RWC 2011 SF2: Australia vs. New Zealand

[pete88]

Only three days? Mate showering in match week is prohibited for Semifinals, there's gotta be some reason Englnad keep overachieving at RWCs.

Ecstatic to see that Joubert has been appointed to officiate...... sanity prevailing at last!!

Looking forward to him clearing up the farcical breakdown areas...... got to love it when he barks: "release... tackler!" or "ruck formed.... hands out gold seven!" or even "roll away black seven!". Hallowed words that are not easily spoken at this years RWC.

Also looking forward to him penalising balls being played on the deck, high / chocking tackles especially during mauls, lazy runners, intentional slowing down of the ball, knee/shoulder/no-hands charges, early engagements, deliberate scrum wheeling to name but a few.

Am eager to see how Sir Richie and his heir apparent, David Mc..Pocock's 'play-outside-the-rules-if-the-ref-lets-you-get-away-with-it' strategy will pan out under Joubert's watchful eyes.

Can't wait......

@ potjiekos

He actually lets a fair bit of shit slide IMO, just favours attacking sides at the breakdown.

If you keep being butthurt on an Australian rugby forum about what what a horrific cheat David Pocock is, you might start getting trolled soon by the locals, just sayin'

 

[EVERYFWDTHINKTHEYREA6OR7]

Here's my 2 cents.

We got this game

If rumours are true and McCaw is playing injured. Great. I want someone who has to be doped up to be out there

If you are going to choose a two row. Get a bloke out there who is the oldest bloke out there. ie Thorn.

They have one Leaguie who never is quite sure whether to join the ruck or not, and when he doesnt look like he know what he should be doing.

Have a fly half out there who is young and inexperienced

Have your halfback doing a lot of kicking for goal, kick off, box kick, general play kick, kick for touch. How are your hammy's feeling Piri?

NZ have two blokes who might have a few drinks before the game to calm the nerves

NZ have an aging pack.

Have the two best defensive centres getting around, one of them loves tackling so much that he'll do it with a broken shoulder.

AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) is flying under the radar.

 

[Bon]

Seems hardly worthwhile our team lacing up their boots.

 

[Tangawizi]

Weather Forecast is looking rubbish for the next 2 weeks in Auckland. Could do with the semi-decent weather forecast for Fri/Sat lasting another day - http://metservice.com/towns-cities/auckland

The Ireland match may well prove to be the loss the Wallabies had to have as we should handle the conditions better 2nd time around.

 

[pete88]

Seems hardly worthwhile our team lacing up their boots.

Pretty much, feel free to just forfeit the fixture.

 

[Set piece magic]

Got a forecast saying it's going to be all clear over the weekend in Auckland:

Source: http://www.weather-forecast.com/locations/Auckland/forecasts/latest

 

[Bullrush]

Here's my 2 cents.

We got this game

If rumours are true and McCabe and Beale are playing injured. Great. I want someone who has to be doped up to be out there

If you are going to choose a two row. Get a bloke out there who is the oldest bloke out there. ie Sharpe.

They have one future Leaguie (Cooper) who never is quite sure whether to join the ruck or not, and when he doesnt look like he know what he should be doing.

Have a fly half out there who is young and inexperienced and is prone to making poor decisions

Have your halfback doing a lot of kicking for goal, kick off, box kick, general play kick, kick for touch. How are your hammy's feeling Genia?

Wallabies have three blokes who might have a few drinks before getting into a fight

Wallabies have a fragile pack.

Have the two best defensive and offensive centres getting around, one of them loves breaking tackles so much that he'd be f**kn hard to stop if you had to do it with a broken shoulder.

Donald is flying under the radar.

Bahahahahahahahahaha.....even I can't say that last one with a straight face

 

[pete88]

Haha, yeah one-nil to Bullrush.

 

[EVERYFWDTHINKTHEYREA6OR7]

We will see after the weekend won't we?

Death, taxes and Kiwi's choking when it counts.

 

[Bullrush]

We will see after the weekend won't we?

Death, taxes and Kiwi's choking when it counts.

 

[EVERYFWDTHINKTHEYREA6OR7]

Wow, so we choked once in a sport that we and most of the world don't care for.

You're on fire Bullrush, no i mean it really you are!

PS BTW Sally Robbins family is from New Zealand.

 

[pete88]

/me grabs popcorn.

 

[Jay]

BTW Sally Robbins family is from New Zealand.

Like half the Wallabies.

 

[Groucho]

I can assure you all I can spot the difference between what's in sox and what's in jocks.
Mr Doug has bright red jocks
He tells me he has no red socks
He wore the jocks to fox the Boks
We did not have to play the Jocks
Jocks, socks, fox and Boks
I wish that this could rhyme with Blacks!

Dr Cyeuss!

 

[Ignoto]

There's a bit more to that story than what was told. But I'll summarise, as a rower, its easy to mask "rowing hard", that is you can still go up and down the slides without pushing instead of just "falling over".

 

[Groucho]

Like half the Wallabies.

That's what happens when large numbers of people want to move in to your country, as opposed to large numbers of people wanting to move out of it.

 

[pete88]

Don't let any Poms hear you say that...

Ignoto, what are you saying? She could have disguised hitting the wall better?

 

[Ignoto]

Don't let any Poms hear you say that...

Ignoto, what are you saying? She could have disguised hitting the wall better?

Well, she could have continued to row, just not pulled on the oar. It would still look like she was rowing instead of "giving up".

The Australian womans 8 was never going to place, the only chance they had was to get out and stay in front. Their race plan would have been everyone to simply kill themselves with 500 - 250 metres to go and hold onto whatever lead they could. Sally obviously destroyed herself to get the team there and the other 7 girls didn't.

There's no way someone would simply stop rowing (especially a professional athlete), she would have simply rowed "light" and no-one in the crew would have known.

 

[pete88]

Yeah I always felt really sorry for her, I mean she quite clearly did everything she could and it quite clearly wasn't enough. That would be soul destroying for me, especially when your teammates start blaming you when there's nothing more you could do. Guess that's professional sport for you, not good enough is not good enough.

So to make this tangent relevant - is that what keeps happening to the All Blacks at RWC time? They spend four years destroying themselves working harder than everyone else then "row light"?

 

[light]

FWIW, the usual protocol in rowing if an oar is broken or rigger snaps or whatever the case may be, the rower is obliged to jump out of the boat. Doing this reduces the amount of weight the other members pull with their strokes (obviously). Clearly she hit the wall and if I remember correctly her teammates weren't blaming her for giving up but more so for not doing the proper protocol and jumping out, it meant that they had to carry her for the duration of the race, obviously the extra weight would not have helped. You wonder why coxes are small in the sport? it's because they don't weigh down the boat and it's not difficult for them to be carried, a rower on the other hand is usually quite heavy.

Regardless, I don't think you could call that a choke. It would have been quite hard to tread water after the amount of effort she put in and to expect her to swim to shore would have been quite a large ask. More to the point, who cares about rowing these days? It's a elite sport run by private schools only that receives very little funding from the government.. primarily because it is an expensive sport to run.

Australia doesn't really pride itself on being the best rowers...New Zealand prides itself on being the best at rugby. Therefore, by our own expectations, we were never going to win that race..the rugby world cup in the Kiwi's eyes is a completely different story and considering it's the 4th biggest sport in Australia and we have won it twice, and its the national sport in NZ and they have won it once after being expected to win every tournament so far... we are by default a BETTER country. :fishing