Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour
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@mikethesnow said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
@machpants said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
@tordah said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
That was an entertaining watch. Welsh always looked like they were barely hanging on in the first 60. I'm a bit annoyed at how stupid Lomax gave away the free kick with his three early engages, even after the ref explicitly told him not to. Laulala needs to work on his tackling technique. More wrappy-wrappy, less shoulder-fucky
Yeah, our Welsh poster was raging at half time how the ref had ruined the game, I assume buy not giving cards to beaudy and Blackadder and/or a red to nepo
Ding ding ding
Beaudy should've (according to previous) been a yellow too, very lucky. Although I'll disagree that less cards means ruining the game!
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@mikethesnow It’s hard when a player is close to snagging an intercept as opposed to a deliberate knocking the ball down. Might have made the game more interesting.
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Will write more tomorrow but great to be back watching Test rugby.
And this will rankle with the majority on here, but if he stays fit Blackadder could become an AB all time great
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@mikethesnow said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
Will write more tomorrow but great to be back watching Test rugby.
And this will rankle with the majority on here, but if he stays fit Blackadder could become an AB all time great
Not me, he looks like a test animal
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@mikethesnow he's built for it aye.
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@nzzp said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
@antipodean said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
@mrdenmore said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
I thought the ALB-Rieko centres combination looked infinitely better than Havili-ALB. In fact, I wonder when they are going to give up on the inside centre experiment with Havili, whose lack of directness offers no threat and disrupts the entire backline. I can see he was an acceptable stopgap but they really need to develop Tupea.
Havili seems to be going backwards in form. That of course has the caveat that he looked his best playing Tonga, Fiji and the Wallabies.
I really thought he did as well.
And it's not just the opposition, it's decision making and unforced error rate. he was good in those games as he ran straight, and opened up space outside him. Now he's playing like he's gunshy, and slipping off tackles all over the place.
I had high hopes - could have been a multiskilled 12, with passing and kicking, as well as some decent directness. Right now, though, I'd take Laumape over him any day ... and that's not going to happen.
Laumape is currently struggling in the Top 14. He is a shadow of his former self.
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ABs completely dominant for the first 35 minutes until the YC, when we took our foot off the throat with some silly mistakes. We were lucky the Welsh lineout fell to pieces, if they scored from there they could have at least put some pressure on. Then our bench just smashed them for the final 20, that was one of the biggest plusses for me - this year our bench has led to disjointed play, but today they really upped the anti.
I thought the ref strongly favoured the ABs. Was a weird feeling as we are normally on the wrong side of the ref when playing up north, but most 50/50s went our way.
Beauden was Beauden, not really a 10 but still a hell of a player that turns half chances into points.
The coaches talked about Ardies running game at 8, and he certainly showed that. Played really well, but does need a 6/7 to play really tight alongside him so he can play the looser role which suits him best.
Our midfield combo is not right, Havili and ALB are too similar and ALB is the far superior player, so Havili needs to make way for Tupea or Rieko so we have more punch with ball in hand. TBH I'd be pretty happy with Rieko moving to centre full time now with Reece on the left.
Whitelock really is the kind of player you take for granted. Just insanely consistent, when he's not there we really struggle. I'd lock him in as captain regardless of if/when Cane returns.
Overall that was a really classy performance, we just didn't give Wales a sniff which is bloody impressive in front of a packed Cardiff. I have to give Foster a lot of credit, after a disrupted season last year when Covid first broke out, he's really put his own mark on this team now and you can see the improvement as time goes on.
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@stargazer said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
I think we need to see Havili next to Mo'unga in a few games, before passing judgment. And not only against Italy, but against stronger opponents. Preferably with Weber starting, too.
In my mind if you can only cope playing with one player then that is the issue. What if Mounga goes off early, you're stuck with ole joe average fumbling around for the rest of the match? Or does he get subbed as soon as Mounga goes off or if Mounga is subbed?
We don't have room for that kind of weakness
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@broughie said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
@mikethesnow It’s hard when a player is close to snagging an intercept as opposed to a deliberate knocking the ball down. Might have made the game more interesting.
"Forward".
Down is legal.
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@broughie said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
@booboo right. Most of the time they are at least giving the impression of intercepting.
He was scooping it back in with his hand, if he gets it, he's in - he has form! But risk v reward is massive try or YC!
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@broughie said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
@booboo right. Most of the time they are at least giving the impression of intercepting.
It's a bugbear of mine (I've got a couple), and it's semantics, but you could be knocking it up and deliberately knocking it forward. You can play the ball in any direction except forward.
Having said that, 9 times out of 10, swatting at a pass will result in the ball travelling forward.
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@stargazer said in Wales v All Blacks 30th Oct NH Tour:
@hooroo I'd like to see who actually is the weak link in the combos. It might be BB. We can also form different, alternative combos for different scenarios.
Ha ha! That's awesome!Dunno if the man of the match can be considered the weak link.
We have a horse like him. If the conditions are perfect, the track is perfect, the jockey is perfect, the barrier draw is perfect, and her eating is perfect, then she is all class. Hard thing to make all the swiss cheese holes line up though.
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@machpants Had to reread your post. The “get it” at first glance appeared snarky like do you understand? In light of the rules would have understood a YC but the ref should have discretion which he seemed to take advantage of. He made reference to AB defensive coverage ruling out a definite welsh try.
