Reds v Rebels - Battle of Pride - Friday the 15th of July

[dru]

Musings:

• Paia'aua had a case of the Tasesa Laveas (grubbering the ball all the damn time), but was ok everywhere else. Would be pretty good at 12
• Pickle was kinda meh
• Tom Banks looked good
• Alex Gibbon was ok off the bench
• Campbell Magnay was good as well
• Kuridrani had a shocker
• Tongan Thor now has a life membership in the front rowers club
• Kerevi & Nabuli were quiet
• We need a much better everything (except scrum, that was solid)
• Gill will be missed
• Ditto Holmes
• forwards were average
• thank fuck the season is over. 2017 REDS HYPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paia'aua quite good. Might shape up well as 2nd fly, keep him at 10 for NRC
Pickle, yep "meh" will do.
Banks shakey as hell, fish out of water, then realised he could play rugby. Need to see more before commenting.
Gibbon, with little time but 10/10
Magnay OK, room to improve, needs to at this level
Kuridrani, OK shocker, but I'm seeing glimpses of something.

Front row, we look good, keep on keeping on. I'm liking Fa'agase a lot. Let's calm down about Tupou. Ready poor, thats a first for me.
Neville's calls were OK, but our locks need to muscle up with intent. We need an engine room.
Wasnt sure about Gunn, will have another look.

With the right culture, right coaching, right S&C (what happened there? We thought we had the best) amd a 10 - ne t year could be better.

 

[dru]

McMahan 12/10 simply awesome.
Hodge, Inman, English excellent.
Honorable mention to Smith.

I still dont rate Debreczeni and suspect Stirzaker is over rated. Doesnt match Frisbey (who doesnt match Phipps).

 

[Scrubber2050]

Pretty tough to drop your rookie 10 in his second game for that.

How many clearances from his own line do you reckon he's had in his entire career?

If that's the standard you're going to set it's going to be hard to put a team out

Yeah tough comments but both those 2 examples were just ELEMENTARY skills.

Players will always make some mistakes. Both of those ones were easily avoidable. There is no such thing as the perfect game. The secret is getting as close as you can to perfection.

I get sick and tired of all the excuses chucked up for BASIC errors - eg not passing the ball to a player in a better position to promote the thing, charge down kicks, dropped balls under no pressure, shit passes, shit attempts at tackle, shit lineout throws, forward passes, blah blah and blah.

We need to be better

 

[Strewthcobber]

Yeah tough comments but both those 2 examples were just ELEMENTARY skills.

Players will always make some mistakes. Both of those ones were easily avoidable. There is no such thing as the perfect game. The secret is getting as close as you can to perfection.

I get sick and tired of all the excuses chucked up for BASIC errors - eg not passing the ball to a player in a better position to promote the thing, charge down kicks, dropped balls under no pressure, shit passes, shit attempts at tackle, shit lineout throws, forward passes, blah blah and blah.

We need to be better

If you are going to play rookies, you are going to get rookie mistakes.....

All I'm saying is it's unfair to blame players in those situations. It's a coaching and selection problem.

But we all know that already.

 

[Scrubber2050]

Probably right re rookies.

Suppose it also comes down to making the correct decisions under pressure.

Good decision makers in pressure situations often go on to higher representation others tend to wallow in the mire

Have a great day and look forward to an awesome 2017

 

[Tangawizi]

Probably right re rookies.

Suppose it also comes down to making the correct decisions under pressure.

Good decision makers in pressure situations often go on to higher representation others tend to wallow in the mire

Have a great day and look forward to an awesome 2017

And sometimes when not under pressure too. Like kicking the ball into touch from penalties.... 3rd week straight we made such a basic error. Just annoyingly bad.

 

[The torpedo]

And sometimes when not under pressure too. Like kicking the ball into touch from penalties.. 3rd week straight we made such a basic error. Just annoyingly bad.

I've always said this - sacrifice territory for touch (i.e. make sure it goes into touch first). For some stupid reason our kickers still try and peel off too many metres & it subsequently goes dead or never goes into touch in the first place

 

[Simon.]

I don't think that Nabuli has added much - his defence is poor - always goes high around the chest and gets bounced, and on attack can't seem to break through defences or stay in. I thought Gibbon coming on last night improved things.
Tom Banks looked pretty good at fullback, haven't seen him before but coped well I thought both in defence and attack.

The problem is, it's very hard to judge any individual backline player in this poor team. Particularly wingers who just aren't getting the space they need. Nabuli has made some powerful breaks during the season and set up some great tries, which is something not many Reds players can claim. I think he's showed some promise this season and has potential, just needs to work on some things and ideally have a better backline feeding him the ball.

