RWC Week 2: Ireland v Tonga
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@Mattasaurus said in RWC Week 2: Ireland v Tonga:
whatever the result next week I struggle to see Ireland going down to Scotland - unless there are several key injuries / cards against SA and some "interesting officiating" .....
I'd be very surprised if the SA-Ireland game won't result in a few injuries, the rucks and tackles will be ferocious. As for officiating, these teams should give themselves a pat on the back if there are no cards.
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@KiwiMurph said in RWC Week 2: Ireland v Tonga:
@Nepia said in RWC Week 2: Ireland v Tonga:
@Billy-Tell said in RWC Week 2: Ireland v Tonga:
Still can’t believe we chose Francis saili over bundee. Think it was the Henry era still.
It's silly to pretend that Aki was ever at AB level when he was in NZ. The year Saili made the ABs Aki was a bench player for the Chiefs, he then had one year as a starter for the Chiefs before leaving NZ rugby for money.
This is completely wrong
Saili got picked in 2013.
Aki had the most starts at 12 for the Chiefs before the squad got selected in 2013 (remembering in these days they paused Super Rugby during the June test window) - I think he had close to 10 starts - I just went back and checked.
In fact - it was Saili that was on bench for the Blues at the time - I remember it being a story that Saili was coming off the bench for the Blues but got selected by the ABs.
Mea culpa, I mixed up playoff matches and regular season, he was on the bench for the play off matches with Horrell starting.
In the interest of completeness I decided to fact check your claim about Saili - he started the majority of the Blues matches in 2013.
Regardless, Aki wasn't good enough for the ABs at that time, even if Saili wasn't as well.
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@akan004 I think we have a good shot against them, similarly SA, but we will need to be far more clinical and accurate to do so.
The very nature of knock out rugby says we have a good shot if we get it right, but that's the thing, we probably need more than the 40 mins of good rugby we had v each of Arg and SA in TRC to go all the way.
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@KiwiMurph said in RWC Week 2: Ireland v Tonga:
@Nepia said in RWC Week 2: Ireland v Tonga:
Regardless, Aki wasn't good enough for the ABs at that time, even if Saili wasn't as well.
I simply don't agree. There were plenty on here at the time advocating for Aki.
That's your opinion, fair enough, but he was hardly screaming pick me over all comers in 2013 and had signed to go to Ireland by as early as April 2014 (before any AB squads were picked). So really he only gave himself 2013 to to make the ABs before choosing to play for Ireland.
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Anyway with 5 minutes to go:
Tonga unfit and poor handling.
Ireland cynical and fairly polished.
A couple of scrum calls were pretty bad I must say. One around 74:00 was clearly Ireland folding under pressure as someone mentioned earlier.
I touched on cynicism: if there is one area Ireland excel, it is that half-moment at the back of a ruck or in the tackle that compounds slow possession (not that Tonga did any favours to themselves in this regard). The All Blacks were quite good at this sort of play. Ireland took notes.
Good team tho
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D Duluth moved this topic from RWC Matches on
