RWC QF 4 AUS v SCO (Twickenham) 19th Oct 0200 AEDT

[Blue]

Oh by the way see you guys in the final.

Where are we watching?

Who's buying?

 

[Inside Shoulder]

We'll be fine with Foley, five eighth is the least of our worries.

A big worry is Sio

 

[Viking]

I suppose Donald doesn't qualify as world class: maybe that's why they were lucky to win! Crude I think might have been at the time.
I don't see Foley as being a barrier to winning the cup.
He can't play that badly again and if the team can play that badly and win things must be better than they feel.

If he performs like that again we are screwed. But to be fair that is unlikely in my opinion. I'm sure he will step up next game.

But my biggest concern is goal-kicking. That very well could be a barrier for us.

 

[Ignoto]

Time to face up to one fact: no one has ever won the RWC without a world class 10 - can we be the first?

The 2011 Duck is considered World Class? This duck wasn't in prime condition either, he'd been fishing and drinking on a boat as well.

 

[TahDan]

Over the whole pool stages, we were a step above both Samoa and the States. We were a deserved third at bare minimum. Scheduling may have assisted us, but we had an identical draw to you guys in terms of breaks, which as many have commented on, was the shittest in the cup.

You can only play what's in front of you. And that's what we did. A tonne of luck is completely disengenious. Could argue that you had a tonne of luck as well, playing Fiji on their short break, then Wales having a butt tonne of injuries.

Just making the point that if Scots want to complain about being dudded and unlucky because of one call in a game where they conceded 5 tries and scored only a couple through luck then it's worth remembering the luck that went their way too.

You were better than the US, but Samoa played the better footy in their game in my view and only lost for being overly ambitious in the 22 gifting you a try (bit of a theme there). Australia had 2 other top tier sides on their pool and Scotland had 1, which thrashed them. Japan deserved that qtrs spot more in my view; they beat the boks in an incredible ambitious match and controlled both their games against the US and Samoa. The only game they lost was that one on a short turn around when they were still beat all to hell.


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[Ignoto]

Could argue that you had a tonne of luck as well, playing Fiji on their short break, then Wales having a butt tonne of injuries.

You could also argue that Gatland over-trained his players in those weird Siberian and Middle east camps which over-fatigued the players resulting in more injuries. While other teams like Australia, New Zealand etc managed their training and load properly and tried to limit the fatigued induced injuries.

I don't buy into luck arguments. You make your own luck, just like the Scots did for the "lucky" tries they scored through defensive pressure resulting in mistakes. Australia made it's own "luck" thorough the game.

 

[Braveheart81]

You were better than the US, but Samoa played the better footy in their game in my view and only lost for being overly ambitious in the 22 gifting you a try (bit of a theme there). Australia had 2 other top tier sides on their pool and Scotland had 1, which thrashed them. Japan deserved that qtrs spot more in my view; they beat the boks in an incredible ambitious match and controlled both their games against the US and Samoa. The only game they lost was that one on a short turn around when they were still beat all to hell.

At the end of the day, Japan got smashed by the team that ultimately beat them to the quarter finals.

They might have had a short turnaround and it would be a compelling argument if they'd only just lost but they didn't. They got absolutely belted.

They won three matches but finished with a negative for and against.

 

[Viking]

It seems strange that Cooper wasn't injected for Foley, given Foley's bad night. What the hell was the plan for him then? If he was only injury cover then we would have been better served with Speight or Tomane as outside back cover.

If Cheika didn't have faith in Cooper to replace a poor performing Foley, then he shouldn't have been picked on the bench.

Unless he only planned to give him game-time if we were well ahead, but then isn't it worse to sub players who are performing well? What the hell?

 

[Highlander35]

Samoa played one good game when nothing was on the line. Whoopdeedoo. They lost 2 games and struggled to care of an abysmal States side, who we demolished on our own short turnaround.

And yes, the theme of gifting us tries. Surely the fact that it's happening in virtually every single game, regardless of level of opposition is worth some analysis. It's a significant part of our bloody rush defense, and it's all about exploiting mistakes. If they don't make mistakes, we're fucked, but what do you know, teams make mistakes.

 

[mudskipper]

The All Blacks won the final with a young Aaron Cruden and then Stephen Donald for more than half the match last time.

South Africa won with Butch James in 2007.

Clearly 10 is one of the positions we're struggling with for consistency but it's hardly a fact that all previous RWC winners have superstar fly halves.

I reckon you could make a better case that previous RWC winners have had world class back rows.

Yep good points Wallabies can will the RWC with Genia Foley and Giteau combo... but without Pocock I'm not so sure...

