RWC Week 1: France v All Blacks
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If you replace de Groot, Taylor, and Vaa'i from that starting XV, then we go into half time with a healthy lead. Kicking game in that half was our best in years. Good length on kicks. Pity they kept putting up high balls for Jordan when he was off his game.
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Smith had a great first half, but looked really tired in the second. His kicking game was exposed. Newell missed two tackles in the lead up to France's first try. Those Ryan Crusaders selections are appalling.
Rightfully, there was almost universal condemnation of the all Crusaders AB XV selections last year - Ryan has really been shown up with his bias.
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@stodders said in RWC Week 1: France v All Blacks:
@Tim French were putting their hands on the ground a fair bit at rucks before attacking the ball, but it wasn’t being policed. See the ruck after Jordan’s bust at the beginning of the 2nd half. Two French players both do it.
AKA the Marx manouvre. Now it's been pointed out he seems to have stopped trying to jackal.
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@Tim said in RWC Week 1: France v All Blacks:
Newell's been on the field for at least 20 minutes, and he hasn't a single significant touch on the ball, defensive play, or ruck action. If you think my criticism of Ryan is over the top, then consider this horribly biased selection.
Hasn't had much rugby this year.
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@Joans-Town-Jones said in RWC Week 1: France v All Blacks:
@Chris-B said in RWC Week 1: France v All Blacks:
@TheMojoman said in RWC Week 1: France v All Blacks:
@Windows97 said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
@nostrildamus said in RWC: France v All Blacks:
This is such an uplifting thread.
Poster A: The current ABs are crap.
Poster B: You forget, they have been crap before.Well the positives are...
- The game-plan worked for 40 minutes
- We have a lot of injured players to come back into the team - who will make a difference.
- We beat a lot a defenders and created opportunities (didn't capitalize on them unfortunately).
There are positives we can work on but man, two games in a row where our forward pack sort of disappeared. I am certain we can recover and beat Boks/Ireland in the qtrs but I'm not so confident we can win 3 big games in a row.
I'm going to (perhaps wishfully) give Fozzie a bit of credit for taking a professional approach to this RWC.
He let very few of his ABs play any significant time in the NPC. Most of our guys hadn't played any proper rugby for three or four weeks prior to the Jaapie game - and we looked it.
We looked better vs France, but still a fair way off the pace. Well short of the sort of physical effort we put in vs SA in the Rugby Championship.
Losing to France is a bit like losing to one of the top teams in Round 8 of Super Rugby - it's not going to have much bearing on outcomes five weeks hence.
We have to win three hard games - I reckon the stats suggest (and unfortunately for Fozzie's redemption) that each of NZ, Ireland, SA and France has about a 20% chance of winning the whole thing - with the remaining 20% shared between the rest.
I doubt anything significant has changed as a result of the France game. Pretty sure Fozzie had it on his list of "nice to have's", but he won't be losing sleep over that.
So lets say this is true, this is what ABs rugby has sunk to. Losing is ok as long as we win the big one. In less than four years NZRU and the rugby public have allowed this to sink into the fabric of ABs rugby. And probably the worst of all, other than Justin Marshall, no former ABs have come out expressed their hurt at Foster's reign. We're going to lose tests from time to time but the frequency, the manner, the opposition we lose to is just unacceptable. I'll ask again, at what point over the last 4 years has Foster given us any confidence at all the ABs will get passed the QF. Hell, I'd even question we'd get passed Wales or Fiji at this point.
Let's not forget we won the RC this year, so we have it in us. But the margins are so thin that when we can't field our top team we struggle to play well
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@DaGrubster Yep mate, couldn't agree more about Jacobson, I just couldn't understand why Vai'i jumped him as starting 6. I make no bones I have been I have tended to be a huge fan of Ryan as forward coach, but wonder with how pack is going. I know I am a Finau fan, but not sure he would of been answer anyway, he tends to be a great runner with ball , but wider out, and someone like Frizzel carries hard around contact area. I really believe it's w Blackadder is there now, he is more a dirty work player you need in test matches. While not comparing players as being in same class, I always thought the strength of a Richie McCaw , Kaino etc was their work in the dark places. Richie if he didn't win a breakdown (and he missed plenty as all 7s do) he would slow down the ball opposition got, with a niggly just put hand on ball for a second. What Papali'i needs to learn, and I think we missed Cane who does it.
