Got up for a piss around 3.30 so was happy with the quick check of Ultimate Rugby.
Having now watched the game:
1 Slipper - should have gotten more penalties for the Welsh 3 binding his arm. Otherwise, led the pack well
2 Fainga'a - some good tackles and ran the lineout pretty well, though he can get caught in rucks a bit. Not a ball runner in contact.
3 Kepu - some strong runs and good defensive work. Getting worked over at THP when Jenkins came on, which was parly Welsh wiles and partly poor locking.
4 Carter - his awareness still isn't there. Seems to be half a step behind things, and still runs too upright.
5 Simmons - gave away a stupid penalty at the maul, but he did put in a couple of good hits and hit a few rucks. Still not enough impact from either starting 2nd row
6 McMahon - discovered the difference between those playing rugby and those playing rugby for their nation. Guilty of a few errors which was to be expected I suppose, though he scrambled well. Bad miss on the Welsh 9's try.
7 Hooper - generally got the decisions right, but should have had a word to Joubers about the Welsh at lineout time. AWJ was straight through the line of touch before the ball left the lineout, and swamped Phipps. On his personal game, he was everywhere on attack in the first half, and made some critical defensive plays in the last ten minutes when we really needed it. OK so he didn't turn the ball over a minimum of 45,000 times like Hodgson, Pocock, or Smith would have (on the way to scoring 13 tries each and finding a cure for MND at half time), but he had a good game.
8 McCalman - just grinds away. Some big defence, some strong runs, but not really busting blocks as you'd like. Having said that, his opposite was largely invisible too
9 Phipps - fell back on step-passing or double-pumping every so often, but otherwise had a good night with swift passing (highly accurate) and some great defense. Gave away a silly penalty running the Welsh chaser off his line.
10 Foley - missed touch, put in a grubber that led to a try, missed a tackle or two. But ran that Wallaby backline like a machine when the ball was decent. Kicked 100% from the tee, and kicked out of the hand fairly well too. Suck it haters.
11 Tomane - poor bastard found himself isolated on D too often, but made some strong runs and always threatened the defence. Quiet night for both our wings on attack, because the Welsh were rushing up hard inside their own half.
12 Lilo - solid game, though he missed a tackle at one point early which allowed the Welsh to set up their try. Had some nice touches later as Foley started to organise 2nd and 3rd phase, and tackled strongly.
13 TK - was kept quiet, though he shook some handy tacklers for his try and drew defenders really well.
14 AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) - delayed the awarding of a try with superb defence, and also cleaned up some messes as well. Isolated in defence a couple of times and did the best he could.
15 Folau - was superb I thought. Not much else needs be said.
16 Hanson - solid. Noticeable work at ruck time.
17 Faulkner - one good run and some great ankle tackling.
18 Alexander - needs to get more involved. Bloke of his experience needs to make big runs and let everyone else hit rucks.
19 Horwill - I thought his involvements this week were far better than last week. Hit with a purpose, ran some ball, though by that stage Genia's delivery was a bit static compared to Phipps'
20 Skelton - *sigh* why the fuck can't Blades coach this guy into scrummaging properly? Even I can see from here that his shoulder position is all wrong.
21 Hodgson - made a critical turnover (which I thought was borderline tackle assist) and got around the park doing graft work.
22 Genia - still a yard below his best. Still running backwards a few steps which was critical as the Welsh reserves were rushing hard trying to lock down the win. Delivered from the base nicely a few times, but needs to get the ball in front of the man more instead of transferring pressure. Time is of the essence here and I hope he moves onward and upward. Wish he'd spend more time passing and less pointing and saying "C'mon Craig!"
23 Horne - very late on the park. Couple of good involvements. No mistakes.
SCRUM - we were generally solid until Jenkins came on, at which point the combination of Jenkins' experience and Skelton's poor technique gave Kepu a reaming. Its interesting to note however, that the penalty try was based on OUR issue, when the Welsh were clearly stepping around to the left on the drive. One of the "resets" was the Welsh THP dropping his shoulders (for which he'd been penalised previously) and Slipper was having his arm bound throughout proceedings. But mostly, I had to wonder why Simmons didn't go to TH Lock instead of Skelton...
LINEOUT - good. Little bit of juggling but good.
RUCK - We got some nice drives on and generally held our ball.
DEFENCE - needs work, but you can see the Cheika/Grey combination evolving the way it did at the Tahs. There are some first up misses. There are some alignment problems. But the intuition about knowing when to let the ruck lie, and when to go for the drive, looks to be developing.
CAPTAINCY - Hooper made the right decisions, but needs to work on his "plant a seed" technique with the ref as I've mentioned before.
OPPOSITION - Wales look stagnant under the Gatland plan. Its just a different combination of big boppers in the backline and hard workers in the forward pack. Though jeez some of them looked short of a run in the first ten minutes of the second period, and you had to wonder at the standard of Euro rugby on that basis.
That said, they have some handy players though you've got to wonder why they didn't start Tupiric instead of Lydiate because I didn't notice Red 6 at all. Scrum half was good.
REFEREE - Joubers had a strange one. The late turnover Hodgson got, I was sure he'd be counted as tackle assist. Wales were doing their best to disrupt our ball, but when he warned Warburton I was scratching my head. Had there been that many penalties? His handling of the scrum was mostly OK except for a couple of points I mentioned above, but if you go backwards, you pay the penalty. There were rucks where he let things go, and rucks where he blew the whistle. I don't think it was anywhere near his top performance, but the Welsh were always going to reduce it to a scrap.
Three critical mistakes:
A) right before Cuthbert's try - Hibbard was off his feet, offside, and made a tackle that turned the ball over.
B) Awarding AWJ's try was pure fantasy.
C) The penalty immediately before that against McMahon for "in the side" was bollocks. McMahon drove a welsh player over the ball.
Basic errors were key in three tries as has been the case of late. Lack of pillar by McMahon. Grubber kick from Foley. Scrum technique in general.
But we can fix this without doubt.
Question is: will it be in time for France next week?
