Auckland vs Otago

[Nogusta]

Duluth said:

@KiwiMurph said:

Excited to see Tele'a's first start. Same with Riedlinger-Kapa off the bench.

Choat is another one who could make a debut from the bench. They seem to rate him highly, he's probably the reason Havili missed out on the squad

Choat and Kapa were the standouts for Auckland B against Counties B on Saturday. Good to see coach Ieremia sticking to his word in terms of rewarding form players when and where possible.

[African Monkey]

@nogusta Yesh he's done it all year. I am interested to see how Jacob Umaga goes at the back. Trainor's been solid without being anything special and hopefully some time away in the lower grades has done Caleb Clarke some good. Glad that they haven't just picked him for the sake of picking him and forcing him to learn on the job when he didn't deserve to be there. Hopefully he puts in a better performance than what he did against Waikato.

[SouthernMann]

Otago seemed to have named a secondish XV with eight changes, basically deciding to throw the game as unwinable even if they put out their best. So it should be an absolute pumping.

[Chris B.]

@southernmann Where's Geoff Toovey?!!!

[Stargazer]

[Tim]

@kiwimurph Ruru can cover 10, but that would leave Plummer covering 15? Or perhaps Rayasi? He has a decent boot.

[KiwiMurph]

Clarke is going to have his defence tested by Nareki - one of the form wingers in the comp.

[KiwiMurph]

Telea clearly not fit if he gets injured that early.

[Dice]

I think Telea missed an overlap there.

Hope he's OK.

[Stargazer]

That weird yellow card again. Deliberately knocking a ball back into touch. Very similar to "that" SBW card. I don't agree with it.

[KiwiMurph]

@stargazer I do. Fuck off Collins.

[Stargazer]

@kiwimurph Would you have agreed with it, if it had happened at the other side of the field?

[Higgins]

Well that's a new rule to me. He certainly did not throw it into touch so how can it possibly be a yellow card?

[Dice]

Rayasi could've scored if he went for the corner, but he tried to go inside.

[Anonymous]

@higgins You cannot deliberately throw, knock or place the ball into touch. If anything he's lucky it wasn't a penalty try.

[KiwiMurph]

@stargazer to be honest a large part of it is my hatred of Collins.

[Higgins]

Anonymous said:

@higgins You cannot deliberately throw, knock or place the ball into touch. If anything he's lucky it wasn't a penalty try.

A matter of opinion then. To me it did not look like a deliberate throw into touch.

[Stargazer]

@anonymous It's a stupid rule. Kicking a ball out deliberately is okay, but not knocking it out with your hand. It went backward too. Ughh.

[Higgins]

The ref did not mention knock on during the delivery of his decision. I thought he simply said something like "deliberately knocking it back" which is not a penalisable offence much less a yellow card one/ You might recall TBW got dealt to for a deliberate knock back in a HB v Otago game in Dunedin a few years back. Might even have been the game we relieved them of the Shield.

[KiwiMurph]

An underrated skill of halfbacks is being able to organise a maul.