Fox did a comparison just before the game between Nabuli and Naivalu and Nabuli's stats actually compared very favourably to Naivalu.

 

[The torpedo]

Paia'aua quite good. Might shape up well as 2nd fly, keep him at 10 for NRC
Pickle, yep "meh" will do.
Banks shakey as hell, fish out of water, then realised he could play rugby. Need to see more before commenting.
Gibbon, with little time but 10/10
Magnay OK, room to improve, needs to at this level
Kuridrani, OK shocker, but I'm seeing glimpses of something.

Front row, we look good, keep on keeping on. I'm liking Fa'agase a lot. Let's calm down about Tupou. Ready poor, thats a first for me.
Neville's calls were OK, but our locks need to muscle up with intent. We need an engine room.
Wasnt sure about Gunn, will have another look.

With the right culture, right coaching, right S&C (what happened there? We thought we had the best) amd a 10 - ne t year could be better.

What I was saying about Thor was that he had 1 poor dropped ball & is now a member to the front rowers club. I'm not expecting him to be a god straight away but it was a bit poor. He also had a strong run later on in the game so overall he was solid.

He still goes into the front rowers club for that drop though

 

[MungoMan]

How come McMahon can never translate this form to test level? Is it an indictment of the reds defence or is he just a bit small? (or both!)

Yes and yes. Still a good player, tho', but the Wobs' 7 spot is crowded.

 

[Slim 293]

Stirzaker is over rated.

And isn't a very good skipper...........

 

[Simon.]

McMahon is the same size as Hooper though, and Hooper is regularly one of our best players at test level. So it can't just be size.

I reckon it's just that Hooper is a runner while McMahon's game is about thumping people. When you step up to test level, Hooper can still out-run people (in fact it's probably easier for him), but McMahon starts running into 110 or 120kg opposition instead of 100kg and his effectiveness is reduced. That said, he's never been bad for the Wallabies that I can recall. He was his usual beastmode self in the pre-RWC game against the USA and against Uruguay in the RWC.

 

[The torpedo]

McMahon is the same size as Hooper though, and Hooper is regularly one of our best players at test level. So it can't just be size.

I reckon it's just that Hooper is a runner while McMahon's game is about thumping people. When you step up to test level, Hooper can still out-run people (in fact it's probably easier for him), but McMahon starts running into 110 or 120kg opposition instead of 100kg and his effectiveness is reduced. That said, he's never been bad for the Wallabies that I can recall. He was his usual beastmode self in the pre-RWC game against the USA and against Uruguay in the RWC.

He was also going well in the 3rd test against the poms

 

[dru]

I kind of like the concept of a Hooper size and style player who thumps people.

A lot.

 

[swingpass]

And isn't a very good skipper.....

Yes and made a crucial error in the last minutes in actually going for the pen goal. If they had a reliable and solid lineout then the kick to the corner and control of the ball for the remaining couple of minutes was the low risk option. Given they dont have a reliable lineout then Debrezcini should have kicked the ball dead from the " genuine attempt" so the Rebels would get the ball back from the dropout. If he had actually kicked the pen then the Reds might have been / probably able to mount one last attack from there own half.

 

[Simon.]

I'm just watching the replay after being at the game last night and I think that despite the fact Duncan P made a few big errors at critical times, his running game looks VERY good compared to McIntyre. In his line break just after half time he palmed off Debreczeni and Jones - when's the last time you saw McIntyre do that?

Most of the errors were around his 10 game so I think he will make a very good 12. He's one of the few backs we have who has the agility to threaten the line instead of relying on brute force to get through.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

McMahon is the same size as Hooper though, and Hooper is regularly one of our best players at test level. So it can't just be size.

I reckon it's just that Hooper is a runner while McMahon's game is about thumping people. When you step up to test level, Hooper can still out-run people (in fact it's probably easier for him), but McMahon starts running into 110 or 120kg opposition instead of 100kg and his effectiveness is reduced. That said, he's never been bad for the Wallabies that I can recall. He was his usual beastmode self in the pre-RWC game against the USA and against Uruguay in the RWC.

Hooper can lay a dominant tackle with the best of them and it's because his body height and leg drive are generally excellent. If McMahon can develop the same at test level he will go very well I think.

 

[HJ Nelson]

Photos from Friday nights game here

Flickr or Facebook

 

[gel]

Well fuck the lot of you, I enjoyed that match. It was fun!
You're all a victim of your own expectations.

You always brighten my mood.

 

[Lindommer]

Rebels team is shit. Reds by 25.

Rebels have 27 points this year compared to the Reds 16. Who's shittier?

The Waratahs.

Waratahs 40 points/8 wins, Rebels 31/7 wins, Reds 17/3 wins. I rest my case.