Bledisloe #1

Post Game: Hanson's shit. Team's shit. Tactics shit. Captain Shit. Wallabies brilliant. We are doomed. Worst loss ever. We need to bring in more Blues/Crusaders (delete depending on your provincial bias).

The only bit I really agree with is the Wallabies were brilliant. The shame of the game for me is that we really didn't see enough IMO to determine if the two experiments held any promise although I agree Smith looked ponderous. I'm also struggling to remember when tandem open sides has ever worked for us. To be fair Hanson came out against the idea but I guess Savea's form and the lack of bona-fide 6's made it worth a go. I didn't read too many complaining about it earlier in the week. As such I think it is worth persevering with. We know what the other options at blindside are.

The one player I thinks has well over-stayed his welcome is Franks.

It confirmed what I have thought for the last 4 years; Retallick is our most important player. When he went down against the Boks I feared our RWC defence was in tatters.

We looked much better when we kept hold of the pill instead of aimlessly hoofing it downtown. I think we created at least two dead cert tries if the 15th man had been there to take the final pass.

How good were Aussie? Very, very good. How good did we allow them to be? Too friggin good...

ACT Crusader

@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:

Post Game: We need to bring in more Crusaders

To be fair I was saying that pre-game 😀

Duluth

@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:

We looked much better when we kept hold of the pill instead of aimlessly hoofing it downtown.

This has not been mentioned enough. The option taking was poor.

Even allowing for us having to kick more because of bad territory.. we still kicked a lot more often than them.
It contributed to the forwards not performing.

canefan

@Duluth said in Bledisloe #1:

@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:

We looked much better when we kept hold of the pill instead of aimlessly hoofing it downtown.

This has not been mentioned enough. The option taking was poor.

Even allowing for us having to kick more because of bad territory.. we still kicked a lot more often than them.
It contributed to the forwards not performing.

It felt like we barely had the ball in the first 40, and the ball we did have we either spilled or kicked away. Time to tighten up. Those flat passes in the face of the D are not working

Machpants

@canefan 20% possession, 13% territory - probably as bad as I've ever seen

ACT Crusader

@canefan said in Bledisloe #1:

@Duluth said in Bledisloe #1:

@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:

We looked much better when we kept hold of the pill instead of aimlessly hoofing it downtown.

This has not been mentioned enough. The option taking was poor.

Even allowing for us having to kick more because of bad territory.. we still kicked a lot more often than them.
It contributed to the forwards not performing.

It felt like we barely had the ball in the first 40, and the ball we did have we either spilled or kicked away. Time to tighten up. Those flat passes in the face of the D are not working

We’ve had a fair amount of success with the close in flat passing over the years because of the players that we have done it with - Whitelock, Retallic, Squire, Faumuina, Tuipulotu, Moody and dare I say even Franks (in the past). Guys like Cane and Savea shouldn’t be getting those balls.

Duluth

@Duluth said in Bledisloe #1:

This has not been mentioned enough. The option taking was poor.

Even allowing for us having to kick more because of bad territory.. we still kicked a lot more often than them.
It contributed to the forwards not performing.

Just expanding on this: We had more kicks from hand than the Aussies. This is despite them having a significant possession advantage

Just for a rough gauge of how often we kicked I though I'd check the number of kicks per minute of possession (clock time, not ball in play time of course)

Aussie one kick every ~4mins 20secs
NZ one kick every ~1min 45secs

Now plenty of that is forced by field position etc but its a rough measure of the frequency

It was clear pretty early in the match we were struggling to get possession. Also our defence was falling off tackles way before the card.
Yet we still voluntarily gave the ball back to them time after time.

At least that should be relatively easy to fix

Bovidae

@Duluth The opposition not kicking the ball to us should not be a surprise as teams have mentioned that doing so invites the AB to counter-attack, and they have adjusted to take away a strength.

Even allowing for the lack of possession in the 1st half, a lot of the kicking was aimless with no chance to contest. And when it was, the likes of Smith were beaten in the air.

broughie

@Bovidae Agree so we need to retain the ball longer which means we need a forward pack than can do this or the kicking has to be better.

Chris B.

@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:

The only bit I really agree with is the Wallabies were brilliant. The shame of the game for me is that we really didn't see enough IMO to determine if the two experiments held any promise although I agree Smith looked ponderous. I'm also struggling to remember when tandem open sides has ever worked for us. To be fair Hanson came out against the idea but I guess Savea's form and the lack of bona-fide 6's made it worth a go. I didn't read too many complaining about it earlier in the week. As such I think it is worth persevering with. We know what the other options at blindside are.

I hope Hansen saw enough in the first half to be kicking himself for breaking one of his coaching precepts - i.e. playing a big, physical blindside. We are going to have to beat several teams with big, physical packs to win this RWC and I don't see us doing that without matching them up front.

Krusty has tried using Hooper and Pocock enough against us that he's got a blueprint for how to play against it - we looked pretty much like Australia out there.

I'm also wondering whether the "two pivots" thing is something that sounds better in theory than it works in practice. Toddy Blackadder was quite a proponent of cramming first fives into his backline - Carter, Slade, Tom Taylor etc - and it didn't ever work out happily across a season for him.

Bovidae

If Pocock is available to play in Auckland it will be interesting to see what Cheika does (re: selection of his loose forwards). Maybe he is introduced off the bench but I can't see Hooper being the player replaced.

barbarian

I was surprised with how little trouble the Savea/Cane/Read backrow caused us at the breakdown.

From memory they won three turnovers, one of which was dubious. But more than that, they rarely slowed our ball at all, allowing White to have a great platform to keep the attack rolling.

It's a chicken-and-egg discussion in some ways, because quick, front-foot ball allows our forwards to get over the gain line, which in turn makes it harder for the ABs to disrupt at the breakdown. But still I expected more from three world class players.

Retallick is such a huge loss, and once Barrett went off you were fielding a very light pack indeed. In the end Arnold, Naisirani and Salakai-Loto all had a field day, both in their clearouts and with ball in hand.

Old Samurai Jack

@barbarian Wobs domination upfront negated ABs any loose forward or backs potential dynamism. "Games are won upfront" couldn't have been clearer on Saturday.

The Silver Fern

Bledisloe #1