Sharks vs Blues
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Boy that was a hard watch, very flat first half. Good fitness in the second, something that has improved from last year. Yep, that’s how far down I had to look for positives.
Surely that is the last chance for Collins. Unbelievably awful and basically the Blues start with a -7 handicap.
Ruru’s passing was really bad. I guess the ball really was slippery from the humidity because both teams were dropping it all the damn time, made for a very stop start game.
SBW and Nonu to a less extent are g oing to cause us problems as we have to play one of them. TJ is a 12, and needs to play there above both the old guys.
Awful weekend from most of the Kiwi teams.
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@KiwiMurph said in Sharks vs Blues:
@antipodean said in Sharks vs Blues:
Starting to wonder if Tana was the problem...
Its not Leon's squad.
I fail to believe that Leon had absolutely no input on the recruitment of backs in particular since he was signed on as an assistant in May last year. If there were genuine difference making players that Leon felt strongly about he certainly would have had the stroke to get them in the door.
It's as much Leon's squad as any other first year coach in a non-succession situation.
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@Kirwan Yeah 3 second fives and no centre in the squad it's really fucking our midfield up. Yet another blunder from our recruitment team. There's guys in this squad from the previous regime that we desperately need to move on at seasons end.
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Weren’t the blues supposed to be good this year. Same old useless over hyped crap.
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@chchfanatic said in Sharks vs Blues:
Weren’t the blues supposed to be good this year. Same old useless over hyped crap.
Only idiots like you have been saying that. We are just happy that that the reasons for the poor performance are being addressed (Board, Coaches, Talent identification, relationships with Provinces). CEO is under pressure too.
Not one Blues fan was overhyping the team, so you are just full of shit.
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@chchfanatic No it's just opposition fans (mainly Crusaders fans) wanting hype to be there for the Blues so you can throw your usual jokes at us when most, if not all Blues fans know that we're going nowhere and have low expectations year after year.
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@rotated said in Sharks vs Blues:
@KiwiMurph said in Sharks vs Blues:
@antipodean said in Sharks vs Blues:
Starting to wonder if Tana was the problem...
Its not Leon's squad.
I fail to believe that Leon had absolutely no input on the recruitment of backs in particular since he was signed on as an assistant in May last year. If there were genuine difference making players that Leon felt strongly about he certainly would have had the stroke to get them in the door.
It's as much Leon's squad as any other first year coach in a non-succession situation.
It's fairly well known that MacDonald and Coventry had bugger all influence on the squad.
See below.
Let's face it, this is not his squad, and the holdovers and new additions were pretty much all signed off on by his predecessor, and now assistant, Tana Umaga. But MacDonald, the former All Black utility, somehow manages to mix pragmatism with his optimism. Asked how much of this squad, essentially signed and secured by Umaga, was his group and how much influence he's had in selecting the men charged with this turnaround, he was typically forthright. "Limited," he shrugged. "But it definitely feels like my team, or my coaching group's team. We've been here for a month and got into our work. I'm happy with the squad we've got and the way they're responding to what we're asking from them around the strength and conditioning and rugby." -
@African-Monkey wasn’t Akira also going to dominate super rugby and force his way into WC squad.
Blues you have shit halves. Ruru and Pulu are provincial players at best. Black is average too.
Can sometime tell me how reiko is a superstar for the all blacks but average for the blues.
Why are the crusaders good. Because they develop these kids from 17. Get them into the culture early. Their fitness levels are crazy already.
Good luck blues your fun to watch. -
Odd game. Blues awful first half. Hard done with disallowed try. Then when they did score Sharks looked completely stonkered. if we could have showed enough composure to grab second with ten to go we may have stolen it.
Not helped by number of dubious momentum shifting ref decisions.
Watched the last five at 6x!
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@chchfanatic said in Sharks vs Blues:
@African-Monkey wasn’t Akira also going to dominate super rugby and force his way into WC squad.
Blues you have shit halves. Ruru and Pulu are provincial players at best. Black is average too.
Can sometime tell me how reiko is a superstar for the all blacks but average for the blues.
Why are the crusaders good. Because they develop these kids from 17. Get them into the culture early. Their fitness levels are crazy already.