You back from your holiday yet? Some people live a great life!
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I think the main issue we have and we saw it on Friday is that we just don’t have the depth at the moment. (Fozzie has exacerbated this with his squad mix balance).
We have c.20 players that form the bulk of a strong squad, but as we have seen with certain injuries and from the bench, we are not getting much out of the side if we have to dive deeper.
I also don’t think we have the mental strength of previous AB sides and I actually don’t think we have as good as fitness levels. AB sides would pride themselves on being the fittest but we haven’t seen evidence of that this year (2nd half drop offs in most games). While the opportunity to fatigue teams has been lessened because of games lasting over 2 hours, we haven’t adapted to that either and we don’t put the same emphasis on building strength in the side. It’s quite evident when you compare AB body shapes with other sides.
I honestly don’t know whether it is Foz, the players, super rugby or as always, a combination all all of these things and more. but this side could be so much more than it is and it feels like we are running out of time to see that.
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@DaGrubster said in RWC Week 1: France v All Blacks:
I think the main issue we have and we saw it on Friday is that we just don’t have the depth at the moment. (Fozzie has exacerbated this with his squad mix balance).
We have c.20 players that form the bulk of a strong squad, but as we have seen with certain injuries and from the bench, we are not getting much out of the side if we have to dive deeper.
I also don’t think we have the mental strength of previous AB sides and I actually don’t think we have as good as fitness levels. AB sides would pride themselves on being the fittest but we haven’t seen evidence of that this year (2nd half drop offs in most games). While the opportunity to fatigue teams has been lessened because of games lasting over 2 hours, we haven’t adapted to that either and we don’t put the same emphasis on building strength in the side. It’s quite evident when you compare AB body shapes with other sides.
I honestly don’t know whether it is Foz, the players, super rugby or many other small things but this side could be so much more than it is and it feels like we are running out of time to see that.
In 2019 at least the illusion was the powder being kept dry for when we needed it. This time around I feel less hopeful, we are grasping and so much will have to go right for us to be successful
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Listening to Steve Devine yesterday ,
He was wondering if they are holding something back for the 1/4s ,
He thought the game was there to be won but they didn’t go for it,
In other words what he is really saying ,the tactics were so bad he is hoping they weren’t deliberate 😀
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@DaGrubster Agree mate, the other thing we have to do is perhaps change game plan, I think fitness is there, but teams have got it down to a 'T' on how to slow game down, to take it out of game. When we beat Boks at Mt Smart we used the contestable kick really well, made the Boks forwards move all the time, because we pressured their catchers, and if they kicked for touch we got to control speed of game etc. At Twickers and against France watch what is happening, teams are putting a screen of 3-4 players in front of catcher to protect him, and refs are allowing it, so we need a different tactic I think. Personally I think it interference, but if refs are happy with it, the teams are bang on rights to use it. I think it's one of reasons we played so much between 10m lines on weekend.
I do agree we don't have depth of players at this stage in NZ, and watching Super rugby you can see that, games very rarely develop into a slugfest etc.
My other belief , have said it a few times, our players (and I think because of loose defence) have lost a lot of skill sets. We used to see kiwi teams able to attack with 3 players between 5m and sideline and beat defenders with quick little passes, haven't seen it for a few years, it's not needed as much against weaker defences in super nowadays.I also think we have to take into account that teams like Ireland and France have never been better, sometimes it's not just about us. We are in different world rugby wise now than we ever have been.
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Yeah, I am pretty much over this RWC already as I don’t think we have the ability to overcome our shortcomings and play in a way that is required to win it.
Too many things have to go for us to be able to win it and the odds must be high for that to happen.
Having said that, it’s a long tournament and we have seen sides grow into them before. Let’s hope the ABs do in fact grow into the tournament and use the next month to be in the best shape possible for the qtr final.
Anything is possible in a one off match of course!
