Waratahs v Blues. Sydney.

[TheRiddler]

As per WJs initial challenge, here were the things I wanted to see in the game, together with my thoughts.

1. Burgess delivers quick, clean ball from the rick and aimed at the receivers breadbasket. He does not fuck about for 30 seconds so that the Blues can get their defence organised and then throw a pass that has to be collected above the head or off the ground. Delivered in spades and when Holmes came on, the service dropped a fair bit.
2. The fullback actually attacks and has the ability to a) beat his man b) offload to whoever is off his shoulder or c) put in a skillful tactical kick that puts real pressure on the Blues. Delivered very well - but not sure how long the members can keep holding their breath everytime either a high ball or a 100kg+ opponent comes towards Kurtley (although I think it was Mitchell that got flattened for Ranger's try.)
3. Benn Robinson keeps his bind up at scrum time. He's been a bit of a naughty boy with that recently Whilst the Tahs scrum is effective, I think that FatCat is not at the peak of his game. Something about body language concerns me. He also missed a couple of 1:1 tackles that is most unlike him. Sincerely hope he isnt distracted with thoughts of moving to the Rebels.
4. There are less than 5 mid-field bombs from the Tahs Much better but sill needs a lot of work.
5. We have some back line moves that are a tad more effective than a one-off pass or the inside ball. Achieved
6. The backline moves requested in 5. are executed properly and timed to perfection. Achieved - most of the time
7. The defensive line holds its shape and continues the generally good job its been doing. Ahem. Move along. Nothing to see here.

All in all I would give it a 6.5/10. Hopefully during the week, someone will teach the Tahs, particularly the backs, that trying to tackle a bloke around the tits is a pretty futile exercise most of the time. Waist or lower chaps, waist or lower.

 

[waratahjesus]

As per WJs initial challenge, here were the things I wanted to see in the game, together with my thoughts.

1. Burgess delivers quick, clean ball from the rick and aimed at the receivers breadbasket. He does not fuck about for 30 seconds so that the Blues can get their defence organised and then throw a pass that has to be collected above the head or off the ground. Delivered in spades and when Holmes came on, the service dropped a fair bit.
2. The fullback actually attacks and has the ability to a) beat his man b) offload to whoever is off his shoulder or c) put in a skillful tactical kick that puts real pressure on the Blues. Delivered very well - but not sure how long the members can keep holding their breath everytime either a high ball or a 100kg+ opponent comes towards Kurtley (although I think it was Mitchell that got flattened for Ranger's try.)
3. Benn Robinson keeps his bind up at scrum time. He's been a bit of a naughty boy with that recently Whilst the Tahs scrum is effective, I think that FatCat is not at the peak of his game. Something about body language concerns me. He also missed a couple of 1:1 tackles that is most unlike him. Sincerely hope he isnt distracted with thoughts of moving to the Rebels.
4. There are less than 5 mid-field bombs from the Tahs Much better but sill needs a lot of work.
5. We have some back line moves that are a tad more effective than a one-off pass or the inside ball. Achieved
6. The backline moves requested in 5. are executed properly and timed to perfection. Achieved - most of the time
7. The defensive line holds its shape and continues the generally good job its been doing. Ahem. Move along. Nothing to see here.

All in all I would give it a 6.5/10. Hopefully during the week, someone will teach the Tahs, particularly the backs, that trying to tackle a bloke around the tits is a pretty futile exercise most of the time. Waist or lower chaps, waist or lower.

well said.
after watching a bit of the replay, the defence in tight was a worry, bt out wide where i thought the blues had a consistant overlap, was that the game plan? it seems they were trying to get them to go wide and run them out of space, if so, i havnt watched enough and i was pissed last night, did it actually work, it seems to but that said it created the opportunity for plenty of trys if the blues hadnt popped there load so mahy times

 

[Aussie D]

Great to see the 'tahs didn't need to rely on Waugh to close out a tight game. Some excellent defence and reading of the play in the last 10 minutes sure did save their collective behinds.

 

[Hawko]

Some good things already mentioned that I want to endorse:

The AR's giving clear advice on the run to the ref about infringements. It doesn't happen enough! Now if they could pick up more on off-sides and forward passes we would be putting some fairness back in.

The All Blacks scrum leading up to the WC without Hayman is looking seriously sick. Tialata and Afoa don't look like AB props this year and the Myth looks like a miss. 3N will be very interesting whoever we play across the front row.

We stopped having a go in the middle 40 mins and started kicking and that's what let the Blues get a sniff. We need to keep our foot on the gas the whole game.