Good luck blues your fun to watch.Akira dominated your mob, fairly comfortably. Remember that game? You had to rely on a friendly ref and our kicker to miss the last kick to win that one.
By your logic, does that mean the Crusaders suck?
Troll posts are boring.
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@KiwiMurph said in Sharks vs Blues:
It's fairly well known that MacDonald and Coventry had bugger all influence on the squad.
Of course, regardless of whether MacDonald was appointed Blues head coach the day following their last game of the season or November when the switch was made the die was already cast in regards to recruitment. By the time MacDonald was announced as assistant in late May how many contracts were left still available? Five? Watch the exodus thread this year by mid-June it's all over aside from a handful of contracts. There was not much left for him to have a say on; but what was left I'm sure he did.
And of course he inherited a squad, that is what happens when you take over a team in a professional sport. It's hardly unique. I guess the subtext is if he had full control of recruitment from the end of last season the composition of the squad would be markedly different. I fail to see how.
I understand the timing and nature of his appointment was a bit strange, but I'm yet to have explained what tangible changes (even in a best case scenario, with a crystal ball to predict M10 Cup performances) in recruitment could have been made post-July that would change the Blues fortunes. I would like to be enlightened though...
Regardless - early days it's second round with a youngish side and an early trip to South Africa I am holding off too much judgement until somewhere between rounds 5-7.
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The tight five was passive for the first 40mins. Most of the problems flowed on from that. Thats mental shit.. I think Coventry is more likely to fix it than Jackson was.
Maybe some high profile casualties would help. Start Hodgman and put Li on the bench to put a rocket up Karl perhapsUnfortunately TJ defended about as well as I expected at 13. He's a 12 and nothing else at this stage.
I can imagine us spending all year chopping and changing the midfield trying to manufacture a centre pairing out of 3 12's. I hope we give Tele'a the 13 jersey in Argentina and against the Sunwolves.
If that doesn't work out then we can go back to picking 3 12's in a match day 23 after the bye.On a positive note, Robinson continues to go well. Always busy and he has a strange knack of consistently making half breaks
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@chchfanatic Ahhhh ok......
Don't know why you feel the need to come on to this thread and brag about the Crusaders when it has nothing to do with them but yeah ok.....
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@African-Monkey wasn’t bragging about crusaders. I was telling you how shit your players are. I was saying how the crusaders system works. Harry Plummer will be a great player but you’ve already chucked him in. At the crusaders he would’ve been left to develop for a couple of years. Like Richie m was.
How did you let chay funaki and tamati Williams go. 2 stars of the future signed by the crusaders. -
@chchfanatic Blues recruitment has been awful for 10 years. Blues fans know this. But thanks for adding so much value to this thread....
Also i'm pretty sure his name is Chay Fihaki...
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@chchfanatic Yeah we know we have shit players signed on long term deals from previous management. Nothing we can do about it now. Most rugby fans know how good the Crusaders systems are as well. On Plummer, chuck him in now I say, would you rather see Dan Kirkpatrick instead? The reason why Mo'unga was hidden away was because you had 3 AB first fives ahead of him at the time, a luxarry we don't have at the Blues, and on the young players mentioned yeah well, you can't keep them all, it's the way the cookie crumbles.
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@chchfanatic said in Sharks vs Blues:
@African-Monkey wasn’t bragging about crusaders. I was telling you how shit your players are. I was saying how the crusaders system works. Harry Plummer will be a great player but you’ve already chucked him in. At the crusaders he would’ve been left to develop for a couple of years. Like Richie m was.
How did you let chay funaki and tamati Williams go. 2 stars of the future signed by the crusaders.Richie M only had one year in the WTG; not years (plural). The main difference with Plummer is that in that year in the WTG, RM had great first fives to learn from. Ideally, Plummer would have had time on a development contract first, but what could they do otherwise? No classy first fives to learn from; no good first fives to do the job while he spends time developing. They had no choice but to throw him in straight away.
The Blues have a very bad record of hiring bad first fives, or coaching all the good potential out of promising first fives. Let's just hope Plummer doesn't share that same fate.
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