 

[Braveheart81]

It seems strange that Cooper wasn't injected for Foley, given Foley's bad night. What the hell was the plan for him then? If he was only injury cover then we would have been better served with Speight or Tomane as outside back cover.

If Cheika didn't have faith in Cooper to replace a poor performing Foley, then he shouldn't have been picked on the bench.

Unless he only planned to give him game-time if we were well ahead, but then isn't it worse to sub players who are performing well? What the hell?

It was a bit of damned if you do, damned if you don't. Ultimately Cheika decided to leave Foley on the field and it was the right decision at least in terms of the result (of course we may have also won if Cooper came on but that is unknown).

My guess is that Foley's goal kicking finally came together in the second half and Cheika viewed it as risky to change his kicked.

Giteau was playing pretty well so To'omua didn't get on and our back three were all going very well so there was no need to change anything up there.

I reckon if Kuridrani hadn't scored and put us ahead by 8 with 15 minutes to go, Cheika would have made more changes.

 

[mudskipper]

It seems strange that Cooper wasn't injected for Foley, given Foley's bad night. What the hell was the plan for him then? If he was only injury cover then we would have been better served with Speight or Tomane as outside back cover.

If Cheika didn't have faith in Cooper to replace a poor performing Foley, then he shouldn't have been picked on the bench.

Unless he only planned to give him game-time if we were well ahead, but then isn't it worse to sub players who are performing well? What the hell?

Foley came good in the end and kicked the last goal to win... I wouldn't have like to have seen the Wallabies faithful depending on Cooper kicking it in the heavy rain...

 

[dru]

Yep, without watching a replay I recall some indecisiveness on the other side.
That's really my point: KB (Kurtley Beale) did nothing wrong but when IF is there the others don't seem to get as many opportunities to make mistakes nor do they make as many mistakes.

I thought Beale was close to our best and stood up looking for action like a FB should to help out.

In spite the inevitable sniping I put myself at risk of, I thought Foley had a Clanger. Though you have to be impressed with the final kick from the edge on his bad side. Cool cucumber that.

We've seen I think, a number of games where protecting the 10 by defending in the back three (ditto 9) has actually put them under more pressure. We might be better leaving Foley in the line, one thing he has been very solid with is tackling.

 

[Lorenzo]

It seems strange that Cooper wasn't injected for Foley, given Foley's bad night. What the hell was the plan for him then? If he was only injury cover then we would have been better served with Speight or Tomane as outside back cover.

If Cheika didn't have faith in Cooper to replace a poor performing Foley, then he shouldn't have been picked on the bench.

Unless he only planned to give him game-time if we were well ahead, but then isn't it worse to sub players who are performing well? What the hell?

We were still ahead by 5 at 73 minutes. By this stage it was raining. I probably wouldn't bring Cooper on then either, to be honest.

I think if we were down by 10+ with 10 to go you might see him.

 

[Lorenzo]

Can someone explain to me the legality or otherwise of the try by the scottish 12? Was he a ruck participant? If so, was he allowed to use his hands at that point? If not, wasn't he offside?

 

[jollyswagman]

What irritates me is all of of the headlines coming out of the match suggesting the Scots were robbed. It was a bloody tight match that could have gone either way in the end. Scotland were ahead by 1 point with 2 minutes to go and couldn't secure their own lineout ball on their 5m line.......9 times out of 10 this would have been a mortal error and I would have backed Australia to score regardless of the offside penalty.

 

[Braveheart81]

Can someone explain to me the legality or otherwise of the try by the scottish 12? Was he a ruck participant? If so, was he allowed to use his hands at that point? If not, wasn't he offside?

No Australian was contesting the breakdown so there was no ruck.

On that basis, I think the Scottish 12, Horne was fine picking up the ball and running with it.

 

[Sword of Justice]

Can someone explain to me the legality or otherwise of the try by the scottish 12? Was he a ruck participant? If so, was he allowed to use his hands at that point? If not, wasn't he offside?

I haven't seen any highlights but from memory I'm not sure we were even contesting that ruck with any players? If so I don't think there was a ruck to be offside at.

 

[qwerty51]

What I'm confused about is that there was one earlier where AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper)'s kick hit the Scottish bloke turning his back and a player in front picked it up and it's deemed accidental.

To a casual observer they probably look the same but in the eyes of the laws it isn't.

Thank you. This resulted in the charge down try later on yet no one analyses this only the last penalty. This was clearly 100% wrong call from Joubert.

 

[JJJ]

Just watched the game and think the Scots don't have much call to be aggrieved. The ref definitely gave them the rub of the green with the scrums. One in particular was a clear penalty to us that got given to them, and they kicked points from it.

I hope Sio is ok.