Round 2 - Reds vs Highlanders at Forsyth Barr

[Dark Shark]

Unfortunately two poor line out throws by Alex Mafi towards the end of the game took away the Reds momentum at a crucial stage. He was probably suffering from nerves coming on fresh, but for throwing accuracy, he needs to practice, practice, practice.

Well Mafi just had a whole off season to practice - but from what I have seen of him on training paddock, he is not the best trainer. But also to be fair, he was given two long throws just as he comes on (in an effort to accelerate the width of the ball) where possibly the caller should have looked for securing the ball.

 

[swingpass]

To be fair to Petaia’s defence, on the last one he was on a hiding to nothing. He shot out of the line in the hope that he would hit the guy at the same time he caught the ball and shut it down but the ball got past him. When I saw it the first time I thought it was an error, but I don’t know what else he could have done. The only thing that maybe would have helped is if the guy outside him (Kerevi??) jammed at the same time.
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i agree, thats why i said i thought it was the correct call but poor/ineffective execution, maybe he was just beaten by the attacking players ability to make him miss ?

 

[TSR]

Yeah - I think it was a case of the passer picking the right man to hit.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

You not helping yourself by quoting anything written by Rattue.

Yeah, nah Dan, he's right: no other host broadcaster on the planet ever does these things, only SKY NZ & only when it favours an NZ team.

Strayan & Sethfricken broadcasters ALWAYS forensically analyse every home-team try for evidence of obstruction, forward pass(es), knock-on(s) etc, etc, and ALWAYS commiserate with the dudded opposition team upon finding such things. The self-flagelation of the comms in these circumstances can be quite disturbing, really.

 

[Up the Guts]

Unfortunately missed this one and by all reports it was a cracker. Has anyone got a 3 2 1 they could do for the Reds players?

 

[Derpus]

3 Rodda
2 Petaia
1 Sorovi

But nearly all of them played really well.

 

[Adam84]

3. Rodda
2. Petaia
1. Fotuaika

 

[dru]

3. Rodda
2. Fotuaika
1. Hegarty

Honourable mention: Hoopert.

 

[Up the Guts]

Cheers all, sounds like Rodda MOTM, great effort from the big fella after what happened to his old man.

 

[TSR]

He was outstanding.

But, even better, he was absolutely filthy after fulltime when they botched their last line out.

Strong performance from him in just normal circumstances, let alone coming off such a tough week.

 

[Dan54]

Yeah, nah Dan, he's right: no other host broadcaster on the planet ever does these things, only SKY NZ & only when it favours an NZ team.

Strayan & Sethfricken broadcasters ALWAYS forensically analyse every home-team try for evidence of obstruction, forward pass(es), knock-on(s) etc, etc, and ALWAYS commiserate with the dudded opposition team upon finding such things. The self-flagelation of the comms in these circumstances can be quite disturbing, really.

The funniest thing is WOB, just the incident that he alluding to in game (that certainly looked forward to me) could of been shown a thousand time, but not being to bright Lost obviously doesn't know that the ref can't back more than 2 phases to check anyway, and I bloody sure the TV commentators do , especially if they crooked as he thinks
I actually don't recall them replaying the slap down awful lot either, but more importantly would not either of them or Sorivi's last pass to thought of as having any affect on what in my opinion was a bloody great ad for the game!!

 

[Dan54]

True however even a broken watch is correct twice a day.

Lol true Happy, but mate I don't keep broken watches ,or refer to tham when I want to know the time

 

[gel]

Yeah, nah Dan, he's right: no other host broadcaster on the planet ever does these things, only SKY NZ & only when it favours an NZ team.

Strayan & Sethfricken broadcasters ALWAYS forensically analyse every home-team try for evidence of obstruction, forward pass(es), knock-on(s) etc, etc, and ALWAYS commiserate with the dudded opposition team upon finding such things. The self-flagelation of the comms in these circumstances can be quite disturbing, really.

You've nevfer been to a reds home game.

Reds foul play or reds forward passes, or reds knock ons are replayed on the big screen until the referee sees it and makes a call on it.

Given the inability to distinguish between "not releasing the player" and "not releasing the ball" I strongly suspect that the person who drives the big screens up there is a broncos fan, coz he/she sure as hell hates the reds.

 

[dru]

I was not going to mention it but I thought neck rolls to clear players in the ruck was manifest by the Highlanders. And then I started seeing Reds do it.

Should be stamped out. From everywhere.

 

[Derpus]

Thats fairly intuitive from the reds though. I always wondered why, if the ref is letting some blatant shit fly we dont just start doing the same.
Honour or some shit?

 

[Gnostic]

IMHO the Reds game last night was the best performance put in by any Australian side including the Wallabies. Apart from perhaps 5 very poorly executed kicks (and even then the kick was the right option just poorly done) they played very well, and I must say it was heartening to see an Australian side show respect for an appreciate the value of a good kicking game and not just run heedlessly into set defences with league like hit ups.

Very good game.

For mine whilst Sorovi, Rhodda (and doubly so for the background circumstances) and Hegarty played very well, the significant improvement of Stewart in terms of his defence and execution of skills stands out for me, and that is something we haven't see in other sides.

 

[Up the Guts]

IMHO the Reds game last night was the best performance put in by any Australian side including the Wallabies. Apart from perhaps 5 very poorly executed kicks (and even then the kick was the right option just poorly done) they played very well, and I must say it was heartening to see an Australian side show respect for an appreciate the value of a good kicking game and not just run heedlessly into set defences with league like hit ups.

Your post went out of date very quickly after the Brumbies terrific showing. Tahs aside, a very pleasing weekend of Australian Super Rugby, in fact, probably the best in recent memory. Meanwhile, the Blues, Chiefs, and Hurricanes were all smashed. Next weekend the Reds, Rebels, and Brumbies are all lining up against Kiwi sides and there's a realistic prospect of us winning 2/3 of those games. Strange times we are living in.

 

[TSR]

I’m surprised you don’t think the Brumbies to be able to beat the Hurricanes next weekend after their showing last night.

 

[Up the Guts]

I’m surprised you don’t think the Brumbies to be able to beat the Hurricanes next weekend after their showing last night.

Wouldn't want to get too far ahead of ourselves and start talking about clean sweeps but, of course, the Crusaders will be no match for the mighty Reds.

 

[TSR]

Haha - I couldn’t resist. But I’m going back in to my shell now. Crusaders are still the benchmark and it will be a very tough assignment for the Reds.