Wallabies v All Blacks, Game I

[RugbyReg]

How good did Berrick play v the Blues in those tough Albany conditions earlier this year?

 

[Gagger]

Quote from Robson on the front page:

If anyone is interested the weather in Auckland has improved markedly since early this morning. There is still a lot of cloud in the sky, but it has a fairly high ceiling and the sun is out in the east.

It’s blowing in blustery gusts from the south west at about 15 knots. So if it keeps that up it means it will be blowing diagonally across the park from right to left from the broadcast position. So it will be tricky to kick at goal from either end of the paddock, thats if it continues to blow from that quarter. You can probably expect minor shifts, but this sou westerly usually stays with us for a few days. It may subside a little towards evening, but then again it may not.

With six hours to go to kick off the rain could still come in again, but here’s hoping it stays away for tonight. If it does the conditions underfoot may not be too bad. A bit slippery perhaps but not a mud bog. Temperature will be around 12 to 14 degrees at kick off.

All in all the conditions are not terrible. They’re just not perfect.

Scoreline prediction (at last) Wallabies 11 ABs 10. But since I’ve never come anywhere near close in all the scores I’ve predicted over the years, this is just an exercise in exercising my predictions.

 

[Gagger]

Live score and wanging on here: http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/all-blacks-vs-wallabies-live-score/

 

[Scotty]

So far this ref is having a shocker. There have been so many iffy decisions against the Wallabies I've lost count. McCaw starting to get away with everything already.

 

[Scotty]

McCaw has been so far offside that he looks like he is playing for the Wallabies half the time. Really am fucking sick of him getting away with it.

 

[naza]

So far this ref is having a shocker. There have been so many iffy decisions against the Wallabies I've lost count. McCaw starting to get away with everything already.

I honestly don't know why I bother following rugby anymore when refs take the piss like this.

 

[Scotty]

I just saw three all blacks enter a ruck at about 45 degrees and referee ignore it then award the scrum to the ABs.

 

[Scotty]

After that non advantage call I am now 80 % convinced that this referee is cheating.

 

[Scotty]

Penalty goes against Moore for not rolling away, as he is rolling away and the ABs have their hands on the ball.

 

[Scotty]

We lost that game due to three main reasons:

1. A completely inept and somewhat biased (see scrums) referee
2. Loosing the ball in attack too many times
3. Luke Burgess

 

[formeropenside]

Burgess was utter crap.

Pocock was invisible when he came on, and Waugh was not used.

We needed physcality and counter rucking and we had 4 opensides in the pack. Bad strategy by Deans.

Burgess was really poor. I would have pulled him after about 20 mins.

 

[louie]

that was bullshit.
i'm not going to blame the ref. he was bad but that happens.

Burgess:
that was the worst performance i have ever seen in a gold jumper. he did nothing good. genia first min was more productive then you. everything he did was wrong. i don't care how could he is against Italy. the guy sucks.

Robinson:
you are dumb. that plenty for throwing the ball away cost us. big. thanks mate.

Baxter:
can we dump this lump? does nothing right

Australia should have won that. that blacks did nothing with the ball and we should have been more productive.

 

[louie]

Burgess really lost us that game

 

[waratahjesus]

We lost that game due to three main reasons:

1. A completely inept and somewhat biased (see scrums) referee
2. Loosing the ball in attack too many times
3. Luke Burgess

agree with most of that but will ad.

4-berrick going off
5-richie mccaw not having to play by the same rules as others!

honestly, new coach with a full year under his belt, same old shit. this should have been over at half time.
it amazes me how much mccaw gets away with. baxter should take legal action for defemation of character. it doubts me not that the all blacks had been in the refs ear about scrum time before the match. he didnt even ref it. the call on attack when he said baxter deliberately collapsed was piss poor as was them calling palu back for not tapping when there wasnt a ref within distance or sight to actualy see it.

James Oconnor proved tonight why he shouldnt be getting big money or even be rushed into the international scene. he is a schoolboy still. he should have been on the under 20s tour gaining experience witht he rest of them, he has plenty of years left!

 

[naza]

We lost that game due to three main reasons:

1. A completely inept and somewhat biased (see scrums) referee
2. Loosing the ball in attack too many times
3. Luke Burgess

Appalling refereeing killed us.

You're a little harsh on Burgess. He and Drew Mitchell were erratic, I thought Burgess saved us a number of times so he had a mixed bag. I thought 12 was a problem for us too. Barnes' insistence on long cut out passes was a gift to the All Blacks' defence.

We tried to play too wide, not wise given the conditions. In general we weren't smart. Why take the short option on a kick re-start on your own 22 with the rain and wind howling down and not having been out of your half in 20 minutes ?

 

[Scotty]

Ok, still very pissed off all of 15 minutes after the game (I thought I had calmed down in my old age), so for the first time in over a year decided to visit PR. Seems all the neutrals over there have the same view that I do. So I wasn't seeing things that the referee was a complete disgrace and seemingly very biased.

 

[waratahjesus]

that was bullshit.
i'm not going to blame the ref. he was bad but that happens.

Burgess:
that was the worst performance i have ever seen in a gold jumper. he did nothing good. genia first min was more productive then you. everything he did was wrong. i don't care how could he is against Italy. the guy sucks.

Robinson:
you are dumb. that plenty for throwing the ball away cost us. big. thanks mate.

Baxter:
can we dump this lump? does nothing right

Australia should have won that. that blacks did nothing with the ball and we should have been more productive.

sorry dude, baxter had a good game tonight, i play front row and he wasnt at fault, and im not saying that biased either, a few of them should have been resets only, they were hitting from to far away, when the ref made them stand closer there wasnt a problem, but if it was another tight head blocking the loosey from binding and causing the scum to go down, the tight head would have got 99% of the penalties for there team and would be getting hero worshiped right now!

 

[Scotty]

Naz,

I reckon they started playing wider because they were so afraid of getting penalised wrongly at the ruck, they tried to stay away from them. I have never seen so many players allowed to come in from the side of the ruck.

And I know guys like Lee Grant will say that we should adapt to the way the ref is playing the game, but some of that was so blatant you could not possibly think you could get away with it. Honestly, penalties should have favoured the Wallabies or at least been even, and one or two AB probably should have seen yellow.

I know that we still could have won that game despite the referee, but the fact is he probably changed the result and some of the decisions (eg scrums and advantage calls) were so unbelieveable that questions need to be asked.

 

[cyclopath]

Hard to blame Baxter - a couple of the calls against him were utter rubbish. Woodcock outsmarted him and Joubert.
Burgess was crap. Naza, not even you can justify that as a par performance. Poor option taking, poor kicking.
I will not blame the ref.
We had chances, and we executed poorly. You cannot do that against the ABs and expect to win.
They outdid us at the breakdown again.
Multi open-side experiment?? Flawed again.

 

[naza]

Naz,

I reckon they started playing wider because they were so afraid of getting penalised wrongly at the ruck, they tried to stay away from them. I have never seen so many players allowed to come in from the side of the ruck.

That sequence where Burgess and then Turner took the ball up for us on pick and drive while half our pack were on the other side of the field summed up our 2nd half. Our guys didn't want to know.

Burgess...well, you know what you get with him. He's not a clinical mistake free player like Gregan (who most of you despised). But he's got x-factor, wins a surprising amount of ball, and gives our predictable backline some flair and spark.