Wallabies v France, Paris, Sun 6th Nov 7am AEDT

[Dismal Pillock]

Found myself rooting HARD for the aussie boofheads due to the biased pommy dickhead commentator blowing smoke all over France

"France are starting to purr!" "This is what they can do!". Yeah but they kind of werent were they you blind fuckwit. They pottered around like a fairly uncoached rabble only to get bailed out by whatever pair of plonkers fell off Penaud at the death.

Tough crowd in this thread. 9th ranked team playing Worlds Greatest Team at home and they really should have won it

That Wobs end-to-end try summoned the 03 Blues Spirit of Rupeni, King Carlos and J.Rok.

 

[Drew]

Agree Viking but the player must have enough basic skills and headroom to warrant additional time. Holloway has always had a good skill set but stuck in the 2nd row, his back-row skills have rarely been able to show.

I personally think his move to lock has helped his game. He always possessed the skill set, but early in his career at 8 he would drift in and out of games. there was no doubt he was talented, but at lock it has forced him to do more of the graft work and generally be more involved in all aspects of the game. Either way, happy to see him perform at test level.

 

[Dismal Pillock]

I thought both french trys were not trys. The last one was a forward pass from a stationary palyer. The first was after a clear knock on and then looked held up

Agreeing with Shiggins might indicate severe brain issues located in the head area but I thought Waco Jaco went full Jim Jones on the Kool-Aid missing that knock-on.

 

[Shiggins]

Agreeing with Shiggins might indicate severe brain issues located in the head area but I thought Waco Jaco went full Jim Jones on the Kool-Aid missing that knock-on.

They didn't even seem to check it. Was odd but shit happens

 

[LeCheese]

"France are starting to purr!" "This is what they can do!". Yeah but they kind of werent were they you blind fuckwit. They pottered around like a fairly uncoached rabble only to get bailed out by whatever pair of plonkers fell off Penaud at the death.

Tough crowd in this thread. 9th ranked team playing Worlds Greatest Team at home and they really should have won it

The Wallabies didn't play well enough to almost win; France played poorly enough to almost lose

 

[LeCheese]

They didn't even seem to check it. Was odd but shit happens

The double whistle blow and bit of confusion before halftime makes it seem like they checked it and were going to officially review, but the conversion had already been taken. Should've been quicker

 

[Shiggins]

The double whistle blow and bit of confusion before halftime makes it seem like they checked it and were going to officially review, but the conversion had already been taken. Should've been quicker

Under the new laws it doesn't matter if the kick is taken. They can still check

I was more surprised by the penalties we got for not rolling away and that offside one when France did a pick and drive when a Wallabies player was running back inside and they didn't even get close to each other.
Meanwhile France were sealing off their ball at every other breakdown, cleaning out from the side and hands all over the ball when not supporting body weight.

Wallabies could learn and play to the whistle but when they do that they get pinged so not sure what they can do.

 

[Rugby follower]

Rennie needs to stop messing around with the team. It took forever for Jock to get a game and to show he is international standard. Rennie needs to keep on playing him there. He can’t keep on rotating the 9’s, it makes no sense. If White is the best play him there and have Tate off the bench. Foley needs to be put out to pasture and stick with one of the young 10’s, Noah is the obvious one.

 

[hifflepiff]

that's my issue? Why are we bringing a 33 year old who we still need to iron out his mistakes???? Let's invest in the young kid who has showed some promise and work with him to iron out his mistakes?

Imo Foley is atm the best 10 available (maybe Quade if he can stop getting injured), and with a World Cup next year we need to be picking our best players now to get them settled in.

Lolesio, Donaldson, Edmed, Gordon, Harrison etc are all potentially great players, but we don't have time for them to hit their straps (or not) in the few games we have left. After the WC, absolutely.

 

[molman]

Molman, This is international rugby, not park footie. Everyone has to be able to attack the breakdown and understand supporting the runner or lose the ball. It ain't scientific it's bloody fundamental.

No need for the patronising tone stillmissit.

I was merely contending that I didn't feel that 'beaten up' was the right word for our beakdown work against the French in this game. It's not so much a question of physicality but of technique. They have an array of players who are international quality onballers coupled with excellent ruck security. We do not have players who are able to attack the ruck with the same degree of accuracy or consistency at this level, but to be fair the French excel in this area, consistently winning more rucks against other top tier nations (as seen across the 6 Nations).

In the Scotland game we were beaten up, but that wont show in the general stats as the Scots didn't necessarily win the rucks but rather slowed down our forward momentum and killed the quality of ball, stifling attack and the pace of the game.

Even if you look at teams like Ireland who are extremely organised in their approach to their ruck work and supporting players, even they struggle to match the French who generally win 95%+ of their rucks.

Some of our issues aren't even those of our supporting players, but that of the tackled player. How they're entering a tackle, presenting the ball, their decision marking about where they go into contact / hit the defensive line. The turned over ball by Campbell is a prime example that leads to unnecessary pressure on a team that is likely fatiguing after making significantly more tackles.

 

[hifflepiff]

Skelton looked great, got over the gainline consistently, made his cleanouts and was a menace at the maul. Should definitely get 60-80 min v Italy.

