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

[fatprop]

Brumbies will again have the strongest squad but Tahs will be best coached. Should be an interesting battle for top Aussie side.

Wrong thread, but the ponies have a few big holes to fill with new coaching, they have a few question as well

 

[Pfitzy]

Rugby isn't all that healthy at the moment in NZ. Player numbers are dropping. Working parents can't get their kids to games. I spent a good part of saturday morning this year collecting a car full of kids to take them to their game or they would no be playing. Kids are working weekends. Some just want the weekends to themselves. Basketball is really taking off because they can train at lunchtime at school, have a game thursday or friday night and are done. I have been coaching schoolboy rugby since 1996, currently I am rugby administrator at my school in Southland. The numbers are of concern.

Same story in Waikato according to a mate of mine. The sort of malaise that has been running through Aussie rugby for a while.

Yet I have Kiwis who live here saying everything is fine because their school or local area back home is strong. Which is identical in nature to how Rugby People in Australia judge the health of the game: If their club is fine, everything is sweet.

I look at articles talking about clubs in smalltown NZ not having enough props, and the work things you mention, and think we're not doing ourselves any favours with Saturday afternoon rugby

 

[John S]

I want to agree with you because the less stoppages for the obvious the better. It serves no ones interests to watch multiple replays of the same thing. My concern, however, is situations like the Slipper tackle on Retallick. The Ref had his hand in his pocket before the replay even came on the screen so he was confident he'd seen everything, but he hadn't.

That was a weird one.

But, the way that the Wobs played, was giving the ref the impression we had infringed, so that was probably his first reaction because of our poor discipline to that point

 

[stillmissit]

So we got Koro (who is also prone to a few bad decisions and errors), Ikitau, and Kelleway being test quality. A winger, outside centre and fullback/wing.

Even if we had the best 13,14,15, in the world we aren't going to win matches if our 9 and 10 aren't performing. These guys really need to step-up.

Viking we ain't going nowhere until our pack can either dominate or at least be equal. Until that time 9-15 are just spinning wheels.

 

[fatprop]

Viking we ain't going nowhere until our pack can either dominate or at least be equal. Until that time 9-15 are just spinning wheels.

Despite of being bossed at time the optimist in still saw improvements, Wilson's charging kick return, Samu's great work, Poreki's set piece work with a new second row each week

 

[young gun]

That was a weird one.

But, the way that the Wobs played, was giving the ref the impression we had infringed, so that was probably his first reaction because of our poor discipline to that point

Yes, you are probably right, if not definitely right, but he was clearly going to make a very poor decision if that TMO didn't come into play. I'm no fan of TMO's, but this is a time when they got it right.

 

[fatprop]

The forwards got rolled in the scrum, at the lineout and at the breakdown. Backs were not great either.
Gordon stifles the attack. He doesn’t seem to have a decent feel of the game. He does one out stuff that is great but there is no flow to the game with him at nine like there is with White or Tate.
Wright also kills any momentum we have.

I think "a" creates the result for "B" when any nine is getting shit ball he is having to dig out there is a roll on through the rest.

We have to commit more to each ruck, we then have less for the next phase etc etc and then we are under resourced and get turned over

 

[DELETE ACCOUNT]

Same story in Waikato according to a mate of mine. The sort of malaise that has been running through Aussie rugby for a while.

Yet I have Kiwis who live here saying everything is fine because their school or local area back home is strong. Which is identical in nature to how Rugby People in Australia judge the health of the game: If their club is fine, everything is sweet.

I look at articles talking about clubs in smalltown NZ not having enough props, and the work things you mention, and think we're not doing ourselves any favours with Saturday afternoon rugby

I was in Palmerston North 3 years ago and visited the Rugby Museum there. Got into a conversation with 2 older fellas who were volunteers there.
They also stated the numbers were rapidly dwindling. Basketball / gang (street) culture had a big impact and that RL was becoming very attractive to the younger kids.
The example was Palmerston use to have an 8 team U18 competition which was down to 1 team who travelled further away to play games.

 

[Dan54]

Same story in Waikato according to a mate of mine. The sort of malaise that has been running through Aussie rugby for a while.

Yet I have Kiwis who live here saying everything is fine because their school or local area back home is strong. Which is identical in nature to how Rugby People in Australia judge the health of the game: If their club is fine, everything is sweet.

I look at articles talking about clubs in smalltown NZ not having enough props, and the work things you mention, and think we're not doing ourselves any favours with Saturday afternoon rugby

I think a few ex kiwis living in Oz very much look at game back here with rose coloured glasses Pfitzy, when I lived there, a lot of kiwis who were quite expert on the game at home etc, had actually never really been involved etc. Like any sport anywhere, kids have a lot more variety of both sports and things to do, as do parents I know soccer the biggest kids sport in NZ has same problems , everyone has other things to do.

 

[Bullrush]

Fuck soccer.

 

[stillmissit]

Despite of being bossed at time the optimist in still saw improvements, Wilson's charging kick return, Samu's great work, Poreki's set piece work with a new second row each week

I agree Fattie, we see improvements every game but it ain't the same guys each game and it ain't a focused pack working together. I think our pack is better than Cheika's time but that doesn't say much.

 

[stillmissit]

Like any sport anywhere, kids have a lot more variety of both sports and things to do, as do parents I know soccer the biggest kids sport in NZ has same problems , everyone has other things to do.

