New Zealand vs Australia - Bledisloe 2, 24th August 2013

[Slim 293]

As an aside, Kearns rightfully cops stick for being a one-eyed cheerleader, but how about some mud for Greg Clarke? His job is to call the play, yet he constantly gets players' names wrong, including calling one of the Wallabies Israel Dagg. He's also clearly visually impaired. He suggested Savea might have scored after Folau bundled him into touch. I'd forgive these indiscretions if they weren't so common place.

At the very least get the man some fucking glasses.

No one is as bad as Gordon Bray when it comes to getting names wrong............

 

[Joe Blow]

There is some fairly harsh criticism being thrown around. It was a better performance than the previous week and Link should have learned a little more about his squad.
Genia had another poor test but is a class player. He will come good. Starting QC (Quade Cooper) will help him get back on track. Folau to 15 is a no brainer with a very enthusiastic HB a good replacement for Mogg.
We are missing a genuine ball carrying 8, although when Mowen made some yards off the base of a scrum there was no support. Maybe McCalman at 8 until Palu or Higgers returns? Is Palu due back soon? Fardy was good.
The forwards just did not work as a pack. Simmons and Douglas were largely ineffective. We need some no nonsense grunt in the engine room. Horwill and Fardy maybe? Horwill needs to toughen up and lead from the front.
Anyway, It is not all doom and gloom and am looking forward to the remaining Trc games.

 

[Slim 293]

On second viewing Mowen wasn't as bad as some people (including myself) were saying..........

Made a few errors but got through a lot of work and was dominant in the lineout.........

More importantly, our lineout went to complete crap when he came off...........

I think most of the team will remain largely unchanged with Folau into fullback, maybe Cummins onto one wing and Kepu in for Alexander..........

 

[KOB1987]

I know there will be a dedicated thread for this, but if was the coach here is my team for the game v the Springboks on Sep 7:

1. Robinson
2. Moore
3. Kepu
4. Simmons
5. Horwill
6. Fardy
7. Hooper
8. Mowen
9. Genia
10. Cooper
11. Cummins
12. Lealilifano
13. AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper)
14. O'Connor
15. Folau

16. Fainga'a
17. Slipper
18. Alexander
19. Douglas
20. Gill
21. White
22. To'omua
23. Mogg (Kuridrani may be a better bench option though, plenty of 15 cover already)

 

[the sabanator]

As an aside, Kearns rightfully cops stick for being a one-eyed cheerleader, but how about some mud for Greg Clarke? His job is to call the play, yet he constantly gets players' names wrong, including calling one of the Wallabies Israel Dagg. He's also clearly visually impaired. He suggested Savea might have scored after Folau bundled him into touch. I'd forgive these indiscretions if they weren't so common place.

At the very least get the man some fucking glasses.

Channel 10. You may have to put up with a few ads and a saddening lack of High Definition, but you get Gordon Bray and Matt Burke rather than the clowns on FS.

 

[Nathan's]

So much criticism being thrown around. Get behind your national side or don't watch at all. People are now calling Genia to sit on the bench, I'm sorry but he is easily the best 9 in the world. He had an off game, get over it, everyone does. Yes he may have had his box kicks charged down, half the time the All-Blacks don't even run back on-side. I'm going to vent a few other points here:

Everyone says the All-Blacks are one of the best sides ever. I agree, but they blatantly cheat. Sit off side, slow the ball, hands in the ruck, you name it they do it. Prime examples from last night:

Leali'ifano makes a break, Aaron Smith makes the tackle, doesn't release him and then we have Reid deliberately jump over the ruck, off side and tackle Genia. Ref comes back for the penalty, All-Blacks get a gain. They committed 2 deliberate penalties, one should have been carded.

The Wallabies were flawless for the first 20-30 minutes. They played some of the best rugby I've seen for a long time, completely dominated the All-Blacks. Scoreboard should have read 14-0 at least in favour to us. The main game changer was not Mogg's kick, it was the tries we didn't receive. The ref played us out of the game, causing us to lose confidence and momentum.

 

[Moono75]

We need players that actually have some pride in wearing the gold jersey and in their performance. The Honey Badger ticks all the boxes.

White should start over Genia who takes box kicks like he's in slow motion. Mogg back to the Brumbies. AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) had a jersey on but can't recall him doing anything.

A lot of tough work ahead required.

 

[Garryowen]

Channel 10. You may have to put up with a few ads and a saddening lack of High Definition, but you get Gordon Bray and Matt Burke rather than the clowns on FS.

Maybe there's someway to get channel 10 commentary and the foxtel visual feed...

 

[MajorlyRagerly]

Additional comments after yesterday's troll.

Nonu - straight yellow for shoulder, no question.

Aaron Smith prof foul - agree a yellow here too, however to balance this, 5 mins earlier after Dagg break, that should have been yellow too if Smiths was, so evens there.

Other comments around cynical infringing - seem a bit rough I think, both teams did a fair bit of this - if dont agree, where did 15 of our points come from?

Wallaby gameplan - what is it? You have Folau and JOC (James O'Connor), 2 of the best broken field runners in world rugby, yet you guys just kept kicking when you could have chucked the ball to these guys - I'm lost here, completely. Especially given the way the reds have played under mckenzie.

