Bledisloe III at Perth, 5/09/21 - 4pm AEST

[Dan54]

Just finished watching Rugby Heaven and now highlights of the test. I have to say I a bit upset at the lengths ABs are going to score tris. The one just before halftime Brodie Retallic has dropped his shorts and poked his arse out, obviously to put Wallabies off from putting there head in the mauls around that area!!!

 

[chasmac]

I remain unconvinced that the pack is not the start of our troubles. Set piece and ruck. But the common theme in rugby reviews is the halves and reading play. When it is on (or not) and when the kick is a better option.

Our back row was pretty anonymous on Sunday.
Hooper took a knock.
Swinton and Valetini were off the pace and lacked accuracy (Valetini's penalties).
Not a good day for them.
Are they lining up as they do in their Super Rugby teams?
ie Is Swnton used in the 15m channel for the Tah's ?

 

[Braveheart81]

I remain unconvinced that the pack is not the start of our troubles. Set piece and ruck. But the common theme in rugby reviews is the halves and reading play. When it is on (or not) and when the kick is a better option.

Was our pack that bad? We butchered a couple of lineouts but overall we won 10/12 on our own throw and all our scrums.

Philip threw one of the intercept tries so chalk that one down to a forward.

Lolesio missed a gimme penalty goal.
Banks kicked dead from the penalty after the red card.
Lolesio took a terrible option when he kicked instead of passing in the All Blacks 22 which butchered a clear try scoring opportunity.
Banks ran away from his support and got tackled into touch on a break.
Koroibete made a poor defensive read on Akira Ioane and then Ikitau and Lolesio also failed to tackle him.

This was a game where we controlled our own ball reasonably well, had plenty of possession and territory and got beaten comfortably.

I think by far the largest element of the gap between the two teams was the failure of our backline to take opportunities and making big errors.

Our forwards did enough that the game should have been close. Of course they can improve but I don't think it can be avoided that there were some serious underperformers in the backline.

 

[dru]

Was our pack that bad? We butchered a couple of lineouts but overall we won 10/12 on our own throw and all our scrums.

Philip threw one of the intercept tries so chalk that one down to a forward.

Lolesio missed a gimme penalty goal.
Banks kicked dead from the penalty after the red card.
Lolesio took a terrible option when he kicked instead of passing in the All Blacks 22 which butchered a clear try scoring opportunity.
Banks ran away from his support and got tackled into touch on a break.
Koroibete made a poor defensive read on Akira Ioane and then Ikitau and Lolesio also failed to tackle him.

This was a game where we controlled our own ball reasonably well, had plenty of possession and territory and got beaten comfortably.

I think by far the largest element of the gap between the two teams was the failure of our backline to take opportunities and making big errors.

Our forwards did enough that the game should have been close. Of course they can improve but I don't think it can be avoided that there were some serious underperformers in the backline.

BH - your view follows the discussions from Rennie and some very respected journalists.

But no I don't think our set piece was anywhere good enough. Stress and pressure on the halves comes from failure to keep reasonably clean rucks. Now to be fair Hooper, who seems to be worth 3x any other forward at the rucks had his issues with injury. But the line outs were not as good as they should be forcing ball to the front at times where more space was really needed. The scrums were, as usual, a bit of lottery, but did not dominate the way we would hope.

If "control our ball" is measured on possession, then NZ is playing a different standard where they are happy to let us dominate that stat. That will be even a stronger tendency with the Boks.

Clearly there are problems with decision making and sometimes implementing skills in the backs. But I just don't think out starts and finishes there.

 

[Braveheart81]

The All Blacks lost more lineouts on their own ball than we did. They also gave away more scrum penalties.

We had strong possession and territory stats (and I acknowledge that a lot of possession often indicates a lack of ability to do something with it, not dominance in a game).

I'm not saying our forwards were on top of the All Blacks, just that the contest there was reasonably even. Our ruck ball was at least good enough that McDermott had a field day sniping around the breakdown.

We played ourselves out of the game through failing to take clear opportunities and big errors.

Our backs have been the overarching problem all season. They just aren't performing well enough.

 

[dru]

The All Blacks lost more lineouts on their own ball than we did. They also gave away more scrum penalties.

We had strong possession and territory stats (and I acknowledge that a lot of possession often indicates a lack of ability to do something with it, not dominance in a game).

I'm not saying our forwards were on top of the All Blacks, just that the contest there was reasonably even. Our ruck ball was at least good enough that McDermott had a field day sniping around the breakdown.

We played ourselves out of the game through failing to take clear opportunities and big errors.

Our backs have been the overarching problem all season. They just aren't performing well enough.

Can only agree that this is generic thinking. There was still rarely consistent gains and quick ball coming from the pack. It has ramifications. But yes again, your thoughts on the backs are pretty accepted right now.

 

[Derpus]

The All Blacks lost more lineouts on their own ball than we did. They also gave away more scrum penalties.

We had strong possession and territory stats (and I acknowledge that a lot of possession often indicates a lack of ability to do something with it, not dominance in a game).

I'm not saying our forwards were on top of the All Blacks, just that the contest there was reasonably even. Our ruck ball was at least good enough that McDermott had a field day sniping around the breakdown.

We played ourselves out of the game through failing to take clear opportunities and big errors.

Our backs have been the overarching problem all season. They just aren't performing well enough.

The backline defence is also atrocious. Even when numbered up and in a line you felt an AB break was coming every carry.