France v Australia

[Scrubber2050]

Mogg looked out of his depth in the NRC, I wouldn't hold your breath.

Folau was nowhere near as bad as people are making out. He spilled one high ball, knocked another on, but that's about it. A week on from being one of our best he had a bit of a down game, it'll happen sometimes. He looks tired to me, hopefully Beale is being brought over as fullback cover.

How the fuck can he be "tired" He's a fullback not a tight 5 or a Hooper.

He was shithouse. My comment on Moggy was a lighthearted attempt at humour.

Beale to start

 

[Brumbieman]

Question: Is that Simmons fault or Saias' - It was terrible whoevers fault it was

Simmons,

Contrary to popular belief, our lineout has been pretty shit since Mowen left. We were the worst, by a long way in TRC and it isn't getting much better.

You cant blame the thrower, if he apparently knows what the call is but no one jumps for it. How many bloody times dd the ball go sailing in and have no one to receive it? Players taking ages to get set as well, giving away free kicks for taking too fucking long and blowing attacking opportunities.

That is on Simmons.

 

[Joe Blow]

No-one can be seriously ready to trade off Izzy. That's crazy talk! Beale is not even close. Maybe give Folau a rest or sub him every now and then but he is our best option at fullback.
Hopefully Speight gets a run this week with Izzy and Kuridrani on the pitch.
That should be interesting.

 

[wamberal]

I do wonder whether a ref more interested in slapping lazy arseholes laying in the way "accidentally" may have allowed more flow for the Wobs. He was keen to slap closing off, but not falling the wrong way and being in the way

I doubt that the ABs or the Bokke would have put up with it, why do we?


IF the buggers won't get out of the way, move them, one way or the other.


Incidentally, when is an overhead camera angle going to be mandatory to help police scrum infringements. The Froggies loosehead angled in for at least one of the scrums that we suffered a penalty.

 

[Brumbieman]

My sober and calm take on the game is this:

We came within a dropped ball of beating a French side, at home, fired up and playing one of those rare games that takes out even NZ when they happen.

We did that, despite playing so fucking badly even my Polish girlfriend could see it, and stopped heckling me and made me a drink. Bless her.

The French defense made it bloody hard to get any momentum, but this is the problem with being committed to running: when that happens, you have no plan B.

Plan B, should have been Jake ball. Out kick the fuckers and make sure the game is played in THEIR half, no on our 22. When you try and run from everywhere, you're very vulnerable to a fast moving defence, you HAVE to mix it up and play field position/kick, so that they can't come up so quickly.

On a day when the ball is apparently covered in Teflon, what's the point of running? Put it up, chase it, and make the other poor bastard try and take the high ball.

On another note, what the hell was up with Folau? He looked like Beale under the high ball, not himself!

 

[Brumbieman]

I doubt that the ABs or the Bokke would have put up with it, why do we?


IF the buggers won't get out of the way, move them, one way or the other.


Incidentally, when is an overhead camera angle going to be mandatory to help police scrum infringements. The Froggies loosehead angled in for at least one of the scrums that we suffered a penalty.

There was one we got done for wheeling (I thought that was supposed to be a turnover anyway, wtf?), and the over head cam showed the scrums set straight, we held them, and then Dusotoir angled across his prop and sheared the whole scrum sideways, wheeling it, and WE got done!

 

[Train Without a Station]

Simmons,

Contrary to popular belief, our lineout has been pretty shit since Mowen left. We were the worst, by a long way in TRC and it isn't getting much better.

You cant blame the thrower, if he apparently knows what the call is but no one jumps for it. How many bloody times dd the ball go sailing in and have no one to receive it? Players taking ages to get set as well, giving away free kicks for taking too fucking long and blowing attacking opportunities.

That is on Simmons.

But then that's an unknown. Did he call to somebody else who didn't listen or missed there jump?

If there's a lot of problems in the line out, the caller/leader and the hooker both probably hold some blame and need to take responsibility for it.

 

[Brumbieman]

Also, as good as McMahon is, he can not be the 6 in a back row with Hooper ( another non-jackling small backrower) AND McCalman.

Big dog was decent yesterday, but you cant have two small flankers, doesn't work when the game turns into a Stalingrad.


Who do we have who can play 6? Jones is on tour, right?

 

[cyclopath]

IS - I never pick any bloke because he scores 1 try or 3. I'm interested in involement and impact on the game, and around the players. I thought Simmo was generally good.

On Hooper, a lot of people are questioning him. Generally not about his playing performances (although he wasn't good against the French) but captaincy decisions.

I have never been an active member of the Tahs conspiracy theory. I put aside my State based bias (unashamedly RED) for the Green and Gold and make comments accordingly

Simmons was OK, but I've seen him play a lot better, and he should. He seems to be scrummaging well, but our lineout was pretty shambolic at times. He did get a nice steal on a French throw though.

 

[Dumbledore]

How the fuck can he be "tired" He's a fullback not a tight 5 or a Hooper.

He was shithouse. My comment on Moggy was a lighthearted attempt at humour.

