AB's v Wales
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@tim said in AB's v Wales:
@pakman said in AB's v Wales:
From the Blues games I saw this year I think he's currently better at 6, but against that he doesn't have the tackling impact which Squire brings and I think the ABs are looking for in their 6s.
Bullshit. He has more physical impact on the tackle by far. Watch Squire against Australia in Brisbane this year. He no impact - so often he was second tackler and added nothing. Combine with his ruck inspecting. Then watch the semifinal against the Crusaders - he did nothing.
Very low work rate player who was dumped from the Chiefs for it. The most overrated player in NZ by far.
Well, from where I sit, Akira has had a bit of a tendency to be a scragger, in a similar mould to Savea (A) and Fifita, who to be fair did seem more physical when I watched the Scotland tape last night.
Compare with JK and Cane, who really get shoulder impact and are effective stoppers -- Shag's dominant tackles.
I'd put Squire more in the latter camp. One or two decent hits on Saturday. Tackles high, which does run risk of penalties for 'seat belt' tackling.That said, I agree he was pretty ineffective in Brisbane, and watching the weekend's tape seemed more to be looking to defend the fringes than getting his head into the dark spaces. Didn't see Clan semi so have to take your word for that.
But isn't it also a question of style? Seems that big hitting rampaging 6s are often less effective at ruck time. Compare with John Barclay, who isn't as physical, but on Saturday was almost like a second 7, and caused ABs a few problems at ruck time. Richard Hill was also similar, but absolutely key to the 2003 England team.
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@pakman said in AB's v Wales:
@tim said in AB's v Wales:
@pakman said in AB's v Wales:
From the Blues games I saw this year I think he's currently better at 6, but against that he doesn't have the tackling impact which Squire brings and I think the ABs are looking for in their 6s.
Bullshit. He has more physical impact on the tackle by far. Watch Squire against Australia in Brisbane this year. He no impact - so often he was second tackler and added nothing. Combine with his ruck inspecting. Then watch the semifinal against the Crusaders - he did nothing.
Very low work rate player who was dumped from the Chiefs for it. The most overrated player in NZ by far.
Well, from where I sit, Akira has had a bit of a tendency to be a scragger, in a similar mould to Savea (A) and Fifita, who to be fair did seem more physical when I watched the Scotland tape last night.
Compare with JK and Cane, who really get shoulder impact and are effective stoppers -- Shag's dominant tackles.
I'd put Squire more in the latter camp. One or two decent hits on Saturday. Tackles high, which does run risk of penalties for 'seat belt' tackling.That said, I agree he was pretty ineffective in Brisbane, and watching the weekend's tape seemed more to be looking to defend the fringes than getting his head into the dark spaces. Didn't see Clan semi so have to take your word for that.
But isn't it also a question of style? Seems that big hitting rampaging 6s are often less effective at ruck time. Compare with John Barclay, who isn't as physical, but on Saturday was almost like a second 7, and caused ABs a few problems at ruck time. Richard Hill was also similar, but absolutely key to the 2003 England team.
Surely much of that comes down to the skillset dictated by the defensive coach? eg are we going in to disrupt so the rest of the defence is aligned and ready or are we going to reduce the threat of pick and goes by having big hitters waiting on the fringes?
In past seasons we have gone for JK looking to smash runners backward while the world's best disrupter was doing his work at the breakdown.
Now Cane has taken more of the hard tackler role and while we still want our 6 to put the shoulder in, that isn't their main role. We are looking for carries from 6, something we didn't see a huge amount of from JK.
Both Fifita and Squire are good ball carriers. They just need to learn to link to support better. -
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@pakman said in AB's v Wales:
@crucial Pretty much my point. Key is loose forward balance.
Yep. And that dynamic has changed quite a bit since McCaw retired.
It is a big part of the reason why Ardie has gone out of favour IMO. Although he brings his own skills to the party the balance is upset unless the 6 takes over the Cane role. -
Neither Liam Williams nor Alex Cuthbert will be involved this weekend.
Both out with injury - abdominal and calf respectively - though Cuthbert would have been lucky to be considered.
Feel for him after the years I've berated him.
He gave nothing less than 100% last week, it's just not going for him poor bastard.
When you look at the highlight reel which was posted on the Wales v Georgia thread he's dynamite when fit & firing.
So a likely back three of Amos, Halfpenny, Evans - dwarves in comparison with the giants which have played there for Wales in recent years - unless Gatland goes with two outside halves on the pitch to start
Priestland at 10
Biggar at 15May even go with three 10s putting Owen Williams at 12
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Not really sure where to post this but I have a new journo added to the ever growing list of crap clickbaiters pretending to know what they are talking about. His name is Peter Lampp and his writes shit for Stuff.
