Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown & Dublin Duel
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Was at the game , great atmosphere , like a home game for Irish. Kind of felt Hansen has to wear this one, a few of gambles failed completely. Really missed having the two best locks in the world but Tuoipolutu and Kaino came up short, early lineiut calls came up short, Naholo and Savea combination came up short. Midfield was meh, we looked so much better with TJ. Moody has shown several serious lapses in discipline and this one undoubtedly cost us. Seriously thought it could have been red. He should have been yanked earlier but not having Crockett made that very hard. Hats of to Irish I thought they held the hall in contact and tackled like demons.
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Never thought I'd say this, but Crotty was a big loss. We need a cool, steady man to hold the backline together. Moala and Fekitoa and Savea and Nahalo are all way too inconsistent, and together were green disaster. Missed Dagg bigtime under the high ball, as well as Whitelock and Retallick in the lineouts and in defence.
Smith was rubbish today, TJ Perenara very good. Barrett the S should have been brought on much sooner, he had a good debut. Barrett the B, bloody hell his goalkicking has gone to custard which is very concerning. Moody the penalty magnet can fuck right off. He was the catalyst for so much of the first half nonsense.
Please all deities, may we never have to watch a first half like that ever again.
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Hansen won't look back on several of his selections with any fondness.
Arrogance is an over used word. But given as fans we'd all bought into the "don't worry, we always smash it in the second half" mantra , I wonder if some of the players have subconsciously too. That's not the first time the All Blacks have phoned in a first half performance this year. Some might have got too caught up in the Chicago hype... which is fine as long as you also take care of the basics...
Fringe defence for much of the first half was dire. And with names like Kieran Read (c), Same Cane, Liam Squire, Aaron Smith, and with Jerome Kaino nearby, you wonder what's going on. Yep, Retallick and Whitelock were a big loss, but it's not like the rest of the team didn't know they were missing and couldn't react to some of the holes. Or that Kaino couldn't plug at least one of said holes on D.
I was impressed with Dominic Bird for the Chiefs this year and was surprised that he wasn't in the mix for this tour, though the comments about injury must be the reason? ALB must be wondering how Moala got a game past him too...
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Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and with it that backline was only ever gonna be good in a game we were dominating.
With our premier locks out, it was obvious the Irish would target our line out, they used their boot well, knowing they had a good shot of getting it back if we had a line out or out jumping us without Dagg, not often opposition teams deliberately kick it to us like they did today and get away with it.
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Does TJ take the number 1 halfback spot for the rest of the tour ?
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At the game like DMX. Worst All Black performance I've seen for the ABs I've seen in person.
So baffled how little they did with possession and Hansens poor substitutions.
Fantastic for the Irish but wish it was the Welsh if only because they would pass out sooner.
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I'm not sure whether resting players like ALB and Dagg was the reason for them missing out on selection, but if it was, then why didn't the selectors give them a rest for the Italy game? Was it because their runners-up (Moala/Fekitoa and Naholo) aren't the players they want to test against Italy, but the likes of McKenzie and R Ioane?
Looking forward, obviously they need replacements for Moala, and especially Crotty. ALB will be there at 13, but Fekitoa has been far from convincing. They can call up Tamanivalu as extra injury cover, but he's obviously not considered better than Fekitoa. So except for the Italy game, would it be the right option to move Ben Smith back to the midfield? With Dagg to fullback, and then J Savea, Naholo, R Ioane to battle for the spots on the wing (depending also on how Rieko performs against Italy)?
Also, I assume Tuipulotu and Scott Barrett will start against Italy. Both, esp Barrett, need some game time at test level before they take on Ireland and France, because playing Kaino at lock clearly didn't work and we don't know whether Whitelock will be back in time (if at all this year). Can't bear the thought of losing to France ...
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@akan004 said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
@Crash said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
Christ and now the BBC and Sky are whooping it up
Don't tune in to any non NZ tv station or surf any other website apart from this one till we hopefully redeem ourselves in Dublin. It feels like we have just been knocked out of a world cup.
Celebrating, reporting and analysing a victory is surely allowed?
Save your wrath for 'the NH press' for untruthful trolling and ref-blaming cry babery.
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At the end of the day tasting a loss is not a terrible thing for these players - especially the new caps. The "remember this feeling" loss to the BIL in 93 set up the Fitzpatrick legacy perhaps the same for Read?
But given the timing with the Cubs win and the resounding loss to the neutral it did very little to promote the All Black "brand"
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@Rocky-Rockbottom said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
The complete lack of incandescent rage here is UNACCEPTABLE. Since when were AB losses greeted with a “oh, great game guys, thanks so much for everything”? The first loss for many of these AB’s, if it’s met with a “well, at least you tried your best, it had to happen some day” then they’ll toodle off thinking oh well just another game of rugby, people back home ain’t so mad, I’ll have another go at it next week.
