Pom Vs Wallabies

[Lee Grant]

Watching Fat Cat smash Vickery was only surpassed by him picking Stevens up and dumping him on top of Borthwick. This young man is developing into one of the leading looseheads this country has every produced, and will be a world beater just like I said he would two years ago.

Yes, you did, and I was scratching my head at your comments at the time. What a terrific exception he is to the rule that Oz props can't excel at a young age.

Nice posts Nicko and other guys.

Some comments on other people's comments.

? fatprop - We missed Barnes, and Giteau uses the run rather than the ball too much? Correct. We can all point to where he had some good internationals as a 10 but by and large this is true. Would have hated not to have him play against England though because he is capable of a brilliancy every now and then, and his goal kicking under extreme pressure was frosty cool. Geez, I'd like to see him do some of the grubbers he did in Durban, but it's an old song I sing.

The absence of Barnes and the balance he gave to us at 12 in the Sydney Bledisloe has brought us back to the field. We have no other player of his type to play 12 in the country, but the good news is that we cobbled together a victory without him.

? Noddy - Burgess was OK? I'll have to watch the replay with an open mind and report back. Old Lee misses a lot of stuff, but I didn't miss his uncompromising defence..

? AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) isn't a fullback? This has been mentioned since he first wore a 15 jersey in professional rugby and not just for the Wallabies. He has had some good games there including a couple in 3N this year but by and large he doesn't have the skillset for the job. As yours truly has said many a time: he is the natural successor to Mortlock at 13 but gets scant opportunity to play there now. He is a terrific 13, not a bad winger but below par as a fullback.

If he is needed on the park, play him on the the wing and as cyclopath said: play Drew Mitchell at 15. We haven't recognised the absence of our no. 1 fullback, Cameron Shepherd, enough.

? Yeah, Cliffy had a great game off the bench when Brown had to go off. He was back to his best and even when he is fully match fit next year it could be well that Deans keeps him on the bench. And don't tell anybody I said this, but his late tackle on Cipriani went down well in my eyes. How many times did Bernie Larkham get hit like that by the men in white, and the Lions? What goes around ....

? NTA - great post. Thanks for the tutorial on scrum play for us ignoramuses. I'm going to have to save your post and refer to it every now and then. It actually made sense.

? Stephen Jones - you ask for Johnno to pick players of his type but there isn't a big list of Englishmen, or others eligible for England, playing in the GP or elsewhere in Europe. You're right in saying that Borthwick should have been replaced instead of Palmer and that Cross is a bit ponderous compared to when he was a young league player before he broke his leg, but he was too hard and canny for your new blokes.

I thought you may have given Toby Flood a favourable mention for the job he did after he came on. He was one of the few backs who looked dangerous.

? Gagger - half your luck (and your pay packet) for being at the game. It must have been a great day for any Aussie to be there - and yeah - it may have been good to see some more Oz tries but I didn't mind the mode of winning either. Sweet actually.

 

[Virgil]

I'm not staying up. Its hard enough getting sleep around here with two kids under 5! I'll watch a replay some time tomorrow when I'm allowed But will check the result asap - knowledge of the result usually affects the manner in which I watch the replay e.g. a win will be a gleeful chuckling as I watch the whole thing frame-by-frame as we destroy the dirty Poms/Kiwis/Saffers/whomever while a loss will generally be a watch-on-fast-forward job

im exactly the same!
Used to cheat as well before i had sky (and had to put up with free to air delayed games), no point sitting through a replay of a test if we only go onto lose, might as well find out the result and if its a win, enjoy it.

Well played you fellows, looks like that kiwi coach of yours is starting to pay off O0

 

[rugbywhisperer]

RW - what time did it kick off in QLD? Keeping in mind you don't have Daylight Savings Time up there...

Telecast started at 1:00 am our time and kick off at 1:30 - 1 hour delay.
Daylight saving shouldn't have anything to do with it - TEN were more interested in showing the BLues Brothers (while a great movie not a Test mach comparison) instead of live feed.

 

[rugbywhisperer]

Did anyone think that should never have got the ball from the scrum before there try. It clearly went through the 90 and should have been reset for our feed.

