Drew]

NZ has a conveyor belt of talent. At present we are picking players like Wright, Petaia and Bell (his set piece anyways) on promise and to keep them playing here more than on merit. Going down to 3 teams in Super Rugby really didn’t open many doors for up and comers and literally drove many overseas or to the other code.

 

[stillmissit]

The wallabies of the last 15 years have been uncoachable.

Viking, it is something that does my head in and I have no clear idea why but my guess is a mixture of a few things.

1. Player power. It was excellent in the beginning with McQueen coaching, it added to the idea of a team. That has morphed into something far less and more centred on individuals.

2. Eddie Jones brought some very experimental ideas into Aust rugby. 'The scrum should just be over quickly', this brought about our forward capitulation that was highlighted by European teams. 'Do not compete in the breakdown we will play off their mistakes and increase numbers in the D'. There were other ideas but the result was our coaching over the next 10 years weakened forwards with a focus on running players ie the Dunning effect.

3. Other bits. Schools stopped playing rugby, mums got scared about necks broken in scrums, now long-term brain injury, and the ongoing Asian youngsters going into private schools meant soccer was prefered over rugby.

We have not had the support of the masses like NZ does. except for a few years in the 90's and early 2000's.

 

[stillmissit]

NZ has a conveyor belt of talent. At present we are picking players like Wright, Petaia and Bell (his set piece anyways) on promise and to keep them playing here more than on merit. Going down to 3 teams in Super Rugby really didn’t open many doors for up and comers and literally drove many overseas or to the other code.

Agree Drew. Add to that we have Wallabies learning how to play the game, with little idea about the rules.

 

[stillmissit]

what is the fear in getting rid of him and replacing him with DC or MacKellar or any local coach? We can’t really get much worse

TT, Oh! yes we can. I wouldn't mind seeing DC as a coach but he needs to prove himself in Super Rugby which Mackeller has done.
Rennie has done all you could expect and had some terrible luck but I think it was Napoleon who said 'I do not like unlucky generals'.