Slipper injury - why on earth didn't the game stop?? He was clearly out and play was nearby? For all the criticism going refs way, for me, this was by far his biggest fuck up.

On the whole, I don't blame you guys for being filthy with the ref. We did get the rub of the green on some calls (some very mystifying if honest - Fardy eg) but there was certainly some blind mans bluff being played when it came to Hooper and off side line too. Cracking player.

Highlight if the match for me was 2 things - the play of luatua (Keo compared him to Michael Jones... Early days but can see where coming from) and the second shove in the scrum around the 52nd minute - that was beautiful.

Decent, abeilt frustrating match to watch.

 

[cyclopath]

If the Wallabies had got up, the Commentators would be praising him.

Mate, even the Kiwi commentators were questioning whether a couple of Kiwi infringements warranted 'professional foul' status. A pretty good indicator he was not too flash.
In any event, we lost because we were worse, but Peyper didn't help at a couple of moments - Moore's "try". Nonu's shoulder-charge in a very handy position etc... He also missed a 2m forward pass from the Wobbs, a blatant infringement by Simmons in the red-zone, and a whole bag of offside both ways. Just not a good enough performance at this level.
We all know Kiwis never have a problem with reffing anyway, eh?

 

[Joe Blow]

Wallaby gameplan - what is it? You have Folau and JOC (James O'Connor), 2 of the best broken field runners in world rugby, yet you guys just kept kicking when you could have chucked the ball to these guys - I'm lost here, completely. Especially given the way the reds have played under mckenzie.


Highlight if the match for me was 2 things - the play of luatua (Keo compared him to Michael Jones. Early days but can see where coming from).

Decent, abeilt frustrating match to watch.

The absolute refusal to counter attack is mind boggling. In addition to JOC (James O'Connor) and Folau Mogg is not too shabby as open field runner either.
QC (Quade Cooper) needs to come back in with instructions to run everything back and to spread the ball wide at every opportunity. Genia also needs a little help to get back into form
I can only think that Link was trying to bring the lineout more into play but many of our kicks did not go out.

Luatau certainly looks like a keeper!

 

[TOCC]

Edit

 

[cyclopath]

What a great backrow - Luatua, McCaw and Read. Fark. Luatua looks like he might be an unbelievable long-term prospect at 6.

 

[Shiggins]

I didn't much like any of it.
Particularly the shit about how the ABs don't deserve to win the Cup. Just gibberish shit. If you can't grasp that we were outplayed, beyond anything Peyper did, then you're kind of beyond help.

Really? Did you watch the ceremony. They didn't seem to care about winning it. And we were not outplayed that much. Every time we had a roll on a penalty was awarded. There should of been a card no doubt. That game should of been a lot closer. You must be high if you think piper had a good game.

 

[cyclopath]

Really? Did you watch the ceremony. They didn't seem to care about winning it. And we were not outplayed that much. Every time we had a roll on a penalty was awarded. There should of been a card no doubt. That game should of been a lot closer. You must be high if you think piper had a good game.

Have you banged your head on something? I did not say Peyper was good, in fact I must posted 5 or 6 times to the contrary.
Do you actually read anything before you post?
You are a waste of bandwidth.

 

[TOCC]

I blame our powderpuff forwards, we are getting outplayed in the backrow and at hooker..

I thought Fardy had a reasonable game for his debut, but he was still comprehensively outplayed by his opposite number, likewise with Mowen and Moore..

Hooker, Number 8, halfback, 5/8 and fullback at the pivotal players in the team. They provide the continuity and direction for the team, currently that is lacking. There is no point arguing the merits of a new wing pairing or centre pairing if the players in these positions continue to misfire.

Before Slim or some other Brumbies fan think this is an attack on ACT players, I thought To'omua had a much better performance(especially the first 40) and Lealifano is really starting to look at home in the Wallaby 12 jersey.

 

[TooEasyWobbles]

I don't think the ref was perfect, far from it and Australia should have been awarded that first Try. However, it's foolish to blame the ref. Australia had more than enough chances to create opportunities for themselves. For the Wallabies to have had a chance of winning, they have to be better. Even if the ref was on the Wallabies side, it wouldn't have mattered. The All Blacks cut through the Wallabies' defense in open field like a hot knife through butter.

 

[Shiggins]

Have you banged your head on something? I did not say Peyper was good, in fact I must posted 5 or 6 times to the contrary.
Do you actually read anything before you post?
You are a waste of bandwidth.

I'm reading what you are addressing to me mate. I don't have time to go through pages of writing at the moment. Did I say he wallabies should of won and that we outplayed the all blacks? You are arguing for the sake of it.

 

[Sully]

We need players that actually have some pride in wearing the gold jersey and in their performance.

This is complete crap. Everyone of the guys who played last night had 'pride in the jersey'. That negated everything else you said.

 

[Rassie]

Not sure where McKenzie go from here. Their set piece was crap, they were monstered at the breakdown and their tactical options like kicking was dreadful. The backline seems out of sorts and the only time Folau was put in space was by a All Black. They need to involve him more.

The Kiwi's did the basics right and just waited for Australia to make mistakes. The modern Kiwi teams perform better on the road where teams prefer to throw it around a lot as well. Can see why Div had such good record against them oppose to Australia. You are going to have to bore them to death to beat them