Correct, the ref missed that one. I thought it obvious at the time.
I actually thought the ref had one of the better games for a ref of recent weeks. I don't recall any bad errors except for that wheeled scrum. The scrum decisions all appeared OK but there were a few borderline calls.

 

[Lee Grant]

It certainly looked like a scrum wheel and I thought so watching it live last night, but now disagree with myself after a forensic examination having just seen the replay.

The reason is that the scrum ended well before the 90 degree wheel was reached.

Danny Care put the ball in, in the direction of his no 8's feet. Easter relaxed his bind and had his hands only on the rest of the scrum as he looked at the ball at his feet that was there within a couple of frames. The scrum was over as soon as he stopped binding with his arms and before he picked the pill up.

George Smith could see the situation, or suspected it, and slid around the side of the scrum in the direction of Easter picking the ball up, and was impeded by Rees. The wheel of the non-scrum continued and we all thought it should have been a new scrum with an Oz put in.

The Poms should never have got their try, not because there was a 90 degree wheel, but because Care put the ball in at an angle of 45 degrees to the tunnel, or, because Rees impeded Smith.

I hope that this top scrum display continues so that the referees change their mind set against us and stop looking for our scrum errors.

 

[spectator]

I gotta say that I was impressed with the England backs, who I thought showed more fluidity. The halfback won that duel in my opinion, Cipriani looks like a real 10, I thought Flutey was very good with ball in hand, and the 15, as Lee posted earlier, looks like one to watch.

 

[Pfitzy]

Lee - hopefully that one performance has convinced refs of how wrong they've been for a while now. At least they may approach games with an open mind now instead of making decisions for the sake of making them.

In world sport there can't have been many who have carried the stigma that Al Baxter and the rest of the Aussie forward pack has carried for the past three plus years. We've all been guilty of heaping it on him

I haven't 8) Though I'll admit Sharpe surprised me for the second time this year with what I'd call his best performance ever. Nice one Darth.

Got an SMS from a mate in London - he was at Twickers today, and out with Quade Cooper, AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) and Palu. I told him to tell AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) to move to 13 because he's going nowhere at fullback. My mate said he'd already mentioned it

I have to say that the Stephen Jones article is fairly reasonable. Spook - he didn't say we finished last, just that we were the weakest team in this year's 3N. Given we only had to play NZ once on their soil he might have a point... Had we put up with South Africa's schedule things might not have finished so rosy.

Paul Ackford however comes across as completely in denial - "when he wanted to be, Baxter was strong on his own ball." Suck my hairy bag you old git - go back and look at your article of 09 Nov (England still dominate Australian scrum thanks to Al Baxter factor) and look at all the bullshit you wrote about him over-thinking the technical side and how Baxter is the one doing the collapsing in light of today's result. Sheridan was utterly and brilliantly exposed by a guy who has put up with your sort of shit for years and only lacked what every scrum needs - teamwork, consistency, and a shitload of hard work - to prove himself. As a pack we smashed the Poms on every hit and only one occasion can I recall the Poms doing anything threatening after the ball went in on our feed. Even then they didn't have the brains or the balls to trouble us. Go on living in your little fantasy world, populated by Andrew Sheridans in tight pink leotards smoking your pipe. Your lot got dusted, utterly dusted, at scrum time. All the smaller, technically better props vying for England honours will be smiling into their Powerade at training this week I'm sure.

 

[Cutter]

Havent read all of this, but its not a great England side so we shouldnt get too excited.

Not a great game, but the set piece, defence and forward performances were encouraging. Apart from Mortlock crash balls, our backs have nothing at the moment. That is a real worry.

Drew Mitchell had limited opportunities, but was effective with what he did. AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) isnt a kicking fullback. If Dingo wants to play him there, he needs to tell him to run it because he is a decent size and pretty quick. He ran once yesterday and made good yards. I agree he should go to 13 with Mitchell to fullback.

Hynes didnt do much in attach but he gets through plenty of work and made one try saver on Cipriani. Burgess, Gits (apart from his kicking) and Cross had average days.

Forwards were strong. Sharpe had a good game. Chisolm was quiet. The front row were good as we have all discussed. MMM was busy and effective. Smith was Smith. Brown was quietish, but the Oz backrow more than held their own so he must have been doing something. Palu was effective when he came on.