 

[JJJ]

I didn't see all of the match, but it's possible they're tackling a bit high in an attempt to keep the ball off the deck to give themselves a chance to wrestle the ball away from the carrier. As soon as the tackled player hits the deck the tackler has to release, but if they can keep them up they can try to rip the ball. Just a thought.

 

[Sully]

My thoughts -
Much better to watch Still using the forward power but letting the backs have a run.

Barnes form is a real worry

Beale better in defense than I expected. Although I wasn't expecting much.

Was really worried when Waugh and co went off but was surprised how well the bench stood up.

Caldwell! WTF penalty magnet.

Halengahu has to stay at 5/8

 

[chief]

Barnes form is not becoming form anymore, its becoming just bad play.

 

[Pfitzy]

I didn't see all of the match, but it's possible they're tackling a bit high in an attempt to keep the ball off the deck

It was more likely to prevent the Blues' offload game, which, as a lot of them are Islanders, is where they can make some serious metres. Shmoo's poor tackle on Wulf before the first try is a direct result of this, and Shmoo not trusting the cover defence. The simple thing about defence is if you tackle one bloke, and everyone else tackles one bloke, then there should be no blokes left to score tries.

 

[Lee Grant]

Beale better in defense than I expected. Although I wasn't expecting much.

Was really worried when Waugh and co went off but was surprised how well the bench stood up.

Caldwell! WTF penalty magnet.

Halengahu has to stay at 5/8

All good points.

• Beale has been having a go this year at tackling and going in low. He had shown more interest on the tour of the RSA last year and being on the EOYT under Deans probably did him no harm. Last night he stopped Toeava cold in the first half but got palmed off by Ice in the 2nd half. Because he had shown a bit of ticker this season I put that down to trying to stop the ball. He should have gone low driving in and trusted his team mates to stop the pill.

He didn't look confident as a custodian but I'd give him another go or two. If the Tahs had a better spare winger I might have given Turner a stint at 15 earlier, but it is not the case.

• Caldwell I wondered who the nutter was for a while and realised it was Ducker. He got pinged for playing fetcher a couple of times without regard for the correct observance of the tackle law, and hammered some poor bugger in a tackle that was just a hair on the side of legality. In hindsight and knowing the Tahs had won I think his passion was admirable. He obviously wanted to have a crack.

If I have had a criticism of Caldwell in the past that he has been too vanilla, too steady Eddie. It's good to see a bit of Mad Max. As NTA indicated in another thread: Caldwell should get a start next week and young Douglas get a rest on the bench. We may get Thunderdome.

• Halangahu It's good to see recognition of quiet achiever Hangers, but his quality is getting bleeding obvious even to non-Tahs tragics. People couldn't work out why he was given a one year contract and why he accepted it when had a better money offer from Ulster. But he backed himself and indicated that if he couldn't nail down the Tahs 10 jersey in 2010 he would look elsewhere.

He's stopped looking.

 

[Scotty]

Pretty sure that the only reason that the Tahs won was due to Waugh's captaincy. Glad he was there at the end. :fishing

 

[mark_s]

The turner try was a 14 point turn around, but the blues earlie try should have eben disallowed as Barnes was taken out and he was almost certain to tackle the blues player (Afoa?).

go back and watch the tape. The guy ran into barnes (who was very close to him) and the feel into each other. it's a contact sport. that's not being taken. phil kearns is a fucking dickhead sometimes.

I'll have to do that Louie as I only saw it live and on replay at the ground. Not sure why you have brought Kearns into this???

Even leaving that decision aside, there was the unpunished late hit on Barnes (I think) after he kicked it, a massive forward pass from the blues in their own 22 early in the game when we had them on the rack plus there was alot of dubious obstruction moves. One of mealmu's throws went behind the blues lineout yet play on was called although his later throw (which was even worse as it went behind the tahs jumpers) was correctly called.

In fact in my view, the tahs only really got back into the game in the 65th min once the ref starting calling obstruction against the blues. There were two key peanlties there that really slowed the blues momentum down.

 

[Lee Grant]

I thought the superiority of the Tahs bench came through and helped with the Tahs comeback.

Brett should have stayed on. Sure, he threw a no-look pass to the crowd once but he was decent compared to young Kirkpatrick who did those crook kicks for touch at the end. Scrummie Moa was one of the best players for the Tahs when he came on for the Blues. Yarda, Yarda.

Caldwell was a bit of an idiot but he showed a bit of mongrel at least which is more than their subs displayed.

The Tahs finished strongly and the Blues didn't and for the same reason as against the Reds - a better bench.

Geez, watching the replays:
- That double obstruction when Paul Williams made his break was pretty funny, but wouldn't have been had it been missed.

