Wallabies v All Blacks Melbourne

[PaarlBok]

Understand Melbournes grass is a problem. Vok knows, the Aussies cant even prepare a proper playing surface?


Hope the Wallabies win but I dont have much hope, All Blacks by plenty , like usual.

 

[#1 Tah]

Matt Hodgson just tweeted that Tim Fairbrother joined the Wallaby squad, or just trained with them. A good thing I think. Nicely timed pre-All Black test. Some inside information per chance?

Preparation for 50 collapsed scrums = injury?

Would also rather have barnes 10, gits 12, but they did well for most of last year, and will change no doubt.

 

[#1 Tah]

could this be relevant again?

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp.../story-e6frey4i-1225775192050?from=public_rss

 

[DPK]

Understand Melbournes grass is a problem. Vok knows, the Aussies cant even prepare a proper playing surface?

Easy, Paarl. Not Aussies, the Victorian AFL cant maintain a proper playing surface.

 

[PaarlBok]

Easy, Paarl. Not Aussies, the Victorian AFL cant maintain a proper playing surface.

Thought you all are Aussies? Hell thats bad, and then I saw some complains a few months back about the Brute Ring surface from some Aussies posters on here. How does this work? They are talking about not be able to play running rugby on the surface? Bloody hell, let them play on gravel then.

 

[Brumby Jack]

Understand Melbournes grass is a problem

Never trust a sport where wearing tight shorts is encouraged and you get a point for missing....

I assume the roof at Etihad will be shut for the game? I see rain is forecast for Friday and Saturday in Melbourne?

 

[daz]

I assume the roof at Etihad will be shut for the game? I see rain is forecast for Friday and Saturday in Melbourne?

Christ, I hope so. Aerial bombs all night if the game is played in the wet.....

 

[BackStalls]

Found this over at TSF. Not sure if people saw it last year (and obviously the NRI's have changed the specifics) but I thought it was interesting to see a review of the teams from the pov of the opposition. Enjoy!

Bok Forward Coach views on All Blacks & Wallabies
Always a good read to see the views from the enemie specially with all this coaching bitching postings flying all over the place. Gary Gold helped planning the downfall of both teams and this straight out of the horses mouth
http://coaching.blog.rugbyiq.com/?p=58
Prospects for Australia and New Zealand
In today’s blog i would like to share some thoughts with you of our opponents Australia and New Zealand, and to offer an opinion of where I believe they are at the moment with there respective teams.I am not at all looking to “have a pop” at either of these two teams, in fact on the contrary, but i would like to offer my opinion, for your interest, of where we believe they fell short and areas we believed we should attempt to attack them or exploit, from a technical and tactical point of view.

New Zealand
As i have mentioned many times before I believe that one of the most important aspects in coaching is to always deal with facts, and steer clear of making decisions or big calls based on emotion. The same must apply, I believe, when we asses our opponents and we do a post-mortem, as we are doing here. I say this because before we even begin to asses the All Blacks, we must be aware of how many big name players they were without during this campaign. Obviously we know that Dan Carter only started the Tri-Nations late and didn’t even come on tour to S.A. when the All Blacks were here.
They also had other key players out, some for the entire competition, and others who got injured during the Tri-Nations, some in key positions such as Ali Williams,Conrad Smith, Luke McCalister etc.
Now i am fully aware that injuries are occupational hazard in the world of professional rugby, and i assure you their is nothing more frustrating and infuriating for a coach, to be stuck without a crop of his best players, but I thought I would mention it as it does play a significant role in a teams confidence and ultimately performance.
In saying that we also tried to base our game around aspects of them that we believed we could exploit, and in doing so, hopefully put them under enough pressure to either force them to make an error, cost them a penalty or score a try.
One area was our kicking game,as awesome Rockocoko and Sivivatu are, and they truly are, as broken field runners and try scorers, we thought they would not enjoy to be kicked on and pressurised. These could be box kicks on them or tactical kicks in behind them, where they had to turn and chase. So we used our kicking game, mostly from our own half, as an attacking weapon, especially seeing as we thought that with the wings and Mils Muliaina, they would regularly still like to look to try counterattack, and then we would be ready to defend them and hopefully turn them over, because they were down on numbers, or we had exerted sufficient pressure on them to make an error.
On attack, that is once we were in their half, we would look to play to our greatest strength, that being our direct physical approach.We primarily adopted a methodology where we would look to keep playing the same way, until we ran out of space, and to look to put numbers behind the ball, run hard, be direct and make the ALL Blacks use two or three tacklers at a time to stop us, ultimately hopefully running out of numbers hence creating space for us to play into.
Finally we also wanted to exert as much pressure on them when they had they ball, from a defensive point of view, because as mentioned earlier, we believed they would look to run the ball from almost everywhere, and in doing so could sometimes get themselves isolated from support.
Pressure is an amazing attribute and i could not encourage all young coaches out their to use this weapon with your team enough. It requires a team to have a great work ethic and to never stop looking for work whilst the ball is in play, but it can pay huge dividends.

