Wallabies Watch

[BDA]

No offence to Fardy (or carter for that matter) but he hasn't really stood out this season in what is a strong brumbies pack. Mowen has stood out. MMM has stood out. Smith has stood out. Mogg has stood out. Any players that haven't played for the wallabies in the last 2 years will need to make a big impression to get a run in Lions Series.

So far this season Fardy has looked the goods, but no better than the other brumbies forwards from where i sit.

 

[Athilnaur]

Whilst I have no doubts Lealo is exactly the sort of guy that will rise to the occassion and is destined to be a Wallaby in 2013, you can't really argue that he's already shown he has big match temperament.

But BH81 you are saying precisely that, he has shown you he is the sort of guy that will rise to the occasion. (Which I happen to agree with). My issue is that he hasn't been playing 10, hopefully that is about to change, but if so I feel for To'omua.

 

[Paradox]

Starting front row

Robbo/Moore/Palmer

Backup front row

Sio/TPN/Alexander

 

[RoffsChoice]

Backup front row

Sio/TPN/Alexander

Alexander/Fainga'a/Ryan is my bet. Or at least, my hope.

 

[Braveheart81]

If TPN is fit he'll be in the matchday 23.

Sio and Kimlin (as mentioned in the backrow thread) would be 100-1 shots to play against the Lions.

 

[Slim 293]

The new Wobs jersey............ return of the crest:

 

[p.Tah]

Not enamoured by it, but its not too bad. A bit Socceroo-ish

How many posts until someone demands the Adidas jersey makes a return?

 

[Scoey]

Did we have an Adidas Wallabies jersey at some stage?

And I like that the crest is back. What is a national jersey without a crest!?

 

[Slim 293]

Did we have an Adidas Wallabies jersey at some stage?

Yep, the 80's.........

 

[Train Without a Station]

How many posts until someone demands the Adidas jersey makes a return?

As long as it's not the fucking Reebok one...

 

[Scoey]

Haha! I actually have one of the Reebok ones. Never wear it because its horribly uncomfortable.
Thanks Slim, I didn't know that! I actually like those jerseys. From what p.Tah has said I take it they're quite popular?

 

[Brumbieman]

PS. Lealiifano has big match temperament? What, because he kicked a late penalty against the Bulls? Well how about we pick Bernard Foley as well? I'm a fan of Lilo but I can't see him bagging a run-on jersey for the Lions series. Bench at best IMO.
.

I cant think of at least 6 games he's bailed out the Brumbies at the last minute and provided the winning points, in his time with us.

 

[USARugger]

I can't agree with it, a poor lineout will cost you possession but a poor scrum will cost you penalties, potentially yellow cards and penalty tries.

It's also much harder to win a game without possession. Line outs can very easily climb to 3:1 or even 5:1 ratios with scrums in a test match, they produce far more possession than scrums do. The only time you see penalty tries and yellow cards are in extreme cases where a scrum is getting shredded. I think that this is a wild assumption on your part that by building the line out first we will somehow end up with a front row/lock combination that will get blown up on the pitch come scrum time. A huge amount of the tries scored at test level come directly within 1-5 phases off of a line out. The way I see it line outs generate 3-5x more possession for your team than literally anything else during a game (unless you cover the ball in grease pre-match), under the new laws it is much harder to strangle a team to death by kicking penalties with low possession figures. So, line out = possession, possession = scoring, scoring = winning. So, line out = winning. When systems are designed you design them on a platform constructed around the task it will need to perform the most often, not on extreme cases like that one time England beat our scrum up several years ago.

Go watch the Stormers/Crusaders game from this last round and you will see exactly what happens when you shut down the line out of another team.

 

[USARugger]

What my whole point is that its not the pass itself but all the other attributes that allow that pass to be so effective.

So what was the point of your original post, exactly? Everyone on here knows all of this. The discussion was about long passing (25+m) which actually even some Wallaby backs are very fucking bad at (Kurtley comes to mind, our old starting 10) not about the off ball runners or footwork. Obviously lines are important but the long pass is frequently used to get outside of defenses and that only works when the ball comes out at high speed and very flat. That is literally what the discussion was about so you're just off-topic with these comments. Not all the professional 10s can throw the ball flat over 25m at game pace.

 

[qwerty51]

I wasn't correlating a strong lineout with a weak scrum, just noting that a weak scrum cannot be tolerated at all compared to a weak lineout.

You noted the Stormers/Crusaders game as one where the lineout dominance by the Crusaders won them the game. Well it's actually the complete opposite. Late in the 2nd half the Crusaders had been attacking the Stormers' line for 10 minutes and couldn't break it down, they had all the possession in the world but no points to show for it. With 10 minutes to go, the Stormers finally turned the ball over and had a scrum feed on their 22. The Crusaders were up by 2 and they got a penalty from the scrum to make it a 5 point game. The Stormers then attacked the Crusaders line for the last 5 minutes getting numerous penalties but obviously could not kick them, they had to score a try and couldn't. Had the Crusaders not won a penalty from the scrum, the Stormers may very well have won the game.

I will always argue a competent scrum is more important than a functioning lineout due to penalties. Possession won't score you points, penalties will. RWC Quarter Final with Aus/SA will back this up, their lineout killed us and gave them plenty of possession yet they didn't win penalties from it. If our scrum got demolished like the lineout, we would've lost. The Waratahs won the game with something like 35% possession on the weekend, there was a stats that having the most possession lost you the game more times than not last year. The game is won on the scoreboard and a kick at goal is a definitive scoring opportunity if you have a very good goalkicker.

Rod Kafer said on the weekend that penalties from scrum should not be allowed to be kickable, completely agree.