History shows All Blacks losses are to be met with VITRIOL, FURY, ANGER, CONFUSION, PLAYER DROPPINGS, ELEPHANT DROPPINGS, COACH DROPPINGS, COACH LYNCHINGS, & NATIONAL MOTHERFUCKING INQUISITIONS. Not this namby pamby “oh I hope everyone had a nice run around and got some circulation into the legs, good exercise and all that, at least I saw the Empire State Statue midweek.”
LOL Brilliant
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@Rocky-Rockbottom said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
The complete lack of incandescent rage here is UNACCEPTABLE. Since when were AB losses greeted with a “oh, great game guys, thanks so much for everything”? The first loss for many of these AB’s, if it’s met with a “well, at least you tried your best, it had to happen some day” then they’ll toodle off thinking oh well just another game of rugby, people back home ain’t so mad, I’ll have another go at it next week.
History shows All Blacks losses are to be met with VITRIOL, FURY, ANGER, CONFUSION, PLAYER DROPPINGS, ELEPHANT DROPPINGS, COACH DROPPINGS, COACH LYNCHINGS, & NATIONAL MOTHERFUCKING INQUISITIONS. Not this namby pamby “oh I hope everyone had a nice run around and got some circulation into the legs, good exercise and all that, at least I saw the Empire State Statue midweek.”
Most fans grew up around 2008 when Henry was not sacked in a typical knee jerk fashion, as you describe above.
The more grown up approach has given us two more World Cups, a world record run of victories, etc, etc
It's sport, of course you'll lose the odd game. We generally lose one game a year, this year it's this one.
No need for panic.
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@Kirwan be interesting to see how they respond given we wont have Whitelock or BBBR (although concussion, he could be back?) back, assume Romano is back for next game?
Ireland in Dublin and the French where ever that is is gonna be tough, chance we could have our worst EOYT results in a very long time, largely down to the poor timing of the injuries to our 2nd row and our mid-field.
I'll back us to win the rest, but it wont surprise me to see us fall once, or twice more...
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I haven't even seen the game but as as I said to someone tonight about the result ' if someone else plays better then they deserve the win'.
From what I can tell Ireland outplayed us, simple as that. They deserve the win.I have been saying for a while now that if a team really on their game takes us on the margin will be closed enough that they can take one off us. Pressure on us that rests in scores will actually make things difficult as, I gather, happened today.
people have been getting carried away with talk of the gap being so big. The scores can get big, but the gap isn't as huge as some think.
If we are playing poorly and the opposition are playing well then that gap disappears.
Congrats to Ireland.
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@Rocky-Rockbottom said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
The complete lack of incandescent rage here is UNACCEPTABLE. Since when were AB losses greeted with a “oh, great game guys, thanks so much for everything”? The first loss for many of these AB’s, if it’s met with a “well, at least you tried your best, it had to happen some day” then they’ll toodle off thinking oh well just another game of rugby, people back home ain’t so mad, I’ll have another go at it next week.
History shows All Blacks losses are to be met with VITRIOL, FURY, ANGER, CONFUSION, PLAYER DROPPINGS, ELEPHANT DROPPINGS, COACH DROPPINGS, COACH LYNCHINGS, & NATIONAL MOTHERFUCKING INQUISITIONS. Not this namby pamby “oh I hope everyone had a nice run around and got some circulation into the legs, good exercise and all that, at least I saw the Empire State Statue midweek.”
Next they'll be giving out awards for particpation!! Where's that number for Radio Sport!!!
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No one wants to lose obviously , but I can recall Henry talking about a loss and what it can do for the squad , brings everyone back to earth with a thud etc , and reignites some extra hunger if it was starting to plateau.
The interesting part now that it has happened , is how we respond .
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Yeah. Wonder if getting the 18-win record just allowed a wee bit of complacency to creep in. Leaving out Dagg and ALB entirely was a big call. Learning Barrett the S copes ok under pressure was a bonus, but it was more concerning the number of experienced AB's that went MIA. Hansen needs to cop some flak for selections, but a lot of players let themselves down.
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@Mokey think that is the crux of it, a large number of them chose today as the day to have an off day with being able to catch and pass, tackle or pretty much any of the basics we usually do so well.
Sure the Irish put us under huge pressure, but we usually absorb this and are able to execute with accuracy while under pressure, which has been the hallmark of this team.
Like Hansen said, the best team won...time to move on, guess the Italians wont be thanking the Irish for anything though.
