Waratahs v Stormers, rd 13 Super Rugby 2013

[Lindommer]

The Tahs are up against the Stormers next Saturday evening, we'll be a bit knackered after our African sojourn and the Stormers should be breathing fire after their close loss to the Blues. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last Super game at Moore Park this year and the Tahs need our support, PUT EVERYTHING ELSE ASIDE AND BE AT THE SFS NEXT SATURDAY NIGHT.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

After tonights try festival, there should be a few more at Moore Park than just the usual crowd.

 

[topo]

I'll be there. But I'm just one of the usual crowd. Thoroughly enjoying New Orleans Jazz Fest this week. Put it on your bucket list. Have to wait until I get home to watch the Kings game, sounds like its worth a look.

 

[fatprop]

I think the Stormers defence will really test their resolve, it was brutal

 

[qwerty51]

Yep, they didn't concede a try against the Blues at Eden Park, really impressive stuff. They did lack discipline however. They'll need to replicate the Chiefs performance and dominate the collisions to win this one.

 

[Rassie]

Waratahs game is something that you do not want to play against the South African sides. They are adventurous inside their own half and SA sides play territorial and put pressure on teams with the defense and try to force them making mistakes.

For Stormers. They are a side once they go behind by 10 points or so they struggle to catch up and fall short most of the time. One got to ask what is Coetzee's job exactly at the Stormers? He seems to be out of his depth and fail on the tactics side every time when its knock out time.

And this is what I am talking about when I mention we always fight among ourselves and not work together and put the national team first.

Western Province had a running battle with former Springboks coach Peter de Villiers to prevent Nienaber linking up with the national team.

Province’s reasoning was that if Nienaber was sharing trade secrets with test players, then they would take what were Stormers secrets to other franchises.

 

[Hawko]

I'll be there. But I'm just one of the usual crowd. Thoroughly enjoying New Orleans Jazz Fest this week. Put it on your bucket list. Have to wait until I get home to watch the Kings game, sounds like its worth a look.

Worth a look? Think early-80's Randwick with the Ellas in their prime. Almost made up for the whole of last year. (I did say almost.)

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Christ Hawko you are an optimist. If my name was Betty Windsor last year would be annus horriblus and almost nothing short of winning lotto would make up for how the Tahs performed.

 

[Hawko]

Waratahs game is something that you do not want to play against the South African sides. They are adventurous inside their own half and SA sides play territorial and put pressure on teams with the defense and try to force them making mistakes.

Its the eternal argument. Will a tight defense always throttle a running attack? Answer: It depends on the quality of the attack. There's been much criticism on the site about how terrible the King's defense was. But they seemed to do OK against other sides, particularly OZ sides. And maybe they weren't at their best, but the truth was they played like they were shell-shocked. The only team that played like that against them before was the Chiefs - and the Chiefs did quite a good demolition job on them too.

I agree you can beat the Stormers by bottling them up, getting in front so that they have to play catch-up. Mostly when this happens they don't have a clue how to do it. BUT, its not the only way to beat the Stormers. They can be beaten with running backline play and good forward control like we saw on Saturday night. Sure it won't be 72-10 again, the Stormers are a better team than that. But the ensemble back play we saw on Saturday will be an enormous headache to any team that we play IF we can play with the precision and speed that we did. If we'd played like that against the Bulls despite the lineouts and the goal kicking we would have won convincingly. Repeatability of performance will be the key, but every Super coach who has a game upcoming will spend some worrying hours with that game tape trying to figure out how to devise a defensive system that will work.

The Waratahs don't have to change their gameplan to beat SA sides, they have to play the way they did on Saturday - with power, precision and speed. The Chiefs don't play territory to beat SA sides and they are 3W1L against them this season. Play the Tahs gameplan well and every team will have nightmares. My fear is that we do not yet have the consistency to play this way week after week. We will see on Saturday.

 

[Blue]

Don't commit too many to the ruck. Wait for the one out fattie runners ad make sure you stop them.

That's how to beat the Stormers. They do nothing else in attack but bash it up. You can mix a Martini when they start a move, drink it, mix a second, take out the rubbish and they will be in phase 27 on the 22.

 

[PaarlBok]

Cant see the Stormers getting close in this one. Waratahs by 30

 

[cyclopath]

Cant see the Stormers getting close in this one. Waratahs by 30

You're fooling no-one, boet!

 

[PaarlBok]

You're fooling no-one, boet!

Putting 72 points up against the Kings, Waratahs will murder us at home.

 

[Ruggo]

Tahs got to be real patient and don't lose faith in the game plan. Go and get 'em.