I'm not going to post a link to help reduce clicks. Look for his name in the article title if you want to avoid.
I will provide some examples of his rubbish from my one click though..."... our scratch outfit scratching through an end-of-season tour to fill the coffers." - yeah, like they aren't part of the WR touring schedule. They are only there to get a bit of money.
"The ABs resembled the Kiwis rugby league mob against Fiji, expecting the increasingly tiresome haka to frighten teams that neither rated." - so you know that from you armchair do you? You know that is what is going through the players minds? Fucknuckle.
"New Zealand rugby teams are stuck in this attack-first mentality, hurling the ball wide off first phase to backs who are sitting ducks behind the advantage line. It often ends up with Damian McKenzie forced to gallivant about like a Fijian firewalker in the middle of Khyber Pass Rd.
No attempt is made to treasure the ball, maul or grunt it up for many phases to suck in loiterers to give the pretty boys a wadi or two to stampede through. No sign of ploughing up the guts.
Kieran Read should learn from league, as in, "let's go through six more tackles boys".
- Show me one time the ball went wide from first phase last weekend without either a linebreak or defence manipulation. Muppet.
At the end of they article he makes a number of vaguely connected opinions like the ramblings of a drunk and polishes his turd will the obligatory press snipe at Steve Tew.
Oh, and scattered through like pieces of corn he manages to try to offend the hosts of our team by calling them 'jockstraps', 'taffies' and 'pommies'. He missed out 'frogs'
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@mikethesnow Interesting view on the new 60 caps rule intended to bring more ex-pat Welshmen back to the regions. This from Wayne Pivac of the Scarlets in regard to Ross Moriarty.
"Pivac said Moriarty would only add to the number of players the region loses to international duty.
"Barclay is always away at this time of the year, do you bring in another one? The short answer to that is no. You get someone for this important period of time," Pivac added.
"We can't have 16 or 17 players away for half the season, otherwise we will have this fantastic team who will never be in the play-offs."
The law of unintended consequences perhaps?
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@catogrande said in AB's v Wales:
@mikethesnow Interesting view on the new 60 caps rule intended to bring more ex-pat Welshmen back to the regions. This from Wayne Pivac of the Scarlets in regard to Ross Moriarty.
"Pivac said Moriarty would only add to the number of players the region loses to international duty.
"Barclay is always away at this time of the year, do you bring in another one? The short answer to that is no. You get someone for this important period of time," Pivac added.
"We can't have 16 or 17 players away for half the season, otherwise we will have this fantastic team who will never be in the play-offs."
The law of unintended consequences perhaps?
That's why David Lyons is a legend at Llanelli, and the decision to call up Hadley Parkes to the Welsh squad is nonsense.
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The alternative view is if these Welsh qualified, Wales squad standard players are back in Wales then Barclay isn't needed.
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@mikethesnow said in AB's v Wales:
The alternative view is if these Welsh qualified, Wales squad standard players are back in Wales then Barclay isn't needed.
Yeah I can see that but it seems Pivac is saying "we had this issue with Barclay and now he's going do we want the same problem with Moriarty".
I guess the feeling is that, assuming a Wales squad of 35, even if the number was spread equally between the regions that would still amount to 8.75 players being lost from your regional squad each Autumn and 6N. Now if you're a successful region, that number is likely to increase.
Quarts and pint pots?
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True.
The solution is having no league matches during the international window / a non-conflicting rugby calendar
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@mikethesnow Good luck with that!
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I see that the stadium management at Cardiff are asking people to arrive 2 hours before kick off so they can process everyone through security.
Apparently at the Oz game punters missed half the game.
Funny, because at Edinburgh there was no searching done at all. Easy in, easy out. -
@crucial said in AB's v Wales:
I see that the stadium management at Cardiff are asking people to arrive 2 hours before kick off so they can process everyone through security.
Apparently at the Oz game punters missed half the game.
Funny, because at Edinburgh there was no searching done at all. Easy in, easy out.It was always a badge of honour / selling point that pub to seat took about 15 mins.
In light of the stadium attacks around the world and British Royals in attendance, adequate security measures seem sensible to me.
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@mikethesnow said in AB's v Wales:
@crucial said in AB's v Wales:
I see that the stadium management at Cardiff are asking people to arrive 2 hours before kick off so they can process everyone through security.
Apparently at the Oz game punters missed half the game.
Funny, because at Edinburgh there was no searching done at all. Easy in, easy out.It was always a badge of honour / selling point that pub to seat took about 15 mins.
In light of the stadium attacks around the world and British Royals in attendance, adequate security measures seem sensible to me.
What stadium attacks?
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@tim thought it had been confirmed he was unavailable??
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@taniwharugby Yep, but what are the details, and how long will be out?