Campbell also looked comfortable, but his size still worries me. Particularly with his upright running style, I worry teams like South Africa and England will look to isolate and hold him up. Deserves another start though.

Ikitau was fucking excellent.

 

[Silverado]

Rennie needs to stop messing around with the team. It took forever for Jock to get a game and to show he is international standard. Rennie needs to keep on playing him there. He can’t keep on rotating the 9’s, it makes no sense. If White is the best play him there and have Tate off the bench. Foley needs to be put out to pasture and stick with one of the young 10’s, Noah is the obvious one.

Noah hasn't made himself the obvious one, but agree Foley is not the long term option and one of the several options needs to be given a chance

 

[molman]

I think Hooper is losing his effectiveness. He really is a step down this season. He seems to be working hard and trying hard but just doesn't have the same impact anymore.

I'd rather go all out attack and bring in Samu or start McReight as his turnovers would be very handy and even he has shown this season to be more industrious then Hooper on attack.

He's definitely not at his best atm, but even so Hooper did more tackling in this game than any other player. He did slide off a couple but usually such that he slowed the attacked for another defender. Hooper brings a consistency and level of effort that you'd love to see across the team.

 

[dru]

If the plan was always to use Hodge to replace Foley, why not Lolesio?

Jock was working from first receiver a fair bit. Hodge for his boot - not that that it panned out well.

 

[KiwiM]

A lot of encouraging signs for the Wallabies with a lot of their top 23 not available.

Wonderful game of rugby.

The game management before halftime was horrendous but on the other hand what a try to Foketi.

 

[dru]

Yeah our lineout had some misses all game. We had some dumb plays.. we deserved to win.

But it was better then I thought we would do.

Campbell was great on debut.
Thor did great starting
2nd row was really good Skelton included..
Our breakdown was crap.
Tate should be in the team.

Well now on to next week.

Before the entry of Fainga'a I thought our line out right up there with the French. Huge performance. Much like our starting scrum. Such a difference to be fronting up to a test where the set piece is up to the job. Our line out was never forced to shallow easier throws. Our mauls always set deep. Barring some hands on the jumper that I think other refs may have called, the line out was under Wallaby control on our own throw.

Not just Fainga'a though, he took one of those tricky-dick calls with everyone shuffling like headless chooks and of course he was dealing with Skelton in the line which made it easier for the French to pick the call. But Fainga'a was responsible for two key throws that had major game impact.

 

[Drew]

Noah hasn't made himself the obvious one, but agree Foley is not the long term option and one of the several options needs to be given a chance

If DR saw Lolesio as the second best option at 5/8 he should’ve given him a run in Aus A. We seem to be painting ourselves into a corner for this RWC of hoping QC (Quade Cooper) comes good or ‘Nard as a stopgap. Would’ve rather have seen a bit of faith put in any of the young 10s after QC (Quade Cooper) got injured. I’d have had Lolesio first up as he’s played a few tests already, but now it’s getting too late…

 

[rodha]

Foketi ie becoming one of my favorite players now. I feel like he is just built for test rugby, he thrives on the pace and physicality of it. He has a nack of making a turnover which is much needed in the current squad.

The Wallabies always perform better without the lightweight Paisami in the midfield.

 

[rodha]

Campbell is the same body shape and style of player as Ben Smith. Just needed to go low, although his winger should have made that first up tackle.

I thought a lot of individuals had good games, Tupou and Slipper, all three locks, Valetini, Foketi and Ikitau. The breakdown work and general discipline is just so poor.

Not quite they are both 186cm, Ben Smith 97kg, Campbell 91kg.

 

[dru]

A lot of discussion on individual errors as the key take away on this game. If we had some way peeked a point over France we'd all be talking differently.

As a team a couple of things still frustrate:-
x we still finish out each half (not just to the final whistle) no way switched on enough.
x the French set up this game in the first stanza by taking 3 after 3 each time they were in our half, simply relying on the Wallabies to be penalised. We were much better with our discipline, but still need to do better.

There were some fabulous performances out there I'm going to hold on to them. That coast to coast try was a thing of rugby beauty. I thought our starting set piece seriously stepped up for this game. Scrum petered out once the bench was emptied though we were impacted by injuries. The line out had the predictable issues once we had Fainga'a and Skelton out there. There will be a way to solve this, but we didn't see it today. I thought our ruck work was much better though not much jackling. Maybe due to Peyper? Our maul is starting to be dominant at test level. Backs had some silky smooth moments. While I agree with the Wright concerns, on the whole I think the back three was OK. Better than many tests earlier in the year.

Skelton showed what he can bring, in patches largely when he was allowed to (when we backed off the kicking duel and looked to pack go forward). It's a huge call I think to continue with a bloke in such a key role, that has such impact on team selections, when he is not available other than at his and his club's convenience. But we've seen enough to keep working with it. The French were always going to be stronger in the kicking/territory game, though we held onto it better than I thought we would. At the end though we could have transitioned more consistently to "up the guts and at 'em" with Skelton, Fainga'a, Samu etc. When it happened the gain line line was impressive.

I'm not agreeing with fans suggesting that the team has shown no growth under Rennie. Whether that improvement is enough to satisfy is a bit different but I thought the Wallabies were a much better team than earlier in the season.

OK boys, let's not fall off the wagon, the Azurri must be defeated.