Where did we go wrong? Wallaby Recovery thread.

[Inside Shoulder]

Did I see Hooper pack at 8 on one of our feeds towards the end?

Maybe Link is toying with this on our attacking scrums.

I think you may have and it was a turnover or some stuff up at the base.
Lilo was really the only bloke in the backs who did his reputation no harm and maybe some good.
I am a huge fan of AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper), and a huge critic of speculative passes, but somewhere between his breaks that end in him going to ground and the Mogg one hander inside to no one there is a happy medium that we need to find. You don't break the AB's line too often and when you do you need to capitalise.
Scrum was good - it seemed to me that we had the better of them. I would even venture that Woodcock seems to struggle with the new laws - losing his bind at least once and still dipping on the "hit". No doubt the darkness will address that in double quick time if I'm right.

 

[fatprop]

We were beaten in the forwards as usual, our clean out was inaccurate so we "spent" more units to get slower ball

To'omua played too deep, didn't take the line on and just played pass the parcel

And the then after we did nothing for a while but go side ways in attack, we were beaten in transition

 

[Hardtackle]

The AIG's proved again how efficient they are at converting turn over ball into points. This and spoiling in the rucks are their biggest strengths. Our scrum went ok. Simmons was good - I thought that the counter ruck he got penalised for was legit. MMM did 4/5ths of fuck all.

Until the points against started piling up I was reasonably happy. The more I analysed it the more apparent it became that the loss was all part of a very cunning plan to lull the Darkness into a false sense of security before we turn them into our bitches for the foreseeable future.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

We were beaten in the forwards as usual, our clean out was inaccurate so we "spent" more units to get slower ball

To'omua played too deep, didn't take the line on and just played pass the parcel

And the then after we did nothing for a while but go side ways in attack, we were beaten in transition

Hey fp - did you see how Mowen struggled with that channel 1 ball that let A B Smith steal it from behind Genia.
Ahhhh the old days!

 

[teach]

Thats the most effecitve hit on a Kiwi in the last 24 hours

I vote Cyclopath for a spot in the WBs backline!

 

[teach]

There was plenty of times in that game I was nervous. This weekend in wellington won't be a walkover. Give Link a chance to work something with the team. Unfortunately the end of the TRC or EOY tour may be the first time solid evidence of change comes through.

 

[Dan54]

From the Kiwi perspective, that was very, very poor.

I can't recall the last time I've seen the ABs play so badly. Letting in exceptionally soft penalties, allowing easy line breaks.

Actually I know that is just a stupid troll, which we don't need here, but that idiot Keransie said same thing after game, All Blacks were only 7/10

 

[fatprop]

Hey fp - did you see how Mowen struggled with that channel 1 ball that let A B Smith steal it from behind Genia.
Ahhhh the old days!

Yeah I blame Genia for that, he wasn't watching the ball

 

[mark_s]

The wobbs game felt like a preseason trial in some ways. Players not really sure what their team mates would do or fully trusting them, lots of experimental play, indecision and the associated mistakes. Combine that with a AB team that capitalises on mistakes and you get the thumping that occurred even though the blacks will be looking to improve a lot as well.

I think we are looking at maybe 1-2 changes to the run on team and maybe another 1 positional change. I would personally move folau to 15 (the best case for this is that the abs did all they could to keep the play away from izzy), mogg to the bench with cummins coming in at 14. (An alternative would be To move AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) to 14 and bring kuridrani in, but I see that as better happening later in the tournament.). Hard to really judge he forwards given how Helter skelter it was last night.

 

[fatprop]

AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) was one of the few units who ran decent lines, we need him for 13. Moving him would be dumb

As for complaints re him being able to link in that break, chicken and egg to me, could AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) have done better at getting to them, maybe, but the support wasn't exactly ready for the break and didn't work hard enough to get into decent support positions

 

[swingpass]

AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) was one of the few units who ran decent lines, we need him for 13. Moving him would be dumb

As for complaints re him being able to link in that break, chicken and egg to me, could AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) have done better at getting to them, maybe, but the support wasn't exactly ready for the break and didn't work hard enough to get into decent support positions

AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) had Hooper on the inside, unmarked.
JOC (James O'Connor) did no work off him to either run inside or "position" the defence.

 

[Train Without a Station]

An alternative would be To move AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) to 14 and bring kuridrani in, but I see that as better happening later in the tournament.

I wouldn't be coming to that conclusion based on last night. Kurindrani had a pretty forgettable debut and for all his shortcomings, AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) was one of our most effective attackers. I'd be sticking with the status quo regarding those 2 at least until Kurindrani does something to warrant it off the bench.

 

[I like to watch]

I love to put the boot into the brand (not as much as Marto obviously), and yeah, his defence in the first half allowed the AB's in a few times, but he did at least threaten in attack...

And Mogg is copping a lot, rightly so for a poor game, but at least he took some high balls (not many Aussie fullbacks have done this lately), and there were a couple of try saving tackles (despite the non tackle attempt on Conrad)....

