No it was mainly the performance against France but obviously the NZ loss as well. And you don't need to tell me how good NZ are, I was in the u20s thread on here defending us for losing with the excuse that we should not expect to beat NZ because they are by nature better rugby players at this age due to ITM cup and depth etc. However I thought we should've competed much better and put in a prouder performance. Colby Fainga'a and Michael Hooper aren't bench Super Rugby players, they have started games and physically been up to it, Fainga'a was a one man team in that thrashing by the Crusaders, he was not out-muscled. It was no surprise those two were our best players so I don't see how NZ having Whitelock and Cane who are great players in their own right should make such a difference. Man for man we match up pretty well I reckon but the they didn't play as a cohesive unit (surprise, surprise a problem at the top level as well) - this is a coaching issue.
Well aware we finished 3rd, but I don't believe we were the 3rd best team there for one second. NZ and England clearly better than us. France beat us in the pools and then we got a revenge victory in the 3/4 playoff but I watched the France/England game and France were decimated with injuries in that one, the teamlists were quite different. South Africa and Ireland were better than us if you look at their results, they were in a harder pool so it was much tougher to qualify.
NZ weren't bigger than us, we had 2 big locks and 2 of the backrowers were proven at Super Rugby level, that did lack height however. The front row competed well in the scrums and carried well, it was the breakdown, ball carrying and contact defense of some of the players where we got dominated.
Greg Peterson did not impress me at all and I find it odd he got a Tahs contract, that said I am told he was playing with a shoulder injury for most of the tournament and that might've affected him, but why was a young player pushed with injury? He has now had a shoulder reconstruction and has missed most of the Tahs pre-season. The Rebels did pick up some good young players in Luke Jones and Paul Alo-Emile however.
It was very worrying how much we faded in that semi against NZ, it's hard to say if the team had a fitness level or if we went too hard at the start. The intensity of the players definitely deteriorated. Like all tries they generally do come from individual errors but that is because as a team they have been put under pressure. Conceding that many points against NZ wasn't too bad if you look at the scorelines throughout the tournament - it was that we only scored 7. The attack was non existent after that first 20 minutes. As mentioned before the 10 was clearly flawed by persisted with the whole tournament. The skills and execution of the backs were quite simply not good enough at that level if you compare them to the English and NZ backs. This is a coaching issue, these players will catch up in Super Rugby environments but at the moment Australia is way behind in terms of junior development. Most clubs in Europe have professional academies from age 16 that compete regularly against each other. This is only more evident when an England u18 side toured down here and thrashed our boys.