This is exactly what several of the players told me in my pathetic coaching of subbies in 2012-14. They also don't need or want a rugby club, they have their weekend entertainment sorted out via their phone and don't want to hang around a rugby club.

 

[The Red Baron]

I think you're onto something. NZ have always been able to adapt quicker then us. We always seem to roll out the exact same game-plan. Cheika was probably the worst at this, but it seems Rennie is doing this too.

England series a good example of when this happened. The Argentina loss, and now the Bled. The opposition all adapted and then smashed us.

I wonder if this speaks to the discussion on the players being uncoachable? We've got multiple coaches who have seemingly been unable to adapt their game plans, and I wonder if part of it is because the playing group on the whole lack the IQ to adapt?

 

[Viking]

I wonder if this speaks to the discussion on the players being uncoachable? We've got multiple coaches who have seemingly been unable to adapt their game plans, and I wonder if part of it is because the playing group on the whole lack the IQ to adapt?

Absolutely. I think Robbie Deans was onto something when he said the players 'need to play what's in front of them'.
It seems the guys just follow the structure/game-plan, or attempt to, but forget to play what's in front of them. They just seem to lack the ability to think for themselves and change the game-plan on the fly.

I would say Cooper is the only player who can do this in the last decade but his skill execution and error rate has let him down. The Gregan/Larkham era was probably the last time we saw this happen. After that, the rugby IQ fell off a cliff.

An example: remember in super rugby T.Hooper screwed his shoulder and B.Barrett sends the goal-line drop out directly at him (Hooper drops is cold as he's injured). I can't see any of our players having the brains or kicking accuracy to do something that.

 

[Viking]

Viking we ain't going nowhere until our pack can either dominate or at least be equal. Until that time 9-15 are just spinning wheels.

Good point. Last week we got parity and even dominance at times. It's crazy how inconsistent it is.

For me, Valetini is the only one who gets a pass mark. Samu probably now too but only started two games. Maybe AAA gets a pass too, just.

Our other front row, locks, blindside, are all average at best. It seems like there is a lot of depth building in the 'looks okay without being spectacular" or "had one good game" department, but this just isn't good enough.

An example is how everyone thinks Porecki is the best thing since sliced bread because he can throw a straight line-out. Guess what, that is the most basic skill of that position and that's literally his point of difference. How the hell is your point of difference the most basic skill? Every player should be masters of there basic skills and have other points of difference, like a Hooker who can also pilfer.

Guys like Bell and McReight show a lot of promise but aren't there yet, the rest of them are basically just passengers.

 

[fatprop]

I agree Fattie, we see improvements every game but it ain't the same guys each game and it ain't a focused pack working together. I think our pack is better than Cheika's time but that doesn't say much.

I think they have just had more time together, we are seeing the same type of mistakes, the same type of ill-discipline

 

[Pfitzy]

The forwards got rolled in the scrum, at the lineout and at the breakdown.

Let's break that down:

SCRUM: Kiwis are talking up their scrum, but their only dominance was with Holloway off the park. Bell got outsmarted at his first couple of scrums, but corrected it and we had no real problems there.

LINEOUT: Our lineout was fine. The ABs didn't really mark up on Holloway and our hookers were accurate. We stole one and disrupted at least one other.

RUCK: Several times - particularly at restarts - we blew the Kiwis off the ball and they only got it back by the skin of their teeth. There were multiple instances where we put on significant pressure, and the only times we were really suffering on our own ball was where it was a couple of backs getting piled into by several forwards i.e. we made a poor decision for kick return. Most pleasingly there were very few turnovers where we were simply inaccurate or committed too few bodies to the breakdown. There were a few where we overcommitted.

Gordon stifles the attack. He doesn’t seem to have a decent feel of the game.

Now you're just talking rubbish. Each of our halves have strengths and weaknesses and to single out a particular player there as The Answer (or The Problem) is facetious, to say the least.

 

[teach]

Same story in Waikato according to a mate of mine. The sort of malaise that has been running through Aussie rugby for a while.

Yet I have Kiwis who live here saying everything is fine because their school or local area back home is strong. Which is identical in nature to how Rugby People in Australia judge the health of the game: If their club is fine, everything is sweet.

I look at articles talking about clubs in smalltown NZ not having enough props, and the work things you mention, and think we're not doing ourselves any favours with Saturday afternoon rugby

The Southland rugby union has been encouraging midweek games under lights for the schoolboys and girls. It has been very popular and leaving the weekends free. The introduction of a 1st XV competition to run in parallel with the introduction of super rugby years ago killed rugby off in many schools. If there school wasn't in the comp, the boys had to move to schools that were in order to have a shot at rep status.

 

[Dan54]

Yep was reading in Rugby news a club (maybe College Rifles in Auck) are playing their junior games on Friday night, apparently very successful and bloody great numbers etc! I will have to find article.
And also as you say with 1st XV , in big centres kids look to get to colleges that have some games live on tv, showing their wares etc apparently, remember TJ Perenara talking about it a year or 2 ago , and read it can be a problem for schools not making the elite comps.

 

[runningrugbyrules]

All well and good, but those were not the "styles" each of the Aus teams mentioned played in Super Rugby this year, really. So, remains a theory of yours.

Theory that 7 Wallabies that I watched the game with on Sat at their reunion agree with. The theory has been going for 4/5 years now and keeps proving itself true.

Most of them were Waratahs and can’t stand watching their old team play these days