Beale to start

Because he's played 80 minutes of a crateload of games this season? Maybe I'm wrong though. Pop armchair psychology is great fun. He looked tired and frustrated to me, but maybe the ball was wet, it was a heavy track, he was getting fuck-all ball from the blokes around him and he just wasn't having a whole lot of fun out there.

 

[Brumbieman]

But then that's an unknown. Did he call to somebody else who didn't listen or missed there jump?

If there's a lot of problems in the line out, the caller/leader and the hooker both probably hold some blame and need to take responsibility for it.

Yes and no, Fainga'a clearly heard the calls and knew where to throw.

Maybe the receiver didn't hear it, but how many times did that happen? I would guess we lost 5-6 lineouts, one of them being a Frog getting up and beating McCalman in the air.

If it happens once, you give him benefit of the doubt, but 5-6 examples of confusion/poor calls etc is on the guy running said lineout

 

[Scrubber2050]

Simmons was OK, but I've seen him play a lot better, and he should. He seems to be scrummaging well, but our lineout was pretty shambolic at times. He did get a nice steal on a French throw though.

We mugs on the sidelines are just not privy to the nuances that go on at set pieces. I suppose the players know who is at fault and hopefully, the coaches so they can fix the problem

 

[fatprop]

We mugs on the sidelines are just not privy to the nuances that go on at set pieces. I suppose the players know who is at fault and hopefully, the coaches so they can fix the problem

The biggest lineout issue is not having that third real option, we need three, have two or one when Skelton is on and wonder why they end up a shambles

 

[It is what it is]

L

Good question, after being fined 45k for being a dickhead and woman hater. It wouldn't be good polotics of the ARU to pay for his cab fair and a trip to Europe.

It was in reference to Higginbotham.

 

[Pfitzy]

I've seen minutes 15-40, and 55-80. Other than that I seem to have missed us getting penalised a lot. So my thoughts are:

Why the fuck go out to the 2nd or 3rd channel against an umbrella defence? If the Frenchies wanted to rush so hard outside, we should have bashed it up in close and got in behind them. When we did this just before halftime and near the end of the game, we were making ground like a boss. It also limited Kuridrani's effect on the game running onto the ball at at pace. Would like to have seen him, Tomane, or AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) start running some inside lines to pull the Frogs up on the line.

Compounding this was Phipps reverting to a step-pass game rather than concentrating on speed from the deck. He does this occasionally and needed to be pulled into line by the coach via message runner.

I wasn't really analysing our defence, but the desire to seek the big hit is leaving our fringes a little exposed from where I'm sitting.

Genia added something when he came on I thought, but there were a few phases where he was passing to a static forward

It was a poor performance overall, but I agree with this:

My sober and calm take on the game is this:

We came within a dropped ball of beating a French side, at home, fired up and playing one of those rare games that takes out even NZ when they happen.

We did that, despite playing so fucking badly even my Polish girlfriend could see it, and stopped heckling me and made me a drink. Bless her.

The French defense made it bloody hard to get any momentum, but this is the problem with being committed to running: when that happens, you have no plan B.

But I don't agree with all of this:

Plan B, should have been Jake ball. Out kick the fuckers and make sure the game is played in THEIR half, no on our 22. When you try and run from everywhere, you're very vulnerable to a fast moving defence, you HAVE to mix it up and play field position/kick, so that they can't come up so quickly.

On a day when the ball is apparently covered in Teflon, what's the point of running? Put it up, chase it, and make the other poor bastard try and take the high ball.

On another note, what the hell was up with Folau? He looked like Beale under the high ball, not himself!

On Folau, you're right - he looked very ordinary. Some of the balls that didn't go to hand were mind boggling, particularly that one between he and Foley in the first half.

But I don't think that reverting to kicking was necessarily going to be the answer either. We showed we could make yards, but we were trying to make them in all the wrong places with a rushing French defence.

 

[chasmac]

how many Anker brothers are there?

Tommy Anker has been in and around the Welsh team for the last 8-10 years !!

 

[barbarian]

The biggest lineout issue is not having that third real option, we need three, have two or one when Skelton is on and wonder why they end up a shambles

But the lineout was a shambles all game, don't think you can pin it on Skelton.
.

 

[Sully]

Simmons,

Contrary to popular belief, our lineout has been pretty shit since Mowen left. We were the worst, by a long way in TRC and it isn't getting much better.

You cant blame the thrower, if he apparently knows what the call is but no one jumps for it. How many bloody times dd the ball go sailing in and have no one to receive it? Players taking ages to get set as well, giving away free kicks for taking too fucking long and blowing attacking opportunities.

That is on Simmons.

Actually it would depend on where the throw was called to. But you already knew that didn't you.

 

[fatprop]

But the lineout was a shambles all game, don't think you can pin it on Skelton.
.

He wasn't, but he didn't help the back end

 

[It is what it is]

Why aren't we proactively making some calls well before we get to the lineout?
Every penalty kick for touch provides you with this opportunity, and others can be made on the run while crossing the field.
Forget the opposition set up, make the call and execute it quickly and accurately.