RWC Week 2: All Blacks v Namibia
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@sparky Would like to see that front row and second row combo click into gear.
Scrum ascendancy, lineout supremacy and lots of work clearing rucks.
Barrett on the bench along with Vaa'i. Is that to replace Whitelock and Retallick at same time? Or will one of them shift to 6 when Savea is replaced, meaning Jacobson to 8?
ALB to 13? Hmmmm. David Havili outside McKenzie. Hmmmmmmm.
Fainga'anuku and Clarke to run hard and straight and not get isolated or die with the ball.
Doesn't really matter what most of the backs do in this game (unless they are dropping it and missing tackles all over the place). All eyes will be on the forwards, along with McKenzie and Roigard to see how they direct the team about the field.
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Going to be another warm night in Toulouse. Amazing that Super Coach Foster didn’t seem to realise that September is a warm month in the south of France.
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@sparky Toulouse is always reasonably humid.
It is normally around 24/25 degrees this time of year though. Hardly what you would call warm.
It is the extra heat allied to the humidity that is causing most of the issue.
I don't think you can pin the blame on the Foster for the current Indian summer sweeping across Europe.
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Sam Whitelock will join Richie McCaw as New Zealand's most-capped player when he lines up against Namibia at the Rugby World Cup in Toulouse on Friday.
The second row, 34, will move level with former All Blacks captain McCaw with his 148th appearance.
Whitelock's 21st World Cup outing will take him one off the record for World Cup appearances, jointly held by McCaw and former England prop Jason Leonard.
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@game_film said in RWC Week 2: All Blacks v Namibia:
It is what it is. This tournoi always has and always will come down to the quarter…… or maybe the Italy game.
Which is the point many of the sane people are trying to make. We've lost two on the bounce, badly, really struggled against the Wallabies in the 2nd Bled test, a lot of down time between tests and the QF will be the biggest test the ABs play and it looks like with Foster in charge the team will be rotated without any opportunity to build genuine cohesion. It's like he's willing the ABs to lose the QF.
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@Joans-Town-Jones different roads to the same destination.
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6/2 bench.
Head coach Allister Coetzee has made only three changes to in his starting XV from their last game against Italy, handing Jason Benade and Prince Gaoseb a start in the forward pack, and Le Roux Malan in the backline.There are eight survivors in the match-day team from the last time Namibia played New Zealand at Rugby World Cup 2019, with Johan Coetzee, Torsten van Jaarsveld, Tjiuee Uanivi, Johan Retief, Prince Gaoseb, Damian Stevens, JC Greyling and captain Johan Deysel all named.
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Shitting hell, this selection throws up more questions than answers. We are on the loose forward / midfield merry-go-round again. ALB and Havili dont inspire me at all and I dont know how the phuck Beaudy keeps his place. It would have been good to see WJ or pretty much anyone at 15 instead.
Is LJ a 6? Will Cane ever be right? How about LF at centre? -
@Bones Funny how he's getting criticised now that he actually played in a big test and didn't cover himself in glory. It's his 4th year in Black.
As someone said on a different thread, the less you play, the higher you get rated by a fair few on here.
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@African-Monkey not sure what you're trying to say? I've been criticising him for quite a while...
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Wow, I know it is not a match we are in danger of.losing, but that loose trio just shows where we are at presently.
Gone.are the days when we'd have 3 or 4 7s running around nz battling to get into the ABs....now we are starting them all...
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Have roigard and dmac played together yet ?
At least that part is interesting as a potential look to the future .