Auckland vs Waikato

[Tim]

Relegation is the most likely outcome. Auckland or Ta$man.

[KiwiMurph]

TJ Faiane has been shithouse too.

[African Monkey]

@Tim No that's definitely Tu'ungafasi and we are going down. Ta$man will come right.

[Tim]

@African-Monkey Was he a late replacement?

[African Monkey]

@Tim Yup unfortunately.

[Tim]

Tuipulotu and Ioane (as they should be) are by far the best players tonight. Christ, no team with them should struggle at this level.

[Tim]

I honestly don't think Auckland have back or skills coaches.

[Higgins]

A good number of the players are full time professional rugby players, thus should have all the basic skills under control already and really no justifiable reason for the employment of a skills coach. In this case it seems not.

[KiwiMurph]

This might be the worst Auckland team ive ever seen.

[Tim]

Ridiculous there was no yellow card against Waikato.

[African Monkey]

Geez that could have been yellow for that high shot.

[Tim]

@Higgins That's the attitude from the Hart era. The All Blacks and other teams have shown that constant practice and development of skills are necessary in the modern game.

These players don't perform this poorly at Super Rugby and international level, and don't become unskilled for no reason. Lack of training is the obvious answer.

[Tim]

@African-Monkey Compare the penalties on the line to the penalty try and yellow card in the 1st half.

[Higgins]

Please get this kick, Auckland do not deserve a bonus point.

[African Monkey]

@Higgins Certainly didn't. It's gonna be a long season for us.

[mimic]

I don't mind the result. I'd like them to perform so badly that they have no choice but to fire White.

[Tim]

@mimic The worse we perform, the harder it is to retain players like Ere Enari. That's a huge problem.

Get the coach from University in.

[Tim]

Probability of an article in the Herald taking Auckland Rugby to task for their woefully coached team? Zero.

[Bovidae]

Not a great game skillwise, but I'll take the 5 pts.

Waikato's lineout was woeful so something wasn't right there. No Faima, Skeen and Jacobson probably.

Some Reece magic was the only real highlight.

I've liked the look of Lansdown everytime I've seen him play for Waikato, still very young too. Christie tried his best to lose that game.

[ARHS]

@Bovidae

Have there been many younger teams fielded in an NPC match? By my count there were 11under 21's playing for Waikato out of 22 used. Only half a dozen players with much experience. I thought Lansdown might have been man of the match, and hope we see more of him