IRB Sevens 2013/14 - Round 5 NZL- 7-8 February

[Hugh Jarse]

Round 5
7-8 February 2014

Venue: Westpac Stadium
City: Wellington
Capacity: 36,000

Pool A
SAF
England
Wales
Portugal

Pool B
NZL
France
Fiji
Spain

Pool C
Canada
Scotland
Argentina
USA

Pool D
Samoa
Australia
Kenya
Tonga


AUS in Pool D. Rather tough pool but there is a good chance of progressing to the Cup rounds.

Series points so far:
1. SAF 78 points
2. NZL 77 points
3. FIJ 56 points
4. ENG 53 points
5. SAM 47 points
6. AUS 46 points
7. ARG 43 points
8. KEN 39 points
9. FRA 33 points
10.WAL 32 points
11.CAN 31 points
12.SCO 23 points
13.POR 20 points
14.USA 12 points
15.SPA 6 points

 

[USARugger]

USA in a winnable pool means they are going to get smashed by all 3 teams

Australia should be fine to make it out of their pool unless Kenya radically changes the way they are playing. Far too much contact in Vegas and not enough width on their game. They don't seem to have the breakdown nous to make the tighter game work all that well for them either.

 

[wamberal]

The Thunderbolts should get through to the 8 fairly comfortably, I would have thought. Then they will have a beatable opponent from Pool C.

I predict a top four finish for us. Mockers gods be buggered. We can definitely do it.

 

[USARugger]

If they can patch up their defense they'd regularly be a Top 3-4 side with the players they have right now. They're definitely closing the gap but that climb from 6 upwards on the total standings table is very, very steep.

 

[wamberal]

I have a pet theory. Rugby in Australia is not big enough for us to resource a really good Sevens squad, because the very best players are committed to Super Rugby. Paradoxically, some of the competing nations with smaller programmes than ours (Argentina, Samoa, Kenya, Canada) are able to commit their best players, precisely because they do not have the alternative professional competition structure.


So we are in a kind of Goldilocks position. Too small to really have a strong elite Sevens squad in addition to our other revenue generating commitments, too big to be able to justify putting all or most of our best players into Sevens.

Not sure whether that makes sense, but I hope there is a grain of truth in there somewhere.

 

[USARugger]

Makes perfect sense on a cursory level and you're not alone in thinking of it that way, trust me! Although I don't think Argentina should be on that list, their best players are committed to the Premiership/Top14/Rabo and I'm pretty sure most of their 7s guys are club players back home.

The best Samoan players are also generally contracted out to European clubs or even Super Rugby.

Going to play a bit of devil's advocate to your hypothesis here with this video:

When you consider how they were performing at the time of this video it stands as a testament that you don't need elite facilities to build an elite, or at the very least competitive program. I personally was impressed with the 5th place finish of Kenya at the end of the IRB 7s. For reference, Australia finished 8th last year.

In terms of player resources I'm not sure if that holds up entirely as a performance-related argument here. I'd be very surprised if Kenya has anywhere near ~38k senior male players like Australia (http://intheloose.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/IRB-Player-Numbers.jpg). Samoa and Canada both have less than 10k senior males, although Canada may have grown since 2011. Hard to really gauge because RWC time also tends to inflate playing numbers due to hype surrounding the tournament.

So, for the sake of an entirely unscientific thought experiment let's round these numbers to 40k senior males for Australia and 10k senior males each for Kenya/Samoa/Canada. Let's assume that each nation has a roughly equivalent pool of genetic material to pull from that generates "elite" rugby athletes (pure pace and athleticism absolutely has more weight to it in 7s than 15s, I know coaching and a lot of other things are factors too but like I said, entirely unscientific) at a rate of 1%.

This would leave Australia with 400 "elite" rugby athletes and the other nations with 100 a piece. So while Australian 7s does compete with Super Rugby (and even other codes) the sheer difference in playing numbers should do a lot to make up for this if you look at it from a purely numbers perspective.

That long-winded bit behind us, I think a lot of the Thunderbolts problems have to do more with what happens between whistles than it does any outside factors. With Vegas in front of mind, just a few less missed tackles and a quicker restructuring of the defensive line and the Thunderbolts would likely have had an entirely different outcome by the end of the tournament.

 

[Hawko]

Australia started this year's campaign having put a lot of work into their defence and they were very competitive with the top four at the Gold Coast. Its been downhill ever since and the reason is their poor defence - it has basically evaporated from where it was at the start of the season. Address that and we would be very competitive!

 

[PaarlBok]

Series points so far:
1. SAF 78 points
2. NZL 77 points
3. FIJ 56 points
4. ENG 53 points
5. SAM 47 points
6. AUS 46 points
7. ARG 43 points
8. KEN 39 points
9. FRA 33 points
10.WAL 32 points
11.CAN 31 points
12.SCO 23 points
13.POR 20 points
14.USA 12 points
15.SPA 6 points

Bok midgets doing well under the new coach. defense was awesome in USA, now for the real test.

 

[Brumby Jack]

Australian squad:

Just one change From Las Vegas with Ed Jenkins back from injury.

Ed Jenkins
Con Foley
Jesse Parahi
Sam Myers
Allan Fa'alava'au
Peter Schuster
Greg Jeloudev
Cameron Clark
Shannon Walker
Nick Malouf
Tom Lucas
Peter Asquith

 

[Jets]

I tried to watch this on the IRB site but it directs me to foxsports and I have to subscribe.

 

[Brumby Jack]

Aussies score first with a try to Peter Schuster on the right wing. Aussies with all the ball but Tonga missing too many tackles.

Tom Lucas scores the 2nd try under the sticks to make it 12-0 at HT.

Schuster with his 2nd of the match down the right side but Tonga hit back to make it 19-5.

Nick Malouf scores the 4th try of the match and Aussies score on the FT siren to Ed Jenkins and the final score is 33-5.

 

[Brumby Jack]

I tried to watch this on the IRB site but it directs me to foxsports and I have to subscribe.

That's ridiculous that they don't mention that until you try to watch

 

[Jets]

From the sounds of things the Aussies had a good win 33-5 over Tonga.

 

[Brumby Jack]

It was a bit scrappy and Tonga missed at least 12 tackles which didn't help them at all.

They also haven't played in many 7's tournaments due to internal bickering and it really showed.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Fiji beat NZ in the Pool B play. Pity the Pool C Winner/Runner up who will face Fiji or NZ in the Cup QF.

Good thing we are in Pool D and face either the Soap Dodgers or Saffers depending on the results of us v Samoa, and the Pool A results. Tough gig to progress.

Big game for us at 21:12 tonight NZ time which should be at 7:12 pm AEDT (vs Samoa).

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Shannon Walker - Awesome solo try to draw level with Samoa. Now 12-12 with 2 min to go.

We sneak through as top qualifier in Pool D courtesy of a wobbly old penalty kick from Clarkies Boy after the siren. Final score 15 Australia 12 Samoa.

This should have us miss the Saffers in the QF. There is hope.

 

[Brumby Jack]

2 Tournaments in a row Clark has kicked a match winning Penalty goal. Not something you see everyday in 7's.

 

[wamberal]

What has gone wrong with our work in the tight? We were pathetic at the breakdown.

Shannon Walker saved our arse.

 

[Nusadan]

I tried to watch this on the IRB site but it directs me to foxsports and I have to subscribe.

Download the app TunnelBear to watch it.

 

[wamberal]

So, for all that, we get to play Seth Efrica. Bugger.