RWC Week 1: France v All Blacks
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@mariner4life said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@Duluth said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
If you are going to say things like this you need to be accurate about player sizes
which, to be fair, is impossible because rugby treats everything like a closely guarded secret.
I don't believe a single height or weight stat that ANY fan hangs anything on.
No I believe my eyes more than the stats. However he was making claims based on the size of players. Dalton is not small
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@Joans-Town-Jones said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Plot twist. Taylor to start, DC off the bench and Sami T named at 12 ahead of ALB.
if hes available then i would start Dan Carter, wasted off the bench.....
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@Windows97 said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Carrying both Cane and Savea requires this of your 6 otherwise you end up with a lightweight loose forward trio unable to move bodies or get go-forward in the carry.
Spot on. Arguing about the 6 papers over the fact you need peak Kaino at 6 because the 7 and 8 leave huge gaps for the third player to paper over. Frizzel has had 1 good game, and suddenly he's the next coming. I hope I'm wrong, but can't see him replicating it against top teams consistently
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“First lesson: Have 15 men on the field. When you lose an experienced guy who has been your power player and you lose him from your pack then you do become very vulnerable. “That’s one key lesson and it’s going to be one key lesson going into the World Cup that we all know but we’ve just got to make sure that we really work hard on the discipline side of our game to keep it 15 on 15. “If we’ve got 15 on 15 I’m very confident in that space. “What we had to do was we had to adapt to a strategy, we had Josh Lord come on, we had Tamaiti Williams, we had Fletcher Newell; Fletcher hasn’t played much rugby this year, Tamaiti’s only played a couple of test matches and there’s some massive learning going on there.
Lesson one is obvious (although certain players seem a bit slow to learn this)
I presume the second point is that Ofa's experience would be better on the bench?
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@nzzp said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@Windows97 said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Carrying both Cane and Savea requires this of your 6 otherwise you end up with a lightweight loose forward trio unable to move bodies or get go-forward in the carry.
Spot on. Arguing about the 6 papers over the fact you need peak Kaino at 6 because the 7 and 8 leave huge gaps for the third player to paper over. Frizzel has had 1 good game, and suddenly he's the next coming. I hope I'm wrong, but can't see him replicating it against top teams consistently
I think that's unfair, it is not we are saying he is awesome. Rather he is the only one in the squad that might possibly do the role that the coaches want the 6 to do. The same as with Jordie, with Havili playing a punch up the middle 12 until injury forced Foster to realise actually Jrodie has the body for that. Unlike ALB or Havili. One of many places where we have stupid holes in the squad, no matter the player we'll carry on regardless.
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@Machpants said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Rather he is the only one in the squad that might possibly do the role that the coaches want the 6 to do.
absolutely agree with this.
My critique of the coaches is you rely on a player finding incredible form to paper over cracks that have been visible for the whole RWC cycle. Ardie is an insanely good player, Cane is a rock, but together they cause headaches.
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When you lose an experienced guy who has been your power player and you lose him from your pack then you do become very vulnerable.
Should we not have an alternative to a power player at 6, like another one in the squad or a power 8 in the squad.
Or are we just hoping the one we have can play every game without an injury or slump in form.
Surly if the no1 game plan is to have a power forward in your LF trio you would have some back ups, instead of having to change your game plan to accommodate a non power Loosie.
Otherwise we are playing a certain game plan without the right tools at times. -
@Chris this is what a lot of my critiques come down too, i struggle to get my head around the big picture that fozzie is working towards to the point im not sure he has one. it really does feel like he's rated everyone and then just picked the best 32 players, thats how we ended up with only 3 locks and 5 wingers
my rudimentary understand of a squad selection, you pick your prefered 23...then go through and say if that guy is injured...what do we do, who do we need to cover...and then if the best person to cover is a different type of player then you need back up game plans etc....an you build it up
and it doesnt feel like fozzie has given it that much throught
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@Kiwiwomble said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
my rudimentary understand of a squad selection, you pick your prefered 23...then go through and say if that guy is injured...what do we do, who do we need to cover...and then if the best person to cover is a different type of player then you need back up game plans etc....an you build it up
100% ,this is how you should select a squad,This fit players in because I like them compromises the squad and your game plan.