 

[USARugger]

Both will lose you a game, but it's just more obvious when the ref is going whistle crazy at scrum time than it is when you're getting choked to death over the course of 80 minutes because you can't maintain possession.

 

[Groucho]

Alexander/Fainga'a/Ryan is my bet. Or at least, my hope.

Fainga'a over TPN? This isn't womens' rugby.

 

[Brumbieman]

I wasn't correlating a strong lineout with a weak scrum, just noting that a weak scrum cannot be tolerated at all compared to a weak lineout.

You noted the Stormers/Crusaders game as one where the lineout dominance by the Crusaders won them the game. Well it's actually the complete opposite. Late in the 2nd half the Crusaders had been attacking the Stormers' line for 10 minutes and couldn't break it down, they had all the possession in the world but no points to show for it. With 10 minutes to go, the Stormers finally turned the ball over and had a scrum feed on their 22. The Crusaders were up by 2 and they got a penalty from the scrum to make it a 5 point game. The Stormers then attacked the Crusaders line for the last 5 minutes getting numerous penalties but obviously could not kick them, they had to score a try and couldn't. Had the Crusaders not won a penalty from the scrum, the Stormers may very well have won the game.

I will always argue a competent scrum is more important than a functioning lineout due to penalties. Possession won't score you points, penalties will. RWC Quarter Final with Aus/SA will back this up, their lineout killed us and gave them plenty of possession yet they didn't win penalties from it. If our scrum got demolished like the lineout, we would've lost. The Waratahs won the game with something like 35% possession on the weekend, there was a stats that having the most possession lost you the game more times than not last year. The game is won on the scoreboard and a kick at goal is a definitive scoring opportunity if you have a very good goalkicker.

Rod Kafer said on the weekend that penalties from scrum should not be allowed to be kickable, completely agree.

I'd counter that and say that if you dominate the tackle, and the ensuing rucks, they'll never get near enough to win a scrum penalty. Dominant tacklers are just as important.

 

[USARugger]

I wasn't correlating a strong lineout with a weak scrum, just noting that a weak scrum cannot be tolerated at all compared to a weak lineout.

You noted the Stormers/Crusaders game as one where the lineout dominance by the Crusaders won them the game. Well it's actually the complete opposite. Late in the 2nd half the Crusaders had been attacking the Stormers' line for 10 minutes and couldn't break it down, they had all the possession in the world but no points to show for it. With 10 minutes to go, the Stormers finally turned the ball over and had a scrum feed on their 22. The Crusaders were up by 2 and they got a penalty from the scrum to make it a 5 point game. The Stormers then attacked the Crusaders line for the last 5 minutes getting numerous penalties but obviously could not kick them, they had to score a try and couldn't. Had the Crusaders not won a penalty from the scrum, the Stormers may very well have won the game.

I will always argue a competent scrum is more important than a functioning lineout due to penalties. Possession won't score you points, penalties will. RWC Quarter Final with Aus/SA will back this up, their lineout killed us and gave them plenty of possession yet they didn't win penalties from it. If our scrum got demolished like the lineout, we would've lost. The Waratahs won the game with something like 35% possession on the weekend, there was a stats that having the most possession lost you the game more times than not last year. The game is won on the scoreboard and a kick at goal is a definitive scoring opportunity if you have a very good goalkicker.

Rod Kafer said on the weekend that penalties from scrum should not be allowed to be kickable, completely agree.

It was also essentially the Crusader B-side with the injuries/sabbaticals they are dealing with playing the Stormers starting lineup. The lack of tries scored comes down to the Crusaders missing three players which their attack literally rotates around (Carter/Read/McCaw) playing against one of the more defensively-oriented Super Rugby teams who were also playing in their fortress. I'll re-watch the footage later but I'm pretty sure the Crusaders were only inside the Stormer's 22 because of their line out ascendancy. You may be putting the chicken before the egg here a little bit. You don't get into the position to kick many scrum penalties without a good line out, or a kicker who can kick 50+m.

You're forgetting that line outs don't only dictate possession, they can also dictate territory which is exactly what happened to the Stormers and that is the reason why the Crusaders were even in position to be kicking scrum penalties.

It's important for every piece of the machine to be functioning well but in a team where we had issues with our line out last year, have since lost our line out caller and where there are some pretty huge question marks as to who will even be the actual line out operator/jumpers I think the line out is absolutely the foundation the forward selections should be built on.

You're also conveniently forgetting every single penalty called on the defensive team, which is only possible if you are the team in possession. I'd reckon these outweigh the number of points kicked from scrum penalties.

 

[Scoey]

I wasn't correlating a strong lineout with a weak scrum, just noting that a weak scrum cannot be tolerated at all compared to a weak lineout. <snip>

I will always argue a competent scrum is more important than a functioning lineout due to penalties. Possession won't score you points, penalties will. RWC Quarter Final with Aus/SA will back this up, their lineout killed us and gave them plenty of possession yet they didn't win penalties from it..

That game was the exception to the rule I feel and this was reflected in all of the post match commentary. How can a team that dominated possession and territory lose a game - unthinkable.

I will give you an example where a dominant scrum was worth absolutely squat. Reds vs Tahs at Suncorp a couple of years back. The Reds scrum (according to most Tahs fans and Phil Waugh) was the weaker scrum yet they couldn't use this advantage to beat the Reds or the Reds won despite of this.

Anyway, the original adage was about line outs, not scrums. You win the line out, you win the game. I think this focus has been lost somewhere along the line.

Nothing to do with weaknesses in a team. The adage is about strengths. It's almost as if the line out is an after thought sometimes.