Australia
Now here is something that i think you may find surprising for me to say, but i actually thought that Australia were a better team, technically, than the All Blacks. Certainly in my opinion, they were a much tougher team to prepare against, and certainly asked more questions of SA from a defencive point of view.
Now at the chance of being accused of contradicting myself, perhaps the fact that they have far more variation than the All Blacks could be to their detriment. The Boks for example are an unashamedly simple team. Our philosophy is not to be a jack of all trades and rather a master of one. We feel it doesn’t really matter if you think you know what we are going to do, you still have to try stop us, and hopefully because we have attempted to perfect one or two things, instead of having a full array of options, we are able to execute those few things well.
Anyway back to Australia, as mentioned they certainly have a complete game. They have great structure and hold onto the ball well through phases. They also have good variation of plays.
From full lineouts and scrums,they use the option to go wide instantly, also they can set it up in the midfield, with Asley-Cooper or Mortlock, before he was injured, and from their they can play same way or change direction.
They they also use a 4 and 5 man lineout, where interestingly they leave a loose forward and a prop out wide.(I am sure this is because they want another jumper in the lineout) and from this they also have a variation of plays.
They also have a very good kicking game and again if Ashley-Cooper is at fullback then between him Barnes and Giteau they have great kicking options, especially with Barnes being right footed and Giteau being left.
Then possibly the best aspect of Australia play is their defence. I think they have an awesome workrate and seem to be a very difficult team to break down. In fact most of they tries we were able to score against them in this years Tri-Nations, came from first phase moves, where obviously their is more space. It is quite an attribute to have when the more the phases progress the better ones defence gets, and i believe generally that is the case with Australia.
Why then, you must be asking, did they come last in this years Tri-Nations, and capitulate in the final game against the All Blacks??
Simply put, i think this team have very young or inexperienced players in key positions.Coupled with the fact that they had to mix up their centre pairing regularly due to injury. I dont believe they are a team who brim with confidence yet, and in tight close games, they haven’t yet acquired the mental toughness to believe they can hang on to win, especially in the first two tests against NZ.
Robbie Deans will however get this right, and the more time they spend playing against other nations, other than NZ ans SA, they will grow and build in confidence, and the more times they have performances,as they did against the Boks in Brisbane, they better they will become. Australia will be a very real threat by the time the next world cup is here and the fact that the tournament is only “down the road” in New Zealand will definitely make them one of the favorites.
Next week i will write to you from Buenos Aires where i will share some views of my time spent with a group of coaches from Argentina and Uruguay.
all the best
GG

 

[Lee Grant]

Never trust a sport where wearing tight shorts is encouraged and you get a point for missing....

... and kicking a behind.


I kid you not but I was watching a news broadcast about 25 years ago; it came to the sports segment and the commentator said: " ...... kicked 4 behinds against the wind ..."

I doubled up in laughter and my wife asked what was so funny. It took me a good 5 minutes to explain everything about what a behind was in AFL to my missus (who had no clue, nor does she yet, the difference between any code of footie, and cricket) and she shook her head and walked away.

This is the same woman who walked into the TV room in 2000 whilst the boys and I were watching the Bledisloe match where, later, Eales kicked the winning goal, and said : "Who is that team in the all black jerseys?"

I'm serious.

And we are still married.

