All Blacks vs Ireland
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@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
@BerniesCorner said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
That Jordan try in the corner DMac threw the cut out pass to Sititi and the ball landed on the ground in front of him. A great piece of skill to gather it and shift it on under pressure.
Likewise Aumua to take the ball off the bounce and shift to Jordan
Outside back-esque.
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@nostrildamus said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
At the end of the day the NZers played well. On both sides.
The Australian, not so much.Thought Hansen went OK
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Some interesting little stats from Rugby Pass -
13 months ago when the teams last clashed the Irish ‘won’ 14-3 in the 20-minute period in which the All Blacks were down two players to yellow cards in Paris but they were decisively ‘beaten’ 10-25 in the hour when the contest was 15 versus 15.
Friday night was another occasion when the Irish simply couldn’t handle New Zealand when the numbers in personnel were the same. Ireland ‘won’ 10-3 the 10 minutes that Jordie Barrett spent in the sin bin following his foul play ‘hello’ to Garry Ringrose, his soon-to-be teammate at Leinster.
However, the 15 versus 15 part of the match convincingly went the way of the All Blacks on a 20-3 scoreline. That’s quite the jarring margin and a proper reflection of the gap that existed between the teams in terms of performance.
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@booboo said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
@nostrildamus said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
At the end of the day the NZers played well. On both sides.
The Australian, not so much.Thought Hansen went OK
I meant Berry.
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@kpkanz said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
@booboo said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
DMac MOTM
DESERVED 😎
Laughing emoji was because of all the peeps hating him.
Didn't think he was either awesome or awful.
Will have to rewatch.
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A well put together vid with sideline ground level footage, crowd atmosphere and O'Driscoll in commentary.
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@akan004 said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
@BerniesCorner said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
That Lowe 50-22 had me bricking. At that point I got out of the chair. Watched the remainder standing.Lowe was celebrating that 50-22 as if they had just won a RWC QF.
Lowe was trying to get the crowd behind them. They had been very quiet. Nothing wrong with that.
Was a peach of a kick too.
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Scrappy game to watch not helped by Chuck Berry giving Ireland the licence at the breakdown to cause havoc.
Thought the AB's hooker & 6 were epic - made some serious post contact metres.
Ireland have been great over the last few years but didn't help themselves with their bench, I'm all for using experience but O'Mahony, Healy, Murray etc should be put out to pasture now. They have plenty of young talents in the URC - use them.
Roigard looked great off the bench. -
@darylmitchell said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
The fact is Ireland have long been put on a completely undeserved pedestal by NZ's rugby media (and many people on here) simply because they beat Foster's shambles of a team (pre-Ryan/Schmidt) in 2021 and 2022 home series.
In reality, they're not a hugely talented side, they are full of plodders that wouldn't get anywhere near an All Black 15.
They have relied on the existing cohesion of Leinster and their streamlined and well structured high performance pathways and streamlined coaching at all levels to get to where they have - not x factor players.
France, South Africa, and even England have much more talented squads on paper. and their team composition & style of game in my opinion pose a greater threat to us than Ireland (even though they're ranked No1.)
In Summary, NZ rugby fans/media gave Ireland far too much respect in recent years and Foster is much to blame.
I'm glad we can finally bring this chapter to a close - they are overrated & always have been, especially on here.At times Ireland have been excellent. They were pretty good in NZ. But they need to refresh their side. And this without SH project players, Lowe, Aki and JGP should be the last of the Te Ireland whanau.
Couldn’t agree less.
They’ve had an epic squad and had huge results in the last 10 years. Regularly been able to replace great players with great subs.
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A win is a win is a win, they say. It’s the nature of the win says I.
OK, enough of clever dick literary stuff, but that was a really satisfying result on so many levels. We beat the Irish, the newbies showed they can mix it at this level, the tyros who debuted in the last couple of years showed they’re matured, and the discipline improved all over the park. Ireland may have been poor and rusty last nite, but I don’t think the win is as significant as the nature of the win.
The big story for me was the ability to tough out periods of pressure and for individual players to produce moments of magic at precisely the right time. The focus and discipline we had in the KO stages of RWC2023 and which has gone walkabout since was very much on display. After Jordie’s YC and VdF’s try I thought we’d go back to the dross we’ve had for much of this year. Not a bit of it. The highlight may have been Ardie winning a penalty at the breakdown with Ireland camped in our 22, but there was also Ofa winning a penalty at precisely the right time to take the lead after an extended period of Irish dominance.
