Wales v Australia

[Viking]

Like they dominated England??

I've never really believed that a majority of the posters had such deep seated provincial biases. For me once it comes to Wallaby time I don't give a rats where the player comes from all that matters is form.

Over the last two weeks I seen for the first time since Mark Ella was made Captain over Andrew Slack, a huge bias in so many posters. Maybe I was blind before, I don't give a rats. Far too many people have set in stone opinions and look for errors to tee up just like a fools in a climate change debate. They are not looking for real form points, attacking and defensive structures and for me the coaching areas that need to be addressed to allow the squad to grow and improve.

The PETTY provincialism is blinding to all else. FFS let it go and put some gold goggles on and drop the Blue, Red and what ever the other coloured lens are.

how exactly is stating "we should not play down to lesser opposition" provincialism? It's a wallaby opinion as a whole. And I said "most the time". England played well too so I wouldn't call them push overs.

FYI, I'm a Brumbies supporter, But I'd prefer Cooper at 10 over both Foley and To'omua. I also think Phipps is the clear best halfback.

So I dont know who the fuck your directing your "provincialism" bias too?

 

[Sully]

Free shot? From 70 metres? Jeez I didn't realise our defence was THAT porous.

If only Quade had been out there to save the day eh?

If a qlder had a stupid thing like kick the ball to the opposition with seconds to go I'd be just as pissed off. I have absolutely no problem switching to wallaby mode when my team isn't playing. Maybe you should try it.

 

[Forcefield]

It's hard to know what to do with seconds left on the clock and less than a converted try ahead. I have seen a lot of referees find an excuse to penalise the attacking team if they try to wind it down. Usually for sealing off. I guess that taking that risk is probably worth it compared to kicking it down field. That gives the opposition a chance to attack from deep against a tiring opposition. I suppose the key is to hold onto the ball really tight so that if you are penalised you have the maximum possible time to set your defence before the opposition takes the quick tap (or scrum maybe).

Glad it worked out okay last night.

 

[Teh Other Dave]

^^ as I said before, gotta read the play. Sometimes you need to keep it in hand and risk turnover/penalty, others you need to give 'em the ball and risk shanking the kick or having them break through open play. Imagine how boring the game would be if there was one tried and true method for closing out games. This is why I play (awfully) and watch rugby, and why I can only tolerate small doses of league.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Free shot? From 70 metres? Jeez I didn't realise our defence was THAT porous.

If only Quade had been out there to save the day eh?

Didn't we leak one from about 50?
There's no right answer but we have tried to close out the last seconds of the last 2 tests using kicks. It looks like it's our go to ploy.

 

[fatprop]

Didn't we leak one from about 50?
There's no right answer but we have tried to close out the last seconds of the last 2 tests using kicks. It looks like it's our go to ploy.

first half the defence was average, second half the defence was very solid, whatever the technical issue was, it was fixed

I honestly don't really know what is better, trying to truck it up for the minutes out of your 22 (hoping you don't get turned over/penalised) or kick it deep, have a good chase, hold on backing your defense

 

[Inside Shoulder]

first half the defence was average, second half the defence was very solid, whatever the technical issue was, it was fixed

I honestly don't really know what is better, trying to truck it up for the minutes out of your 22 (hoping you don't get turned over/penalised) or kick it deep, have a good chase, hold on backing your defense

Inside your 22 is different again because then as Dwyer famously said you just kick it to the shithouse 10 rows back and have the lineoutt - IMO that's why White's effort was indefensible

 

[fatprop]

Inside your 22 is different again because then as Dwyer famously said you just kick it to the shithouse 10 rows back and have the lineoutt - IMO that's why White's effort was indefensible

Against the ABs? yeah, although their first phase plays aren't shabby either

Against pretty well any other side, not sure

 

[liquor box]

measure it this way: what would the all blacks do?

score a try

 

[Dctarget]

Answering my own question I posed earlier, no Australia does not move up from their ranking of fourth.

 

[rugbysmartarse]

I was fuming when he kicked it when watching it. I err on the side of "they can't score if they don't have the ball". Looking at it again now, wales kicked off and we committed 5 forwards to securing the kick off. fair enough, that's important. genia then passes to horwill and we use another 3 forwards to secure that ball, even though we conceded 5 meters. genia looks up, and there are no running options. none. we have tomane on the right wing, TK and AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) way out to the left, foley in the pocket, and Izzy out the back. None of the forwards from the first ruck have retreated to take the ball up, or to support the next play.

