Wales v Australia, Monday 18 November 3:10am AEDT

[Derpus]

Yeah now that Wright has largely conquered his high error rate he is incredibly dangerous on the counter. Reminds me a bit of early days Drew Mitchell.

 

[stillmissit]

Mate, my history or rugby playing/ coaching/ refereeing experience or lack thereof is pretty irrelevant

Agreed

 

[stillmissit]

Man said earlier us Australian fans are delusional.. went in the signed jersey thing on Stan 99 percent of Stan users think we take the Scots.. totally wild to me..

My gut tells me Scotland will be a loss and Ireland - well I'm feeling confident. How's that for detailed analysis?

 

[chasmac]

Bell was pumped in the scrums.
Is it because Tupou was out?
Frost was his 2nd row?
He has an injury?
The Welsh tighthead is a beast?
Faesler isn't 130kgs?
Never been a dominant scrummer?
With Slipper in the 23 I think we have had a weakness exposed.
I am hopeful it can be patched up before Murrayfield. Not confident.

 

[stillmissit]

Bell was pumped in the scrums.
Is it because Tupou was out?
Frost was his 2nd row?
He has an injury?
The Welsh tighthead is a beast?
Faesler isn't 130kgs?
Never been a dominant scrummer?
With Slipper in the 23 I think we have had a weakness exposed.
I am hopeful it can be patched up before Murrayfield. Not confident.

Not sure Bell was pumped but he didn't look 100% to me. I thought AAA would be better for the run in England and he was around the ground but his scrummaging wasn't. Deserves his spot but I thought Nongorr looked a better scrummager when he came on.

 

[Rugby Head]

Not sure Bell was pumped but he didn't look 100% to me. I thought AAA would be better for the run in England and he was around the ground but his scrummaging wasn't. Deserves his spot but I thought Nongorr looked a better scrummager when he came on.

Bell is carrying such a high workload in attack, playing him on big minutes in both England/ Wales will be taxing. Hoping they have Kailea on the bench and get a good 25-30 mins out of him to try freshen up Bell.

 

[Brumby Runner]

Bell was pumped in the scrums.
Is it because Tupou was out?
Frost was his 2nd row?
He has an injury?
The Welsh tighthead is a beast?
Faesler isn't 130kgs?
Never been a dominant scrummer?
With Slipper in the 23 I think we have had a weakness exposed.
I am hopeful it can be patched up before Murrayfield. Not confident.

Suspect all of those elements come into it to varying degrees, but if you want an intelligent analysis of Bell's particular weakness at scrum time, go look at Nutta's various posts and articles on the front page.

 

[stillmissit]

Bell is carrying such a high workload in attack, playing him on big minutes in both England/ Wales will be taxing. Hoping they have Kailea on the bench and get a good 25-30 mins out of him to try freshen up Bell.

Not sure we can afford to have Bell on for less than 60. Hope he is on light training this week as we are going to need him v Scotland which will be a big challenge.

 

[stillmissit]

Suspect all of those elements come into it to varying degrees, but if you want an intelligent analysis of Bell's particular weakness at scrum time, go look at Nutta's various posts and articles on the front page.

Looked at a few of his articles but the latest is nearly a year ago, any particular one to look at? I'm interested.

 

[Sword of Justice]

This is going to come off as a massive gold tinted whinge but Australia’s reputation for scrummaging has been in the toilet since the first Eddie Jones reign when he, not without some basis at the time, decided to totally ignore the technical aspect of the game. This permeates in ref perception. It wasn’t until 2015 until we became a team that could actually hold its own in scrums consistently and even then we have reverted to the bad old days several times over the last decade.

Over the last two weeks there have been several calls against Tupou and Bell which at any other level I believe would be reset on stronger grass. I also believe that opposition teams take scrums to ground more often when playing us for that reason.

Are we strong technical scrummagers? No, but we do have power which incentivises us to keep scrums up more than we actually do.

 

[Strewthcobber]

These things usually boil down to something like you can have a great test front row scrummager, or you can have a great test front row ball carrier, but you can't have both over any sort of longer term, and it often resolves itself through injury (eg Tupou), or poor form.

 

[Tomthumb]

This is going to come off as a massive gold tinted whinge but Australia’s reputation for scrummaging has been in the toilet since the first Eddie Jones reign when he, not without some basis at the time, decided to totally ignore the technical aspect of the game. This permeates in ref perception. It wasn’t until 2015 until we became a team that could actually hold its own in scrums consistently and even then we have reverted to the bad old days several times over the last decade.

Over the last two weeks there have been several calls against Tupou and Bell which at any other level I believe would be reset on stronger grass. I also believe that opposition teams take scrums to ground more often when playing us for that reason.

Are we strong technical scrummagers? No, but we do have power which incentivises us to keep scrums up more than we actually do.

We have had consistently weak tight heads for a long time and that is the basis for a good scrum

Bell getting the blame for the scrum isn't really fair. It's his job to put pressure on the opposition ball. It's the tight head's job to lock down our ball and create the platform to build off. AAA is a really poor scrummager these days, highlighted by our rock solid scrum as soon as Nonggorr came on

Tupou get away by being ridiculously strong, but he's quite poor technically. He constantly gives his opposite a free cahnce to get under him and put pressure on him by exposing his chest and driving in. He gets away with it quite a bit but against guys like Ox Nche he gets delt with pretty easy

The best scrummaging tight head we have produced in the last 15 years is ironically Tyrel Lomax

 

[stillmissit]

Australia’s reputation for scrummaging has been in the toilet since the first Eddie Jones reign when he, not without some basis at the time, decided to totally ignore the technical aspect of the game.

Very True and that issue reverberated through all levels of rugby. 'Just get it over with' was Eddie V1 thoughts on scrummaging as it only took up X% of a game. He ruined a generation of props and brought out all those mummies saying 'If you play prop or hooker you could die'.

 

[Micheal]

Only watching the replay now and 7 minutes in we've already had:
-- a cross field kick
-- a chip kick from halfback
-- Lolesio run the ball from 10

None of them were particularly good opportunities, but I like that we're showcasing early in games that our attack can and will be varied.

I've always thought you should use all of the above in the first 20, even if you won't score from it or if it risks turning over the ball, just so the opponents know that you might do it again throughout the rest of the game.

Add in the halfback sniping from the base of the ruck / scrum early, and opponents have to think twice in almost every scenario in defence.

 

[dru]

Only watching the replay now ...

Yeah, good, Mike. Avoid the throw by throw re-commentary. We've been there buddy.

 

[Spamnoodle]

Yeah, good, Mike. Avoid the throw by throw re-commentary. We've been there buddy.

As long as it isn't Marce MK2 it's all good

 

[Micheal]

Yeah, good, Mike. Avoid the throw by throw re-commentary. We've been there buddy.

You don't think the two hours inbetween my comment and your reply sort of confirmed this wasn't going to be the case?

God forbid people discuss the game in the game thread

 

[Pfitzy]

Not sure Bell was pumped but he didn't look 100% to me. I thought AAA would be better for the run in England and he was around the ground but his scrummaging wasn't. Deserves his spot but I thought Nongorr looked a better scrummager when he came on.

So many dynamics to account for in this: when the reserve props come on you might have changes in front or second rows in both sides. Makes judging these things difficult

 

[Derpus]

I've read elsewhere that Wales reserve props arent up to much and that Gatland made a mistake subbing his starters too early.

 

[Tex]

Fully bracing myself for a loss, as is tradition. Might even bolster my position with a punt on the Scotland victory.