Apart from Baxter (31), Sharpe (31) and Mortlock (32), this is a young team. Apart from Dunning (29) and Cordingley (65), the bench is youthful as well. Smith and Cross (both 28) are next in age (I think). Hopefully we are building something here. With Vickerman, Horwill, Barnes, possibly Elsom, possibly Tuquiri, maybe Tahu and some youngsters to come into the squad, we have a little more depth than in the past. We have a lack of depth in crucial positions though at halfback, hooker, fullback, first five and second five and tighthead prop. That wont fix itself overnight, but hopefully the players are out there somewhere.

 

[Ash]

The bad stuff:

Cross was very poor with the ball in hand. Against NZ, he primarily ran straight and hard at the outside of his marker, and made plenty of ground. Against England game he ran across field and cut down his options every time. He ruined a few decent chances.

Burgess was again poor - his pass and decision making need work. But there's talk of that elsewhere in another thread. He needs more time to get this stuff right in the S14.

We couldn't hold onto the ball. Mortlock did so much work, but also dropped a bit too much ball. He also lacks direction at 12, which is needed with Gits at 10. We had very little penetration in the backs all day, and looked best with Mortlock running crash balls, which is a worry.

Can we please try another fullback?

The good stuff:

Set peices - scrum and lineout were very good. Forward pack was marvellous, apart from being responsible for a few holes for Cipriani. Really high workrate from the entire pack. How good does Sharpe look when he spends less time in the backs?

The cover defence was wonderful.

England:

Geez, England have a decent to good midfield. I thought Flutey (and there's nothing more English than Flutey!) and Cipriani were very threatening with ball in hand. Armitage was good at 15. Not so sold on the wings and 13 thought. Care has lots of potential, but wasn't at his best obviously. I hate to say it, but England's midfield looked a lot more dangerous than the Wallabies with the ball in hand.

Really, England killed themselves with turnovers, and other times their forwards lost ground. I think they were lucky that Jonker was reffing, as a NH ref might've been more harsh on them at the breakdown as a few times they had a man diving over to slow the ball.

 

[Pfitzy]

Havent read all of this, but its not a great England side so we shouldnt get too excited.

Agreed, but that was a reasonable Pommy tight five (similar to Marseilles 2007 with the exception of Shaw) and that is the overriding theme to this whole match: we took the one area they thought they'd dominate and used it against them.

In general play I thought their forwards were much better on attack than ours, but defensively we were superior.

The Pommy backline was definitely more cohesive than ours.

 

[PhucNgo]

Magnificient result! Agree with all the positive comments by everyone. Thought the 10 commentary was pretty ordinary.

I eventually got so pissed off with the whinging whining voice that I hit the mute button. I enjoyed the game a lot more after that. Who was that commentator anyway? He dead set had no idea what he was talking about. For anyone else who's a Fawlty Towers tragic, can you imagine a game being commentated by the "Ssspooon sssalesman" from the Hotel Inspectors episode, well that was him I'm sure. And that on top of the equally banal "My Gooness" jerk last week. Give me the Fox Sports team any day.

 

[PhucNgo]

The Poms should never have got their try, not because there was a 90 degree wheel, but because Care put the ball in at an angle of 45 degrees to the tunnel, or, because Rees impeded Smith.

Speaking of which, Mark Lawrence pinged Jimmy Cowan for that very thing in the AB's/Ireland match. Lawrence said to Cowan something like "That was 'orible, a shocker. The ball looked like it went straight under the 8's feet.

Also speaking of that match and our woes at no.10, its worth watching the replay just to see Carter play. Absolutely gob-smackingly sublime.

 

[Turban]

I was happy with the win and with some of our scrums but why are we still collapsing so often? Were the Pom's pulling it down? Were they preventing the bind (It looked like it a few times)? Or are we still hit and miss at scrumtime?

I've never played in the front row so I really have to try very hard to see whats going on in the front row and even then I'm really just guessing.

 

[Pfitzy]

Turbs - there were a few that I scratched my head on, but basically I think we beat them to the hit a lot of the time. If your side's prop is fully extended into his hit and the other guy hasn't met him in the middle, you're going to get collapsed scrums. Either your bloke is now off-balance with nothing to lean against of equal force, or the opposition bloke gets contact on but has his weight over his heels and the back bends downward.

