Rebels v Blues, Round 7 2012, AAMI Park

[Lee Grant]

Bryce was floundering at the scrum. All he had to do was to get the Blues to stop pushing before the ball came in and he would have been halfway home.
You cannot have a fair contest when the platform is so unstable on the engagement.

The Blues would have dominated the scrum whatever Bryce did, but by allowing them to push through the hit he caused a few collapses that would not have happened otherwise. Had the Blues hit, then shoved separately after the ball got fed in as the laws prescribe, the Blues would have got their pill or penalty/free kick first time.

Instead, the spectators at the ground and on TV were bored, and those that knew the laws were wondering why Lawrence didn't ping the Blues just once at the beginning for the sake of the game.

This is not just an Aussie whinge: the Wallabies were pinged for pushing through the Wales scrum on the hit at the end of last year, and rightly so.

They stopped doing it.
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[Bowside]

Half the time phipps was only giving quick ball because someone had kicked it out of the ruck, past his feet and he then had no option but to throw the pass.

 

[en_force_er]

Phipps' D was good, his organisation was good, and his passing was good.

Sure, it seems like his service could and should come out of the ruck faster but I've never played anything close to halfback in an amateur game (let alone a professional one), so what do I know. Perhaps he was trying to dictate the speed of the game in a controlled fashion rather than play the manic rugby that works for some teams.

 

[suckerforred]

I didn't think Phipps had a bad game.