The way the forwards changed tactics to negate the Irish ruck disruption was also good to see. A couple of times I saw Cane or Ardie and Sititi in deep discussion, after the Irish had won a ruck, rather than any “WTF?” rolling eyes moments. Really mature and calm attitude on display
As an aside, I don’t blame Ratima entirely for have a bit of a ‘mare - playing against that Irish pack using those tactics and with Berry reffing would have challenged anyone. He’ll learn a lot from that game as Nugget did against England in 2012.
So much to like in that performance and not getting carried away but hope we can maintain that level of focus and discipline against France. If we do that there’s a good argument that we’re developing a team that combines the best mental aspects of last year with just the right mix of experience, solid grafters and raw talent.
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@Mauss said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
@booboo That's a booboo (am I doing this right?). Anyway:
Not quite sure of your point/ post, but for clarity a #booboo is where some idiot makes a point (usually in response to another poster) which has just been answered with the same point immediately prior, without checking further on in the thread.
Some idiot kept on doing it. Lots. Still does...
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@Mauss said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
@booboo Ha, that's good to know.
My point was that Ireland beat New Zealand in Dublin in 2021. I was being pedantic!
Ah. Couldn't see what post you were referring to.
Obviously need to check my sources better ...
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A really good win for the ABs. Some of their defensive stuff – impeding Irish passing lanes, making early reads on Irish receivers in attack, even stuff like tackle height (apart from Jordie’s slip-up) – was really clever, I thought. As the game went on, the NZ forwards were really starting to physically bully their opposites, which is great to see.
As far as the Irish were concerned, I get the rustiness-argument but I’m not quite sure that explains the complete lack of urgency in the final 10 minutes. By the 77th minute, they had pretty much conceded the game and had checked out. Not great signs.
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@darylmitchell said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
The fact is Ireland have long been put on a completely undeserved pedestal by NZ's rugby media (and many people on here) simply because they beat Foster's shambles of a team (pre-Ryan/Schmidt) in 2021 and 2022 home series.
In reality, they're not a hugely talented side, they are full of plodders that wouldn't get anywhere near an All Black 15.
They have relied on the existing cohesion of Leinster and their streamlined and well structured high performance pathways and streamlined coaching at all levels to get to where they have - not x factor players.
France, South Africa, and even England have much more talented squads on paper. and their team composition & style of game in my opinion pose a greater threat to us than Ireland (even though they're ranked No1.)
In Summary, NZ rugby fans/media gave Ireland far too much respect in recent years and Foster is much to blame.
I'm glad we can finally bring this chapter to a close - they are overrated & always have been, especially on here.
Jeez mate, show some respect. Whether other teams have better squads/depth or not, Ireland have been a fucking good team for the last 10 years and fully deserve their no.1 ranking.
We lost to them in 2016 & 2018 under Hansen and only a last minute try by arguably the greatest AB team of the modern era prevented a loss in '14.
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@DaGrubster said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
Was that our best performance with our discipline? Makes a difference when we aren’t being pinged every couple of minutes with silly penalties.
I though Barrett’s penalty and YC was pretty unlucky
Yep good but both Barrett decisions were correct.
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@African-Monkey said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
@junior said in All Blacks vs Ireland:
A lot of negativity about Fatima on here but, on balance, he was fine. He had the worst of the conditions and the breakdown. Ireland did a job flopping over and killing our ruck ball in the first half that made our ruck ball slow and scrappy. They also timed their second shove into the ruck well, to cause maximum disruption and often from the side.
Berry obviously let them get away with it. But, more inexplicably, had a habit of calling "use it" while the ball was still buried under an Irish player, rather than when it was actually available at the back of the ruck.
We were consistently a man short at each ruck, and it was noticeable how many times in the first half we didn't have a halfback because Ratima had to go into the ruck and win the ball.
All of this meant the ball was slow and scrappy. Ratima should have handled this better on a few occasions, but it's clear he's just not use to dealing with that kind of ball in those conditions.
All of that said, his quick delivery and sniping threat were key to all of our decent attack in the first half.
Cam looked better when he came on, and far less flustered than Ratima, but he also got a relative armchair ride. He's probably more robust an able to handle the slow and scrappy ball, however.
I still think Ratima's pass is marginally quicker and he may be more suited to coming on late when the ruck speed is quicker and there's less pressure on the breakdown from the opposition.100% mate, great post which I fully agree with. Nic Berry's poor officiating at breakdown time really sold Ratima down the river. Yes, he probably could have slowed play down a bit and allow cleaners to protect him on a couple of occasions whilst trying to play up tempo in tough conditions and play a bit closer to the ruck, but man it was tough out there for a young halfback. Ball was all over the place, players lying all over the ball getting unpunished, it was really challenging for him but he fought bravely for 50 mins and as you said, Roigard came on where things were a lot easier as Berry actually decided to penalize a tiring Irish pack that was flopping all over the ball and played behind a far more effective ABs bench that started to dominate the last quarter of the game.