We definitely made better contact most of the time. You can see at the scrum where Sheridan was penalised the bad position he's in, with his feet sliding backwards as Baxter smashes him.

 

[Lindommer]

The Pommy backline was definitely more cohesive than ours.

Of course they were, they had an Aussie coaching theirs. We've got a Kiwi coaching ours. :fishing :fishing :fishing

 

[Lindommer]

The Poms should never have got their try, not because there was a 90 degree wheel, but because Care put the ball in at an angle of 45 degrees to the tunnel, or, because Rees impeded Smith.

Speaking of which, Mark Lawrence pinged Jimmy Cowan for that very thing in the ABs/Ireland match. Lawrence said to Cowan something like "That was 'orible, a shocker. The ball looked like it went straight under the 8's feet."

I remarked elsewhere "Mark Lawrence, a Saffer, is a vg ref". It's a mystery to me why he didn't make the RWC panel for 2007 as I think he's one of the best refs going around. Although after Saturday, his Kiwi namesake has earned a significant promotion.

Some years ago (2003?), M Lawrence reffed a game at Granville, Parramatta v Pirates. There used to be a convention those days refs travelled in twos and did a local game overseas before the international to which they were allocated, which were also in twos. The two tests in question were Oz v Wales in Sydney and a test in NZ (could be wrong with this one). One did the test and the other ran the line, swapping around for the following test. I ran the line for WH 2s and watched the 1s match intently to see how a top notch ref got the job done. I hardly noticed him, except for the fact he got himself into the best position possible, effortlessly. The game was a joy to watch and the players loved the freedom Lawrence afforded them. But I also got the impression Lawrence missed nothing but ruled only when absolutely necessary. His handling of the penalty try, Paddies v ABs, on Saturday night was exemplary: careful, consulted where possible and came up with the correct decision. A lesson to us all.

A small aside; Lawrence's "pair" in 2003 was the Irish ref, David McHugh. McHugh was the unfortunate victim of that spectator's tackle in SA when a drunken Boer took offence at his rulings in a test against the ABs. Which turned out to be counterproductive as McHugh's replacement, Chris White, had a style which suited the ABs much better than the Bokke. Apart from that, I realised why the iRB allocated refs in pairs. Earlier that year when I did my compulsory SmartRugby certification, one of the course conductors was Peter Marshall who told us he was the third oldest ref at RWC2003 and planned to retire after it; after some interrogation he volunteered the fact David McHugh was the oldest ref at RWC2003. But on the afternoon in question at Granville, McHugh reffed Two Blues v Pirates 3s. AND HE COULDN'T KEEP UP.

 

[Scotty]

The bad stuff:

Cross was very poor with the ball in hand. Against NZ, he primarily ran straight and hard at the outside of his marker, and made plenty of ground. Against England game he ran across field and cut down his options every time. He ruined a few decent chances.

Burgess was again poor - his pass and decision making need work. But there's talk of that elsewhere in another thread. He needs more time to get this stuff right in the S14.

We couldn't hold onto the ball. Mortlock did so much work, but also dropped a bit too much ball. He also lacks direction at 12, which is needed with Gits at 10. We had very little penetration in the backs all day, and looked best with Mortlock running crash balls, which is a worry.

Can we please try another fullback?

I agree with all of this. If Cross could make the same amount of ground going forwards, that he did going sideways, he would be man of the match. If you are going to run at an angle, you have to have a plan to either turn it back on the inside, or beat you man on the outside - he did neither.

Burgess - was bad. bad bad. He needs to find consistency, not be a world beater one day and a club player the next. At the moment we couldn't trust him to play consistently enough through an entire tournament.

Mortlock - missed a few tackles, and dropped a few balls. Made a few half breaks, but I don't think this makes up for the negative stuff.

AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) - for the 308,003,499 time (about 100 of those from me) - isn't a full back.

 

[Sully]

Turbs - there were a few that I scratched my head on, but basically I think we beat them to the hit a lot of the time. If your side's prop is fully extended into his hit and the other guy hasn't met him in the middle, you're going to get collapsed scrums. Either your bloke is now off-balance with nothing to lean against of equal force, or the opposition bloke gets contact on but has his weight over his heels and the back bends downward.

