RWC Week 1: France v All Blacks
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@Yeahtheboys said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@foobaNZ you can’t be saying Aaron smith has the same running game as Roigard. I agree with pretty much all else. Aaron smith is arguably the best halfback of all time. He’s not a world class ball runner at all. That’s not his thing.
Smith and Gregan were the two HB's I've seen at getting to the ruck and clearing the ball quickly.
Gregan covered a multitude of sins within the Aussie forward pack at the time. To be fair to the Aussie forwards they were exceptionally well drilled and their positional play and timing to hit the ruck was excellent, but so often they would lose the counter ruck and start to get pushed back but Gregan would swoop on in there and clear the ball to the next pod and they would do this ruck after ruck.
A second longer and there would have been a turn-over, but bloody Gregan was always there firing the ball out to next runner...would drive me crazy watching the game, but I could only marvel at his skill.
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@No-Quarter That's indeed a fair enough point.
I guess my fear (and maybe that of others) is that Fozzie has already decided that it's the Smith/Finlay combination for this WC and no matter how well Roigard plays in the limited opportunities he gets he's not going to crack the 23.
Time will tell.
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@Windows97 that is exactly the concern. Foster is a terrible selector who doesn't reward form.
Codie Taylor is a very good player, who is now playing well again - but he went through a long patch where his head wasn't right and he was frankly awful. Meanwhile Samisoni was superb but couldn't get picked. Being clearly the better player and not being selected is shit for a player. Foster should have just had a conversation with Taylor, told him to get himself sorted then he would be picked again, and given Samisoni all that time in the saddle. Better for both players, better for the ABs long-term, better for results short-term. -
@Duluth said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Both 1.93m, Read 111kg, Dalton 113kg
Sure the stats fluctuate.. but at the very least they are similar.
Papali'i is very large openside who started his SR career as a specialist 6
thats so frustrating when the AB's have been in such obvious need of a top 6, and it was clear no one was moving cane from 7, why havent we been working on Paps as a 6 for the last few years? and i dont mean just in passing
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@Frank said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@Victor-Meldrew said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@akan004 said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
The Roigard non selection is silly but it also shows how inflexible Foster is. I really don't know why we even bothered having the ABs in SR when clearly form doesn't matter to the guy, he had already picked this AB team at the start of the year.
The same criticism can be made against Henry and Hansen for sticking with Nonu at 12 despite being crap in SR.
You're the biggest Foster fluffer in the world.
Comparing Christie to Nonu, you're reaching new lows here bud.Talk about the opposite ends of the AB spectrum
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I don't get the fixation on comparing heights and weights and saying players are the same because their stats are close. Weight matters to some degree sure, but there are plenty of heavy blokes who don't hit hard or bend the line the way they should. Read probably punched above his weight there, he was always great for lining up one massive hit every game that folded someone, and we've all seen his strength with ball in hand, particularly the way he could free his arms in the tackle.
There is so much more than weight involved, it's timing, effort, leg drive, reading the game to be in the right place, ability to make split-second adjustments to height/line to maximise impact (in both tackling and carting it).
The same goes with height, not all 1:90m blokes are made equal when it comes to lineout ability, both attacking and defending.
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@No-Quarter said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Some pool games for him to make his case and get more comfortable in the black jumper, and he's every chance of making the bench in the quarter.
When you see a player who is obviously a gun, you play him as often as possible behind the incumbent. Foster had the chance to use him against Argentina (didn't), gave him 20 minutes against Oz, didn't play him against the Boks, and then in our easiest game, chose Christie to start against Oz in Dunedin (which was an unmitigated disaster) with Smith on the bench. Then he plays as a sub against the Boks, and scores in one of the great individual efforts since God knows how long.
He's a better passer, better kicker, better runner and bigger than Christie, but Foster can now use the excuse he doesn't have enough big game experience.
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Don't disagree with any of that. But if you are talking about size you are talking about size. To say size and then pivot to style is a different conversation. I was responding to a specific comment about the size of the trio
I would also add it's silly to compare a guy at the start of his international career to a 100+ Test All Black
Papali'i is a decent lineout option. He also has a good running game but he's not usually the primary runner in trio's he plays for. He's actually particularly strong in the tramlines just like Read was
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@Duluth said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Both 1.93m, Read 111kg, Dalton 113kg
Sure the stats fluctuate.. but at the very least they are similar.
Papali'i is very large openside who started his SR career as a specialist 6
Yeah the size discussion with Paps seems very odd. Especially when people are advocating for Jacobson in his place who IIRC is smaller.
I also can remember when Paps started playing openside more often, there were lots of comments suggesting he was a natural 6 not 7 and was too heavy footed for 7.
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@voodoo said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
...... there are plenty of heavy blokes who don't hit hard or bend the line the way they should.
Jaime Mcintosh has entered the chat
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@Kiwiwomble they did gave him a game v ireland he failed
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@Nepia said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@Duluth said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Both 1.93m, Read 111kg, Dalton 113kg
Sure the stats fluctuate.. but at the very least they are similar.
Papali'i is very large openside who started his SR career as a specialist 6
Yeah the size discussion with Paps seems very odd. Especially when people are advocating for Jacobson in his place who IIRC is smaller.
I also can remember when Paps started playing openside more often, there were lots of comments suggesting he was a natural 6 not 7 and was too heavy footed for 7.
I couldn't really care less about his actual size. Nepo Laulala is plenty heavy but having him at 6 would be crap, likewise Dom Bird.
The point is that with Savea and Cane locked in, you need someone powerful, who can run and bend the line, and win lineouts against Courtney Lawes etc. That's not Dalton, or Jacobsen. It was Read. -
@reprobate said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
I couldn't really care less about his actual size.
But you keep commenting on it
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@ploughboy said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
they did gave him a game v ireland he failed
Yeah I mentioned earlier he didn't play well in his only AB start at 6. He needs to be better than that.
Players can have bad games and come back better. Also it is possible that his form was off as he just returned from having his appendix removed
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@ploughboy said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@Kiwiwomble they did gave him a game v ireland he failed
So what, it was one game, Frizzell had multiple failures before his one big game this year and he's now Tongan Jesus.
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@ploughboy said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@Kiwiwomble they did gave him a game v ireland he failed
one game...yes, thats the same as spending a couple of years building a player into what they need
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@taniwharugby Samisoni wasn't, but Foster dropped him for the decider.
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@Nepia said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
Especially when people are advocating for Jacobson in his place who IIRC is smaller.
Also I think there's two different questions. If the AB's were free to pick anyone I would not go for Papali'i in this test.
However they are restricted by their squad
I like plenty of others, have issues with the squad selection. But its done
Within this squad the choice was really LJ v DP as Barrett was needed in the second row. Even if you prefer LJ it's hardly a shocker to go for the larger guy
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@Duluth said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@reprobate said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
I couldn't really care less about his actual size.
But you keep commenting on it
not really. i initially said this "looks a lot smaller, plays much smaller, and a completely different player. Read was a genuine power runner, and a world class lineout option. Dalton, Ardie and Cane are all 7s. Read was an 8 who could have been a decent 6 or even a decent lock."
you're arguing that he's actually not smaller, based on notoriously unreliable rugby stats. that's 4 words commenting on actual size, vs the rest of the paragraph.
