Gnostic's - Wallaby Player ratings V ABs Sydney 11/09/2010

[Gnostic]

Disagree FP. As I mentioned in my 321s, you look at those scrums again and see how may times he actually wins the hit but immediately The Myth drops his bind, places his hand on the floor to balance himself and then starts pushing/boring in. Very quick, very clever and very illegal.

Myth did the same thing with Baxter who tried to counter by going lower and eventually got done at every scrum for collapsing or binding with head lower than hips. The issue was always Myth dropping the bind, hence why Baxter never had a problem with any other LHP. Foxsports didn't show a replay of the scrum where Slipper was penalised against Myth but if he was true to form he dropped his bind and Slipper was penalised for then binding on his arm.

 

[Gnostic]

Coopers defence is a know flaw in the team. The challenge for the team is to compensate for that. Every player has strengths and weaknesses and the role of coaches and selectors is to pick a team which together makes balanced whole. My argument all year is that the team is unbalanced and some players are not fit.

Genia is labouring to the breakdown and his usually assured passing is suffering. Burgess needed to be brought on earlier. His better defensive abilities could assist Pocock in covering for Cooper. Similar arguments can be made regarding bringing on Barnes for Giteau. After watching the game again this morning I have to say that Giteau has to get dropped to the bench. He is not a test quality kicker and should not be given the duties again. JOC (James O'Connor) should be dropped from the match 22 as he has no place in the team as there are better options in all the positions he has played. He is a great talent and adds to the depth of the squad but he needs to be playing in his natural position of 12 and Barnes with Giteau as cover are IMO better options. He will get his chance when both Barnes and Giteau leave next year.

 

[DPK]

Coopers defence is a know flaw in the team. The challenge for the team is to compensate for that. Every player has strengths and weaknesses and the role of coaches and selectors is to pick a team which together makes balanced whole. My argument all year is that the team is unbalanced and some players are not fit.

Fuck that! Why don't Cooper and the coaches spend some quality time learning the fine art tackling? The team should help too, as there are many great tacklers in the squad.

Glenn McGrath was a terrible batsmen when he first made the test team, so Waugh and some of the other batsmen took him to the nets and taught him to block. Deans and co. should take Cooper aside and teach him to tackle around the legs. Then, once you can make a proper tackle, you can develop dominant tackling styles.

 

[topo]

Myth did the same thing with Baxter who tried to counter by going lower and eventually got done at every scrum for collapsing or binding with head lower than hips. The issue was always Myth dropping the bind, hence why Baxter never had a problem with any other LHP. Foxsports didn't show a replay of the scrum where Slipper was penalised against Myth but if he was true to form he dropped his bind and Slipper was penalised for then binding on his arm.

From the ref's signal Slipper was penalised for rolling his shoulder down and in. Agree that Myth frequently drops his bind and pushes off the ground at the engage, but if they start pinging that, then Robinson will be in trouble as well. It's also one of his favourite tactics. He was penalised a few times for it against the ABs in the earlier games and has stopped doing it as much which has made him much less effective. I suspect his match fitness is not great either after a long stretch with injury. He even struggled against Afoa last night, FFS!

 

[Gnostic]

From the ref's signal Slipper was penalised for rolling his shoulder down and in. Agree that Myth frequently drops his bind and pushes off the ground at the engage, but if they start pinging that, then Robinson will be in trouble as well. It's also one of his favourite tactics. He was penalised a few times for it against the ABs in the earlier games and has stopped doing it as much which has made him much less effective. I suspect his match fitness is not great either after a long stretch with injury. He even struggled against Afoa last night, FFS!

Listening to the refs mic he said, 'binding on the arm and pulling down.'

As for Fatcat I expect his drop in effectiveness is what Fatprop has suggested in that all the pressure from Ma'afu is being transfered across the Hooker and essentially most scrums are pivoting around on our LHP. He isn't advancing but just holding on as everything around screw as Ma'afu cannot hold the pressure. Note that Moore was unable to get a clean strike on four or five of our feeds and there was that one last week that the Boks turned over.

