The Silver Fern

@mariner4life we were top tier on half way for the Bledisloe

@MiketheSnow After twenty years of gradual decline, they are in the rapid decline phase.

I think these are the docos. Shitty 360p quality on youtube

Interesting to see how the aftermath of the Rassie thing has been totally ignored by the local media and official channels.

Glad to hear that the result of the series is not being over-turned though! But, a bit disappointing that 3 of the allegations of errors were found incorrect by the expert officials panel. He was ruled correct on only a measly 23 of them.

But, the huge leaked revelation/allegation is that Erasmus sent a copy of the video to Referee Nic Berry before it surfaced in Aussie media. Looks like somebody deliberately hung Erasmus out to dry. I wonder if any action will be taken on that, as apparently sending a review video to a referee is not a novel thing?

@machpants said in Springboks v British & Irish Lions II:

Best banter from Squidge, 6:16 in - so true

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The brushing under the carpet has worked its magic on me. I don't remember any Guilford only a Guildford..

@sidbarret our refs are very strict on this on CC. My first thought was red.

LCD and Watson are class acts. Have to start in the tests

Just watched that last 20 minutes of the Boks A and Bulls, well done to the Bulls for scrapping out a win. Boks A looked rattled.

More questions than answers for mine.
The Sharks were pretty pants in that first match, wait then suddenly(in the first half anyway) they managed to turn it around and gain relative parity in just 3 days?
Just how good are the Lions??
On evidence of the Sigma Lions and the Sharks matches - has SA rugby gone backwards??
And the biggest question of all - will we see any meaningful test rugby in 2021??

Dawes (together with Barry John & Mike Gibson) visited my school during the 71 tour. From memory he spoke very well and appreciated the school assembly singing Land of My Fathers.

I had a beer with him and Bill Beaumont after the 4th test in 77. Understandable he wasn't as chipper but still seemed like a decent sort. Lions in 77 were very unlucky. Shitty weather all tour long, Phil Bennett homesick and out of sorts, an unhappy tour party, key injuries before and during the tour - hence Beaumont being there. Yet despite all this they probably should have won the series 3-1 Batty and Knights winning tries in the 1st and 4th test both came against the run of play.

@sidbarret said in 2021 British & Irish Lions tour to SA:

@stodders the two things that stick out are the stoppages and that incident where the s&c coach got told off in NZ2.

Townsend had a bit of wingh this week about his players being sledged from the sidelines by the SA support staff (though I think he missed the actual sledge - the comments were in Afrikaans and half his team understood what was said - call it a meta sledge).

It's all very class stuff.

If you win it's fine (see Aussie cricket circa 2003) but if lose or are just average you soon become Aussie cricket in 2018.

See Haddin ODI CWC Final 2015... to quote: we won didn't we?

@Catogrande said in All Blacks v BI Lions Test #3:

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v BI Lions Test #3:

@Catogrande said in All Blacks v BI Lions Test #3:

@Crucial said in All Blacks v BI Lions Test #3:

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v BI Lions Test #3:

Had it on good authority that some of the Home Nations would love for the Lions Tours to finish.

Minimal remuneration and loss of players to injury the primary reasons.

If we'd gone down 3-0 - which was on the cards prior to and during the tour - then it could have seen the end.

So thanks for playing ball NZ 🙂

It is certainly something that really irks me that the NH either decided (or allowed) the SoccerFootball construct of clubs to be the structure in Pro Rugby.
It can only lead to the game being money driven, to owners making decisions based on their club rather than country and to the international game being devalued.
When 'friendlies' become common the international game will die and the RWC will become everything. (I think there are some in higher powers that would actually welcome that scenario)

It's not really the NH as a whole, just England and France. Now I can't speak for France but the idea that The RFU would actually make a pro-active decision of any magnitude is laughable. In England professionalism was held back for a year to allow for a smoother, land transition. What a complete and utter joke. The RFU did SFA to manage the change and left this extra year as a vacuum for wealthy sugar daddies to finance the clubs and effectively own the player base. Fucked it up from the word go.

there are many aspects of the professional game in England that are laudable but the overall planning is not one of them. It is more a case of constantly putting out fires that we have started ourselves.

Wales has done an awesome job of fucking it up too

True but in a different way. The idea of the regions was IMO, the right way to go but it seems from the outside that it has been handled poorly. Quite how I don't know but money is obviously a problem

Regions would have been accepted from the outset if they had been administered and financed by the WRU a la NZ.

They weren't, and then it became tribal warfare.

On the SBW incident , havent watched the replay,

but i seem to recall the lions had the ball as a result of a nothing SBW grubber, I think his tackle was a couple of phases later,

im guessing his mindset at the time was one frustration at his ineffectual kick , and he was trying to make up for it with a display of dominance , and got it all wrong

@kiwiinmelb said in Score prediction ABs v Lions #1:

its interesting because the scores here are pretty close to what I was thinking ,

us by about 2 tries , close most of the game , we get away near the end

30 - 18

yes, yes, and yes

@KiwiMurph said in 15 links to NH Podcasts about Lions Tour:

@Nepia On a 6 week tour with players from 4 nations i'd think it would have a huge impact on team culture and team building.

I don't think that, if a team can't bond without players sharing a room then they've clearly got other issues.

Damn, thought we were above this sort of shit. Will have to put the high horse out in the garage for what's left of the tour.

@mariner4life said in Hurricanes v B&I Lions:

Premeditated! They obviously planned that. Knew they had to get at Barrett and kill him. Fucking disgusting filthy thug shit, and obviously targeted.

Filth. Thug. Sickening.

Wrong Barret!

@Bovidae there was one that the Chiefs got pinged for the other night when the tackler clearly made every effort (with 2 guys on top of him) and did so much quicker than you see others get away with, one where you just shake your head and think WTF.

May has been shit house when he comes on for the Canes