Northland v Waikato
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@taniwharugby so did Northland, point stands, awful ref.
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@Yeetyaah Waikato handling was exceptional in the damp conditions.
Dmacs positioning is so good though, can see his class.
Thought Goodhue made a difference when he came on, should have been at half time for ranger.
Tua didn't look happy being subbed for a half back.
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@taniwharugby yeah was pissing down eh. Northland defs had some chances, I honestly wasn't feeling too confident after the last couple of games against them.
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@Yeetyaah said in Northland v Waikato:
@taniwharugby so did Northland, point stands, awful ref.
Northland have history in having young out of their depth refs blooded on them. Pity is that they go on to bigger things without improving. Cough-Pickerell-cough
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That was a tough watch. Thought the ref was inconsistent in his calls. Crooked lineout throws, forward passes, penalties off the mark, leaving feet, playing ball on ground, joining from the side. Does Sam Nock have an invisibility cloak at breakdowns?
But a good close game played in great spirit by both sides. Moorby and Tua are a real handful for defenders. DMac seemed the difference in the end with his box of so many tricks.
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@ARHS said in Northland v Waikato:
Crooked lineout throws
you won most of our lineouts, so it was your crooked ones he missed
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Pick your Northland MOTM HERE
Disappointing match this afternoon, both teams left plenty of points out there, but from our side, our poor scrum in the 1st 50 odd mins, poor lineout, poor handling and I absolutely hate how we switch direction after one phase directing the ball straight back into the traffic from the last ruck.
Ranger looked really tired and slow today, plenty of poor decisions, shouldnt have come back on after the break.
Tua was excellent in the opening half, but they targetted him in the 2nd and largely shut him down.
Moorby is a class act, gets nice distance off his kicks too, also like the look of Heremaia Murray, hope he gets plenty of game time this year.
Nock was taking a step with most of his passes tonight, was odd.
Aside from our scrum struggling, thought CTC was excellent on defence and got round, if he lost a few extra kgs he'd be bloody good.
Our handling was poor, which was in contrast to Waikato where pretty much everything seemed to stick.
Thought Goodhue made some nice touches, bought some smarts too, straightened when needed, just looks class.
Disappointing loss, although probably didnt really deserve to win with large patches of our game today, thougth Waikato were gonna go 100m to take away the BP though!
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Well done Waikato, played the tidier game this evening. We were our own worst enemy at times and really need to work on set piece areas.
Northland teams of the past would have rolled over and got pumped, but this side has more resolve and will get more wins, including one or two bigger scalps hopefully.
Changes I’d like to see for Wellington would be Jack Goodhue(if available) starting in the midfield with Tua. Ranger makes way too many bad decisions these days for my liking, he’ll always be one of the greats, but his time has come and gone. I’d drop Leilua and have Macilai and Murray on the wings. Not sure what the persistence is with Leilua..does some crazy ass shit at times and it costs us. He can never stay in alignment on defence.
Up front, if Ofa is available I’d have him in and Matich back in the loose trio somewhere (perhaps for McNamara).. other than that I’d stay as is.
Overall pretty happy because on evidence tonight we can play like crap and still have a shot at winning.. onwards and upwards.
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@J77 your boys definitely created enough opportunities which was good to see, just lacked a bit of class to finish off.
Thought DMac wasn’t too bad. He just doesn’t seem a natural 10 to me, but he is a high skilled player and fearless.