Being a starting 9 in big tests is a tough task. Ratima was ok, and will learn plenty from it.
He was ok. The Irish players coming in from side was an issue. It’s a bit like a prop who pushes sideways - it destroys the scrum. Same with rucks. If you are straight and a guy hits from side and rolls around it creates havoc. Bet the NZ coaching team will be wanting clarification of that mid week.
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DmAc's best game in black, which is great because he has had some absolute fucking shockers. RmO will be a great improvement.
I thought Fatima was OK under a shitload of pressure early, zero front-foot ball and had some good touches, but yes Roigard should be starting until Hotham gets a good run at some point soon.
We absorbed a whole lot of pressure for 65 mins then were in complete control, great game to watch and a great result.
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I normally try to restrict my comments on refs to a single sentence or so, but Berry was not up to standard in this game. The penalty on Jordie with the high kick - he really could have called the same on almost every high kick all game if he is going to set the line there. It would be a good change for us and a bad one for SA in theory (because they've been much better than us at protecting their players) - but fuck it's hard to see how you can ref that consistently without every high kick being a penalty to the kicking team. Jordie didn't even look back, he just ran towards the ball, and if he goes sideways and hits someone then he'll get done for changing his line. So what's he meant to do, run backwards so he can see them, and actively dodge the chasers? Weird shit.
Berry let the Irish slow our ruck ball down and interfere with the halfback all first half - and even though he missed a heap he still penalised them enough that they should have been on a YC. The one where the ref said "he's trying" (to roll away) really irritated me. So what if he's fucking trying, every time there's a knock-on the guy "was trying" to catch it but you don't ignore the rules because of that do you? That's where a lot of the trouble for Ratima was coming from. The charge-down was bad, and a couple of other little errors - but where was the protection from our forwards? Credit where it is due though, we seemed to fix that in the second half.
The ruck turnover reffing was a lottery. McKenzie got hit late with no arms by JGP and nothing happened.
The Aumua not straight with no Irish competing and then what followed, jesus christ. The Irish scrum from that where the ball spat out the side - if not a penalty to us, did not come back out the channel, should have been play on. Then he free kicks them on the reset scrum, but misses that they don't get back 10 - fortunately Savea gets tackled around the neck and he gets that one - but then ignores the offside play at the next ruck - and every one he misses is a miss in the consistent offending yellow card stakes.
I thought the Jordie yellow card was wrong too - he's slightly wrong-footed and initial contact is shoulder. Penalty yes, foul play no.
Anyway, enough whinging about the ref. He was shit, got a heap of stuff wrong both ways, but I get ranty when fluffybunnies are allowed to slow down ruck ball, because fast ruck ball is what makes for good attacking rugby. On to the game:
Very glad to see McKenzie with some long clearances as per his Chiefs play. High kicks all on the money too. Mistakes, yep, but he's still the guy creating the tries and kicking the points. Someone quicker than Tupou Vaai needs to be chasing those goal kicks too, when they do hit the posts.
For all the premature hero-worship, Roigard's passing was a little less accurate than Ratima's when he came on. Rucks were a lot cleaner. His kicking game is really helpful in the latter stages and he's calm - he may well be the better player in either position, but I think I'd leave him on the bench for now, and sub early - mostly due to our previous weakness late in games.
Sititi pretty good. Savea one good turnover and solid I suppose. Cane continues to be what he is: the slow warrior.
Aumua: love to say i told you so, needed minutes. I'd keep him starting and with Taylor back with his wide running, reliable throwing and experienced head our bench gets stronger again.
Props were all good. I do wonder if De Groot might have moved us from a slightly dominant scrum up to a dominant penalty-winning scrum out there though.
All three locks good too.
Midfield defence was really good. Helped by a thousand Irish knock-ons of course, but I was impressed, and also Jordie's kick-off reception work and Rieko's hands deserve a mention.
Telea was very elusive again, a few turnovers though. Clarke solid.
Jordan the odd dumb thing but he is much more involved from fullback and at the rate he scores tries that's got to be a good thing.
Overall I thought we were the better side by more than ten points, with what wasn't a great Irish performance at all - but the constant infringing prevented us from scoring tries and no YC forthcoming for it kept the score down, along with our YC. I think turning down 3 points to keep the pressure on when the other side is on a YC warning is worth considering.