.

 

[HodgoBerro]

Wallabies Meet & Greet

Found this on http://www.vicrugby.com.au/

GET YOUR PHOTO TAKEN WITH THE BLEDISLOE CUP
Friday 30 July 2010
5:30pm - 6:30pm
Southbank Spillway

Meet members of the Qantas Wallabies

Hear first-hand accounts of great Bledisloe Cup battles

Ticket giveaways

Have your photo taken with the Bledisloe Cup trophy
*
And make sure you're there on Saturday night as the Wallabies look to draw first blood*in this year's trans-Tasman series.

Anywhere know where the Southbank Spillway is?

 

[TOCC]

im torn, i have tickets to this match but the whole weekend is a bit hectic, my plan is to fly down saturday morning and fly back sunday afternoon, but i then have to fly out again monday morning and wont be back for 6 weeks... did i mention i have a 2 hour drive two and from the airport.

On top of that, i reckon im looking at around a $700 weekend just to watch a game of rugby in a non-retangular stadium

 

[HodgoBerro]

... and kicking a behind.


I kid you not but I was watching a news broadcast about 25 years ago; it came to the sports segment and the commentator said: " ...... kicked 4 behinds against the wind ..."

I doubled up in laughter and my wife asked what was so funny. It took me a good 5 minutes to explain everything about what a behind was in AFL to my missus (who had no clue, nor does she yet, the difference between any code of footie, and cricket) and she shook her head and walked away.

This is the same woman who walked into the TV room in 2001 whilst the boys and I were watching the Bledisloe match where, later, Eales kicked the winning goal, and said : "Who is that team in the all black jerseys?"

I'm serious.

And we are still married.

.

Best post I've read in 2010!

 

[Brumby Jack]

And we are still married.

I salute you Lee Grant with such patience with the other half for lack of Rugby knowledge.
In these days of pre-nuptials and the like, surely a clause about Rugby knowledge and allowed watching times should be considered?

 

[disco]

I don't know what all the drama about the surface is, the deck is no worse than cardiff or Wembley.

Put in the old fashion long studs & they'll be fine.

 

[#1 Tah]

I don't know what all the drama about the surface is, the deck is no worse than cardiff or Wembley.

Put in the old fashion long studs & they'll be fine.

We cant afford an injury to The Cat and/or Ma'afu

 

[disco]

Ok forget Wembley then we've packed plenty of scrums @ Millenium stadium without drama.

 

[Lindommer]

I salute you Lee Grant with such patience with the other half for lack of Rugby knowledge. In these days of pre-nuptials and the like, surely a clause about Rugby knowledge and allowed watching times should be considered?

A possible top: my late mother, from good NZ stock, who brought three rugby-mad sons into the world, wondered why they needed a football to play rugby.

 

[HodgoBerro]

I salute you Lee Grant with such patience with the other half for lack of Rugby knowledge.
In these days of pre-nuptials and the like, surely a clause about Rugby knowledge and allowed watching times should be considered?

Lol, i now have the best "intro" for myself if i was that desperate.

"I'm single I love my rugby but I support the All Blacks"
*GUYS RUN AWAY*

On Saturday when i was at the Springboks game, I had the pleasure of meeting John Eales, he was very surprised to see a woman into rugby as I was and applauded me on my effort.

 

[Lee Grant]

In these days of pre-nuptials and the like, surely a clause about Rugby knowledge and allowed watching times should be considered?

Such a thing was never necessary in our household because my wife is a gem.

Once I was watching a replay of some rugby game during the lunch break in the cricket. My wife came into the study and looked at the TV and saw that I was watching the footie and asked me to do an errand. I said that I would go as soon as the game was over. I was confident that she would not twig that it was a recording. After all, there was a faint possibility that there was a live rugby game on in December somewhere in the world at lunch time in Oz.

She came in later and looked at the screen just as Ponting was doing one of his swivel pulls for four, and she asked if the game was nearly finished. Nearly, dear I said and she walked out warning me not to forget.

As I said - a gem.

.

 

[lily]

Is it just me or is anyone worried about having Gits at flyhalf. I hope I am embarrassed by this post at about 10.00pm on Saturday.