It seems again we are blaming backs for decisions they make without looking at the fact that our forwards aren't putting in the work to facilitate good rugby

 

[Brumby Runner]

Bullshit. We didn't learn because holding the ball gives you a better chance of winning. Kicking the ball to the opposition is a 100% chance of a turnover. Any chance we might giving them by holding the ball for 35 seconds is lower than that.

I am always grateful when an opposition kicks the ball to us in the dying stages to give us a chance of winning a game. I cannot credit that we would do the same. The real difference between the outcomes in this game and Bled3 was that the ABs don't usually let the opportunity go through poor handling unlike the Welsh. I am not discounting Hooper's effort to make the tackle on North. To me he (Hooper) was far and away the MOTM and that was just another feature in his overall game.

 

[Brumby Runner]

Free shot? From 70 metres? Jeez I didn't realise our defence was THAT porous.

If only Quade had been out there to save the day eh?

The problem was Pfitzy that our defense had been porous for large parts of the game, and even at the end Wales looked very threatening running the ball back down our left hand side. Only North's poor handling aided and abetted by Hooper's fantastic tackle caused the game to stop when it did. Great for us that it did and as you say WE WON. But imo we shouldn't give any opposition the initiative to be able to pull a game out of the fire. We have the ball, we have the best chance of controlling events. We give it away, the opposition has the best chance of controlling events as in Bled 3.

 

[Brumby Runner]

If only Quade had been out there to save the day eh?

I mean, we had Turnover King Matt Hodgson on the field so surely he would get at least three turnovers from two rucks, right?

Pfitzy, you really like to play the man with sarcasm don't you.

 

[Braveheart81]

Our bench provided a lift for the first time in a while and got us home which was great to see.

Clearly Skelton struggled at scrumtime but there seemed to also be a contribution from a fresh Jenkins starting to overpower a tiring Kepu. Skelton was good around the park though and drew in a lot of defenders. He was good at getting a good, quick recycle of the ball each time he took the ball into multiple defenders and his cleanouts were all strong.

Genia had a far better game than he did the previous week against the Barbarians. There was a noticeable decrease in the number of steps before passing and his decision making seemed solid.

Hodgson won that crucial penalty which allowed us to turnover possession and exit from our own 22.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

It seems again we are blaming backs for decisions they make without looking at the fact that our forwards aren't putting in the work to facilitate good rugby

Not me. They needed to make call before the kickoff was taken as to how they were going to handle it. The ABs would use their forwards very close together so that they could just fall into the next ruck even if it went nowhere.
Our initial reactions were the same.
Obviously this is one on which reasonable minds may differ.

 

[Brumby Runner]

I largely ignore those comments because they are not looking at the game really. Where were Foley's options when he decided to kick. To shovel the ball on and set up a new ruck with all the forward already in front of him and fatiguing.

It is much like the White Box Kick V NZ in Bled 3. White too the only option he had left but executed it poorly.

How is this so? We had 6 forwards on the ground who had been there for between 10 and 30 minutes. They could not have been fatigued in that short time. If in fact they were not in position to support the next and succeeding rucks it was for reasons other than fatigue.

 

[Braveheart81]

Good analysis Rugbysmartarse.

It seems that Foley's kick downfield was maybe more a symptom of our poor play than the cause.

We should have worked out a way to hang onto the ball at that point of the game where we only needed to last two more phases and then kick the ball into touch.

If no runners are in position though and Genia decides that his only option is Foley sitting back in the pocket for a clearing kick, it's hard to pin too much blame on Foley.

We need to improve that aspect of our play. Perhaps some of our backs need to be included in the pod system for those moments so we can have three clear pods which should give us plenty of options ot hang onto the ball even if going backwards.

 

[Brumby Runner]

Regardless of whether the kick was the right or wrong decision. At least they all knew what the plan was, put in a good chase to a deep kick.

Against the All Blacks in Brisbane they weren't communicating as a team, and players didn't know what their job was. Right or wrong decision it looked like they all knew what was going to happen and executed well.

At step in the right direction.

Nah - didn't look to me that they executed well at all. The Welsh were on the charge making very good ground down our left flank and it took a bit of Hooper magic to get to North (who otherwise could have burned the rest of our team in a race for the tryline) and cause the ball to be lost so ending the game.

 

[fatprop]

It was also good to see Foley finding grass with his kicks, so often during the game.

It allows for decent chase and line