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if we can avoid any cards, then I think we will be fine, then a bit of luck and who knows.
Up front, with the personel we have, we need to avoid getting into an arm wrestle, so we need to play smart, play slightly wider than we tend to, kick long and chase, and fuck off with the 2 phases left, 2 phases right BS, the French forwards will eat that up.
Get past the French game with no bans or further injuries and the landscape changes as we have time for BBBR, SF, TL, JB (assuming he is unavailable) to be ready for the 1/4.
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@Duluth said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@mariner4life said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@Duluth said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
If you are going to say things like this you need to be accurate about player sizes
which, to be fair, is impossible because rugby treats everything like a closely guarded secret.
I don't believe a single height or weight stat that ANY fan hangs anything on.
No I believe my eyes more than the stats. However he was making claims based on the size of players. Dalton is not small
Good gracious me - is Dalton a good ball carrier (as in being the tip of the spear in the pod carrying the ball into a brick wall) able to move bodies at the ruck, tackle well and be a viable line-out option?
That's what we require from a 6.
If you can believe your eyes in that he's better than that compared to Frizzel, Finau, Blackadder or whoever the French put up against him then ok you have a point.
Granted some players can be smaller and have brute physicality (Sammy T was a great example of this) but Papps is not.
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@nzzp said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@Machpants said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Rather he is the only one in the squad that might possibly do the role that the coaches want the 6 to do.
absolutely agree with this.
My critique of the coaches is you rely on a player finding incredible form to paper over cracks that have been visible for the whole RWC cycle. Ardie is an insanely good player, Cane is a rock, but together they cause headaches.
That's the frustrating part of it - you could have Cane at 7 and Savea at 6 with a big 8 and the balance would be a lot better too.
In all of NZ rugby we've been unable to find a big 6 or a big 8 that was any good for years...
Frizzell has shown some promise this year - finally. Finu did too in the 1 chance he had, but they left him at home for a 5th winger.
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The Fern is way more fun when everyone sets out their stalls on provincial lines
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@Kiwiwomble said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@Chris this is what a lot of my critiques come down too, i struggle to get my head around the big picture that fozzie is working towards to the point im not sure he has one. it really does feel like he's rated everyone and then just picked the best 32 players, thats how we ended up with only 3 locks and 5 wingers
my rudimentary understand of a squad selection, you pick your prefered 23...then go through and say if that guy is injured...what do we do, who do we need to cover...and then if the best person to cover is a different type of player then you need back up game plans etc....an you build it up
and it doesnt feel like fozzie has given it that much throught
There must be key positions that need dedicated replacements. If you were a coach, you would list them in order of importance and work out which positions impact the overall team the most and base your squad off that.
You could argue every position is important and needs a good replacement however certain positions like Wing can be covered at a pinch by Fullbacks, Centres etc. Your Blindside Flanker has evolved into a very important role as they need to be the perfect mix of tight and loose. They need to jump in the lineout, clean rucks, aggressive D and powerful offence.
The loose trio is more about balance than individuals, you simply cannot have 3 players who are all Cane types who tackle non stop but offer little on attack. Ardie is unique in that he is well balanced but just a little short for the lineout work. If you have Cane and Ardie you have to have a Frizell, Ioane, Finau type player at 6.
The fact these selectors thought an extra winger was more important than the blindside/lock is a massive error in my mind.
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@Duluth Hardly - Papps doesn't have any of the requisite skills to bring balance to the loose forward trio (through no fault of his own I might add, he's been played hopelessly out of position).
I was pretty clear what those skills were in my first post.
Cane and Savea present an unbalanced loose forward combination, adding Papps makes it even more unbalanced, how heavy Papps is pales into comparison with the other obvious issues.
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@chimoaus said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
The loose trio is more about balance than individuals, you simply cannot have 3 players who are all Cane types who tackle non stop but offer little on attack. Ardie is unique in that he is well balanced but just a little short for the lineout work. If you have Cane and Ardie you have to have a Frizell, Ioane, Finau type player at 6.
I agree with all of that.
But the squad is done now. So what's the best choice from inside the squad?