 

[bloodred]

Tahs got to be real patient and don't lose faith in the game plan. Go and get 'em.

Agree Ruggo, but it certainly won't be easy. I would love to see them do OK after the early signs are beginning to show, as long as they don't catch the Reds

 

[Hawko]

The Tahs could try to do what the Reds did to the Stormers a couple of years ago - kick to the corners and bottle them up. But I hope they don't try. They need to continue their gameplan from the last couple of weeks with a few tweaks:

• The Stormers will try to kick for field position and given Izzy's form they'll probably try to put it out. The wingers should do everything they can to take a quick lineout because a full lineout won't be better than a 50-50 option.
• The ensemble back play should not be abandoned, but as the Stormers will likely fan out to defend, this is the week for the forwards to do some pick and driving with popped passes between inter-linking runners. As soon as we can get a half break, that's the time to release the backs quickly, when defenders will be back-pedalling to get onside.
• We need to vary the lineout this week - throws to 1, mix it up a lot, be unpredictable. And we need to minimise lineouts as much as possible until we can get it back on track.
• If we can we should go 5:2 with the bench and use the forward bench early to minimise the impact of jetlag. I would pick Ulugia, Ryan, Chapman, Skelton and McCutcheon. Skelton would get 10 minutes, all the others 20+.
• Backline choices now get very interesting. Barnes and Mitchell are both available. With a 5:2 bench I think I would try to get 80 from McKibbin and use Barnes as an emergency halfback/inside back replacement, start Mitchell and Crawford on the wings with Volavola as the other back on the bench.
• We should target their scrum, especially in the first half, to try and get domination there that hopefully will translate to penalties.
• Lastly we need to make the defensive rucks a dogfight, looking for turnovers through counter-rucking. We've got big boppa's in our pack and we need to use them, especially up till the 60 minute mark when the lighter replacements come on.

The Stormers are the best credentialled SA team, but they have had some injuries and poor coaching. Their coaching team really needs a cleanout. But, they will be hurting after losing to the Blues despite scoring two tries to nil and will be looking to revenge themselves on someone. I expect a massively physical game and a very close result.

 

[Braveheart81]

I can't imagine us going with no halfback reserve. Lucas will keep his bench spot.

I think Barnes will be a straight swap for Volavola on the bench. Mitchell could easily be given another week's rest given that Betham and Crawford were superb and Kingston didn't get a lot of opportunity. Otherwise Mitchell could take the place of Kingston.

I'm guessing Skelton will get left out.

 

[qwerty51]

I'd like to see Skelton vs Etzebeth.

 

[Hawko]

I can't imagine us going with no halfback reserve. Lucas will keep his bench spot.

I think Barnes will be a straight swap for Volavola on the bench. Mitchell could easily be given another week's rest given that Betham and Crawford were superb and Kingston didn't get a lot of opportunity. Otherwise Mitchell could take the place of Kingston.

I'm guessing Skelton will get left out.

You're probably right on Lucas, but it slows Volavola's learning curve if Barnes takes his spot. I'd take Mitchell for his long left foot kicking to compliment Crawford's right foot kick (keeping the ball in play) and his big match experience.

You are probably right on Skelton but those who wanted him on the bench last week (not just me) were proven right. He could have made his debut, got 20-30 minutes and if he made any mistakes then it would not have affected the outcome. Now I think he'll have to make his debut as a full game with Chapman when Timani and Douglas get pulled away to the Lions squad. That will be substantially less than ideal.

 

[Braveheart81]

You're probably right on Lucas, but it slows Volavola's learning curve if Barnes takes his spot. I'd take Mitchell for his long left foot kicking to compliment Crawford's right foot kick (keeping the ball in play) and his big match experience.

You are probably right on Skelton but those who wanted him on the bench last week (not just me) were proven right. He could have made his debut, got 20-30 minutes and if he made any mistakes then it would not have affected the outcome. Now I think he'll have to make his debut as a full game with Chapman when Timani and Douglas get pulled away to the Lions squad. That will be substantially less than ideal.

I agree with you on Skelton. Last week was a golden opportunity to give him a run. In Cheika's defence that game could have easily been much closer had the Kings replicated some of their earlier season form.

I doubt we can get away with playing 5 forwards on the bench this week. The only way I can see it happening is if the backs are Barns and Lucas and Barnes covers 10-13 and 15 and if we need a wing, Folau moves there. If we needed a 13, you could potentially throw Folau in the deepend and see how he goes at 13.

The other option with a 4-3 bench would be for Barnes to replace Kingston and Volavola to keep his spot. I'd be more surprised if that happens though.