But if any of the back 3 deserve criticism it should be Folau, for being absent the entire game and contributing absolutely nothing.....

Had Mogg and JOC (James O'Connor) both played like IF,the score would have been very close.
They were horrible.IF was merely ineffective.

 

[Athilnaur]

I had few issues with how we played in the first half. My simple observation would be that as soon as we changed and tried to play hard, fast, wide, the All Blacks notched up a gear. They fed off the speed, while we fractured our lines in both attack and defense.

It took the Tahs months of games week in week out to play that style, a style that of the Aussie sides only the Rebels come close to emulating, and yet we were trying to play it with 3 Tahs and an out of position Rebel.

We can snipe at individuals all we like but as far as I am concerned it was gameplan that was at issue.

 

[Pfitzy]

Again, it seems fortunate I am on hand to point out the truth to a few people who don't appear to know what rugby looks like around here.

I'm most disappointed in barbarian - mate you talk a lot about bending the line, well shit we broke it several times but just couldn't finish it. Cliffy Palu isn't coming back. Let it rest. And JOC (James O'Connor) was the only back who threatened the line? AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) perhaps?

1) you don't move the blokes who actually played well.

2) you don't fuck around too much with your playmakers, especially the guy on debut.

3) you drop guys whose performance at key moments, or whose basic errors stuffed your momentum, where you have better options

4) the guys you bring in have to be the kind who fix problems. Like straight running instead of drifting. Taking it to deck instead of stupid offloads

To this end:

1 Slipper
2 Moore
3 Alexander
4 Simmons - I'm a critic but I thought he turned in a decent performance.
5 Horwill
6 Fardy
7 Hooper
8 Mowen
9 White
10 To'omua
11 Cummins
12 Lilo
13 AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper)
14 Folau
15 Cooper

The fullback was the trickiest position for me. I thought Foley could have been an option too, balancing his superior defence against Quade's bigger boot, but in the end experience won out. Foley on the bench.

The astute among you (both of you) and various out raged QLDers will notice I've dropped Genia. He's been on a bit of a down slope this whole year. Give someone else a chance.



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I hate autocorrect ...

 

[Athilnaur]

Lets drop the two try scorers.

 

[Bullrush]

Some of you guys are being way too tough on Folau. The guy hasn't even played a season of rugby and what he has played has been at FB - not wing. He's getting flak for not get involved enough but it sure didn't look like the Wallabies had any gameplan to get him into the game.

Mogg was just plain terrible. I was willing to give him a chance due to a good cameo in the Lions game but he just wasn't even close to being good enough last night.

Get Folau in FB where he'll be more involved and Cummins on the wing.

 

[Gnostic]

I thought we picked a team that lacked size in both forwards and backs. I hoped we would play an innovative, fast game plan to maybe take advantage of this. We did not.

Outmuscled in every facet. Need more punch from the backrow- both Mowen and MMM were very poor. Fardy, maybe McCalman should be considered.

In the backs- come in Honey Badger. Move JOC (James O'Connor) to fullback, Mogg back to the bench. Need some physicality, some mongrel, some line-bending.
.

You really have a fixation on size Barbarian.

Size has nothing at all to do with the outcome last night, indeed some of the best metres the ABs made came from A. Smith and Cruden and Ben Smith made a joke of JOCs defence.

This fixation on size has been a reason why so many Australian teams have struggled in both forwards and backs as far more talented players are overlooked for the bigger.

From my memory the Wallabies outweighed the ABs in the forwards and the backs apart from Nonu were also pretty even.

The key issue has nothing to do with size and everything to do with effectiveness. MMM outweighed his opposite number considerably and was soundly defeated, for all his supposed mongrel and impact I saw nothing of it and the ABs dominated and disrupted the Wallabies ruck all night.
I would suggest you speak to cyclo about counselling for your size fixation.

 

[lewisr]

Pfitzy I (reluctantly) agree with that team. Genia scored the try, yes, but what the fuck is up with his decision making at the breakdown. It's gone to shit this year and he slows the ball down at the stupidest times. He is undoubtedly the most dangerour 9. in the world with ball in hand but seriously over the whole "im going to wait at the ruck for a few seconsd and then choose what to do". Brings back memories of Gregan's latter years....

Don't think the swap will happen and its not really vital that it does because he's still awesome. Just saying that I wouldnt be up in arms if it did.

I like Cooper to 15. I dont know why Link didn't do it in the first place.when he took mogg off. He did defend in the line when he came on at 10 though. Had no issues there. But I think To'omua played a really good traditional 10 roll and with one or two more games will gain alot of confidence. Quade can be the potency we were missing to ignite the front foot ball. Coming off a simple pass from To'omua, he will have time and the acceleration to take it to the line and offload to any of our outside backs.

 

[cyclopath]

Thats the most effecitve hit on a Kiwi in the last 24 hours

Yes, perhaps a little ill-advised, but trolling from that guy wasn't going to fly.