We definitely made better contact most of the time. You can see at the scrum where Sheridan was penalised the bad position he's in, with his feet sliding backwards as Baxter smashes him.

I agree we won most if not all of the hits and the poms either lost there feet or we had nothing to push against. Some I am sure were the Poms trying for a penalty. One in particular late in the second half saw the replacement prop touch baxter on the shoulder then leave his hand there for the engage then stiffened his arm as baxter engages and basically drove him head first into the turf.

 

[Lee Grant]

Have watched the replay since my last post.

- Cross is not going to make the list of the top 10 ball playing centres of all time (and neither will Mortlock) but geez he spent a lot of time defending at the ruck when it was needed. Hynes was not shy about getting involved either.

- I didn't notice 3M a lot on first viewing but did on the second. He had a high defensive workrate, and when Mumm replaced Chisholm he was just as good. One spot we are going to be strong in for a few years, if 3M and Mumm stay healthy and Elsom comes back, is the no.6 position.

PS - One thing I like about replays is that, unlike when you watch it live and follow the ball, you can follow the game behind the ball and see how well defenders are doing, especially positioning themselves and how often they make a ruck attack and how hard they bash and how good their timing is when doing so. Warning - don't do this if you get seasick easily because your eyes always want to go to the ball and you'll get queasy.

- England looked very busy in their offloading work as though they were doing training drills, with lots of people around the ball, but when the money breaks were made by Cipriani he was isolated - except when Hynes came in to keep him company in a tackle.

- Oz defence was good around the ruck and one on one, as has been discussed, but their scrambling defence was superb also. Hynes' effort on Cipriani and Giteau's on Mears were clear to see but there were other occasions when players came into the gap like the last piece in a jigsaw to make a tackle - or if not, to make up a number in the defensive line to compress it.

An exception was when Chisholm came out of the line towards Cipriani, instead of moving to his right to make the gap smaller, and the Pom flyhalf made his first break.

- I still don't reckon that Burgess had a good game though maybe he wasn't as bad as I thought. When we scored our try it was no thanks to him when he bounced an easy pass to Giteau, whose ability to field bad balls from any scrummie is under-rated.

- Dingo didn't use his bench enough. TPN got 1 minute, Mumm got 15 and Palu got 35, but how many would he have got had Brown not been hurt? Dunning, Cordingley, Cooper and Ioane were not used. At least Dunning should have given Baxter a rest.

- Bringing old stager Vickery back didn't help England. The more mobile Stevens should have started. No 8 Haskell looked better than Easter too and should have run on at the start.

- Agree that the commentary was poor. Against the odds I longed for Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes.

- It won't be the last time we see Cipriani's erratic goal kicking. I saw a lot of it in club rugby last season.

- The Pom backline may have been more cohesive than ours but it didn't matter because they weren't threatening, except when Cipriani made his two breaks, Flutey started tap dancing late in the game and Flood did a couple of chips at the end - but these owed nothing to their backline cohesion which was defeated by our defence.

- It was a victory for our leadership. Regardless of whether, as individuals, they had top games or crap games, or in between, you could see the rich vein of leadership through our team like gold in a mine. Sharpe, Smith, Giteau and Mortlock had a group influence on the game that was almost tangible, and Moore and Burgess acted like budding leaders too.

By comparison the Poms were ill-lead by Borthwick and he had precious little help, even, seemingly, from Vickery and Sheridan. The backline lacked a leader of the Tindall type, but it's the price you pay when looking at new exciting players and Tindall ain't one of those.

I was listening to Mark Ella on the radio this morning and he was rabbitting on about the positives, but when he was asked if Deans had Oz on the right track he warned that the Wallabies this year have taken steps forward but had then stepped back. Though he was chuffed by away wins in Durban and London, he was yet to see consistency.

A good point that, especially when we can't expect France and Wales to give us the same turnover gifts that the Poms gave to us.

 

[PaarlBok]

Only watch the highlights and a good win by your lot. The way the Bokke plays at the moment I am not convince by our lot. Either they'll hit top gear this weekend or the writing is against the wall but usually the current struggling signs is good for them.