Bledisloe 1
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@Crucial said in Bledisloe 1:
@NTA said in Bledisloe 1:
Wallabies Squad:
- Shortish lineout that is already under pressure.
- Lot of ball running in there.
- The back row are all Victorians I think?
Looks to my untrained eye like a side set up to engage as much as possible, rush at us, make and take contact.
Or do I have that wrong? I honestly don't know the strengths/weaknesses of all those players.Holloway into lock and Samu, Leota, Valetini in the back row make that a fairly good assumption.
Also a reflection of our bare playmaking stocks.
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@mariner4life said in Bledisloe 1:
@Kirwan said in Bledisloe 1:
Coasting to a QF or SF loss next year.
@Kirwan said in Bledisloe 1:
Coasting to a QF or SF loss next year.
based on what particularly?
Tight five with two aging locks and and average Lomax is ripe for the top sides to dominate us, and for our inconsistenty to show. Best lock is put at 6, where he is not as effective.
10 and 12 are best of a bad bunch, but not world beaters. Miss a lot of tackles and rely on front forward ball to be effective. Don't get it and you get RM stepping five metres away from players, or running sideways like Dmac.
Put Akira at 6 in the middle of the park, where they put Frizzell, behind one of the emotion fueled tight five performances we had against SA and Argentina and you get everything you get from Frizzel (and he won't get creased by a back...).
We need minutes in Vaai and Sotutu, so pleased at least one is getting on the park.
Enough has been written about Cane. Hope he can string together some good performances, so far he's at one for the year.
Team is conservative and sleepwalking to mediocrity.
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@NTA said in Bledisloe 1:
@Kirwan said in Bledisloe 1:
Tight five with two aging locks and and average Lomax is ripe for the top sides to dominate us
No worries Thursday then.
We can lose to anybody
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@Kirwan i get what you are saying but
i can't see it as sleepwalking. this is what we've got, so we play them.
I'm starting to change on Akira, i think he plays the way he plays, and that's why his chances have been limited. And that's why SB is at 6, because he'll play the role they want. Sotutu gets the roaming do what you want role.
The rst is what we've got. Give them all the time in the world to get better together and learn what the new line coaches want.
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@mariner4life said in Bledisloe 1:
@Kirwan i get what you are saying but
i can't see it as sleepwalking. this is what we've got, so we play them.
I'm starting to change on Akira, i think he plays the way he plays, and that's why his chances have been limited. And that's why SB is at 6, because he'll play the role they want. Sotutu gets the roaming do what you want role.
The rst is what we've got. Give them all the time in the world to get better together and learn what the new line coaches want.
Conservative selections will get conservative results. Mains picked Mehrts in a World Cup year, he went OK.
Like I said, put Akira on the back of the good tight five performances, you get better results that what we saw from Frizzel or from SB. He's shown that in the past.
Worth noting that if Akira for bent in half by a 12 like Frizell there would have been novels written about it on here.
But ignoring the loosies, playing the two old locks together is basically the coaching equivalent of closing your eyes and crossing your fingers they make it to the World Cup.
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@Kirwan I think SW is more than doing enough right now to warrant his spot, BR, I'm less convinced, but I agree they should not start together, and probably shouldnt even be in the same 23 right now, although SW could add something to the lineout off the bench.
For all the talk of rebuilding we are doing, we certainly arent touching some of the parts that need it most.
Good to see Sotutu get a run, but its been almost 3 months since super rugby? Thats a long time out with a handful of NPC games since...
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@Kirwan i don't think you can play Savea and Akira in the same starting pack even behind teh england 2003 tight 5.
I don't give a shit about the chat on here. the only thing SF did was smack rucks and run straight, oh and tackle with a shoulder. Far from perfect but it made the team better. Akira might want to think about that.
I've seen nothing from Vaai at any level that says to me he is now in the top 3 locks. He's in the squad, and if he suddenly turns in to a beast at Super level then he is there to go.
We don't have a Mehrts floating around. We have two limited 10s, and a guy who can't start at the Blues in front of one of those 10s. There is no one at the other 3 teams. IIs there any evidence at all, anywhere, that says that SP is actually a better option?
DH is pretty limited, but it looks like he's the type we need between the 10 and 13 we have. Again, his role makes the team better.
Now, form says we suck this week. But i just can't see the players around that makes this team better on paper.
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@Windows97 said in Bledisloe 1:
Terrible loose forward trio - one out of position, one out of form and one out of practice.
We've fallen so far since the days of Kaino, McCaw and Read
and if Kaino and Read were out we would have had Messam and i can't remember who at 8. And people would have kicked off about how shit it was (because Messam was hugely under rated)
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@mariner4life Vito was pretty bloody handy. He went really well at 6 in the Eden Park Bledisloe in 2015 when Kaino was in a bit of a form rut.
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@KiwiMurph said in Bledisloe 1:
@mariner4life Vito was pretty bloody handy. He went really well at 6 in the Eden Park Bledisloe in 2015 when Kaino was in a bit of a form rut.
personally i would give Sotutu a much higher ceiling than Vito. So there's that
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@mariner4life Second string back then was Messam, Cane and Vito - still a lot better than what we have now. Messam had some outstanding games, particularly against the Boks. All 3 second stringers were very good and you could trust them to do the job.
I don't have confidence in the current back 3 for reasons stated above.
Still these days I don't really trust the AB's to get the job done so I guess quibbling about the loose forward trio is merely splitting hairs of discontent.
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I hope Foster and co have a plan for Retallick and Whitelock. Ideally, if they can decide on their no.6 we can put one veteran lock on the bench to manage their minutes between now and the RWC. These are the three best locks, and Vaa'i is still very young so has time to continue to develop.
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@Nepia im grasping at straws here but i thought he played much better than expected last time he played at 6?....didn;t he?
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@mariner4life said in Bledisloe 1:
@Kirwan i don't think you can play Savea and Akira in the same starting pack even behind teh england 2003 tight 5.
I don't give a shit about the chat on here. the only thing SF did was smack rucks and run straight, oh and tackle with a shoulder. Far from perfect but it made the team better. Akira might want to think about that.
See this is the silliness I'm talking about. Akira has done everything that Frizzell has done recently (with the exception of throwing away tries), including tackling hard and running hard (once through four Irish defenders for a try).
Savea and Akira have combined well on many occasions, this is a classic Fern myth brewing. One of the dumber ones too.