- It was a nice tackle on Barnes when they made a good break down touch, but the tackler had just passed the ball and fell into the tackle of Barnes who was taken out. Otherwise it was legal - he used arms.

 

[mark_s]

I thought the superiority of the Tahs bench came through and helped with the Tahs comeback.

Yep, I said this in my post straight after the game. My thinking underlying my comment this morning was that the obstruction penalties provided us with a circuit breaker at the time and partly deflated the momentum the blues had.

So thats 2 games that the tahs bench has won us this year. Its the difference between Hickey being on death row and having mixed support.

Was the caldwell penalty fair? It looked harsh live, but those calls are hard to see from a distance and the game moved on too quickly to pay close attention to the replay.

 

[PhucNgo]

Baxter CAN scrum, Baxter CAN scrum....

Not at international level. He's been exposed. Please review history. The refs are onto him as well which doesn't help.

You can say it:

Baxter CAN'T scrum at international level, Baxter CAN'T scrum at international level..

If you want to "review" history, lets use some "facts". The only guy he has trouble with has been Woodcock, no other LHP has really troubled him for a few years.

Appeared to me that Woodcock was the one in trouble last Saturday.

 

[Lee Grant]

So thats 2 games that the tahs bench has won us this year. Its the difference between Hickey being on death row and having mixed support.

Was the caldwell penalty fair? It looked harsh live, but those calls are hard to see from a distance and the game moved on too quickly to pay close attention to the replay.

The first one was fair. When I watched my recording you could see that he tackled a player, and used him to attempt to get to his feet which he didn't really succeed in doing anyway, as he still had some weight on one hand when he heard the music.

I thought the 2nd one was fair at the ground, but I was wrong. Mowen tackled Wulf and Caldwell did the fetching. He had hands in way before anyone on their feet was at the tackle - so no ruck. You have to suspect Wulf of holding on otherwise Ducker had time to tug the ball out immediately, but couldn't. When the cleanout came several obvious frames later contact was made over the ball to form a ruck, but the clarification ruling last year allows him to continue to tug the ball out anyway.

The ref's comments were not completely clear to my old ears but I think he said: "If you assist the tackler you must let him go." Anybody got a link on that latest wrinkle?

Yeah it's the 2nd time the bench has got us home but they didn't have a big effect in the Sharks match. Well, apart from Beale's little stint. It was good to win a tight game at the end with Waugh on the bench. It hasn't been good to rely on one player so much.

 

[PhucNgo]

The turner try was a 14 point turn around, but the blues earlie try should have eben disallowed as Barnes was taken out and he was almost certain to tackle the blues player (Afoa?).

go back and watch the tape. The guy ran into barnes (who was very close to him) and the feel into each other. it's a contact sport. that's not being taken. phil kearns is a fucking dickhead sometimes.

I think there are still laws about blokes doing this sort of things outside of public toilets. But either way it looked to me that the Blues player was doing all of the feeling, more like groping.

BTW, loved the crack about Barnes' sook face. Does it better than most four year olds.

 

[PhucNgo]

Yeah, it looked worse on replay than real time. At the time it just looked like players all colliding rather than intent. Kearns is THE most biased commentator out there. But at least he admits it!

Cyclo, do i need to point out the logical inconsistency here?

 

[Newb]

- That double obstruction when Paul Williams made his break was pretty funny, but wouldn't have been had it been missed.

it was like watching the parting of the red sea by way of a couple of dams

and can one not be knowingly biased?

 

[PhucNgo]

2) That try of TPN's. Good defensive effort by Wulf no doubt, but just watching the big fella at full speed, with his left arm swinging back and forth like a track sprinter, is magic. MAGIC!

This guy wants the Wallabies no. 2 jersey so badly you can smell it. If only we had a few more like him.

 

[PhucNgo]

I thought the superiority of the Tahs bench came through and helped with the Tahs comeback.

Brett should have stayed on. Sure, he threw a no-look pass to the crowd once but he was decent compared to young Kirkpatrick who did those crook kicks for touch at the end. Scrummie Moa was one of the best players for the Tahs when he came on for the Blues. Yarda, Yarda.

Caldwell was a bit of an idiot but he showed a bit of mongrel at least which is more than their subs displayed.

The Tahs finished strongly and the Blues didn't and for the same reason as against the Reds - a better bench.

Geez, watching the replays:
- That double obstruction when Paul Williams made his break was pretty funny, but wouldn't have been had it been missed.

- It was a nice tackle on Barnes when they made a good break down touch, but the tackler had just passed the ball and fell into the tackle of Barnes who was taken out. Otherwise it was legal - he used arms.

He was obviously in a bit of pain for most of the second half, you could see it in his jogging action while returning to position from place kicks. Something wrong with his back.