 

[topo]

Listening to the refs mic he said, 'binding on the arm and pulling down.'

As for Fatcat I expect his drop in effectiveness is what Fatprop has suggested in that all the pressure from Ma'afu is being transfered across the Hooker and essentially most scrums are pivoting around on our LHP. He isn't advancing but just holding on as everything around screw as Ma'afu cannot hold the pressure. Note that Moore was unable to get a clean strike on four or five of our feeds and there was that one last week that the Boks turned over.

Agree that what is going on at the THP side is certainly a factor, but even his hit and engagement are nowhere near as good as last year and you can't blame the THP for that.

 

[Gnostic]

Again the Hooker is leading the engage, is he not, and I think Moore, who we know is a strong scrummager is not comfortable with Ma'afu so the whole balance is thrown right from the start. I do think Robinson is struggling a bit and is probably not fully fit but here we come back to the same arguments about selecting unfit players.

 

[Gnostic]

FFS the SMH has JOC (James O'Connor) as the best 14 in the 3N. WTF is that?

 

[DPK]

Yeah, they also have no South African's though.

 

[naza]

FFS the SMH has JOC (James O'Connor) as the best 14 in the 3N. WTF is that?

He scores tries.

 

[Scotty]

Frustrating thing was he put a beauty of a tackle on in the first half - cut someone down (?? Vito) with a nice one. He can tackle, but he just opts to scrag about the upper body / head more often than not and gets bumped away. Attitude readjustment needed.

From memory the tackle on Vito was side on? He is fine in side on tackles, but scared to put his head down on front on ones. There is no doubt that he knows that an effective tackle is made by putting your head down and driving with the legs, he did play next to Barnes afterall, however he just can't bring himself to do it. I'm doubting he ever will.

 

[Gnostic]

He scores tries.

He was directly responsible for conceding more than he scored. The Saffas have been calling for Habana to be dropped for the same reason as JOC (James O'Connor), he just gets caught out of position and the Wallabies Targetted this just as JOC (James O'Connor) was targetted.

 

[naza]

He was directly responsible for conceding more than he scored. The Saffas have been calling for Habana to be dropped for the same reason as JOC (James O'Connor), he just gets caught out of position and the Wallabies Targetted this just as JOC (James O'Connor) was targetted.

I doubt that. He's whiffed on a couple, so has Mitchell. A couple of times he's been in 1 on 3 situations where's he's had no chance. His defence needs work, so does the entire team's. Your best defender should be your blindside flanker and Elsom is continually missing tackles. With JOC (James O'Connor) there's the understanding 1/ he's only just out of diapers and 2/ he's still learning wing.

 

[Hawko]

I doubt that. He's whiffed on a couple, so has Mitchell. A couple of times he's been in 1 on 3 situations where's he's had no chance. His defence needs work, so does the entire team's. Your best defender should be your blindside flanker and Elsom is continually missing tackles. With JOC (James O'Connor) there's the understanding 1/ he's only just out of diapers and 2/ he's still learning wing.

Its not a couple, its five tries! Mitchell has made nowhere near that many errors in the same number of games. And since when should a player have to learn how to play a new position in international tests against the world's best two teams?

 

[JJJ]

You have to question some of these Journo's. Do they have sufficient knowledge of the players to correectly identify them. Fatcat's rating says he was responsible for a great steal surely that was Ma'afu's steal early in the second half. Very wide of the mark on some point such as Cooper's defence and Giteau's kicking.

Yeah I noticed that last week the same rater blamed Genia for the pass Beale threw back over the dead ball line.

 

[cyclopath]

Yeah I noticed that last week the same rater blamed Genia for the pass Beale threw back over the dead ball line.

Is that because they is both black? (Apologies to Ali G)
Pretty poor from someone being paid to know the sport.