Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown & Dublin Duel
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I think some of the comments seem to be a little revisionist. It seems to happen after every loss, there's this should've selected such and such, took them lightly, arrogant, etc etc.
Someone mentioned Fekitoa, hehas been a bench replacement on a number of occasions and played that role to good effect.
Sure Dagg would have been handy but it wasn't surprising to see the two wingers selected given Hansen and co have been gunning for that combo to start for a while to give it more opportunity but haven't been able due to Naholo's injuries.
Aaron Smith was poor but no matter what some says he's still our number 1 halfback and it seems entirely reasonable that Hansen would give him the opportunity after a few weeks off.
Kaino at lock was a conservative choice and points to lack of 80 minute lock options. A work in progress.
Barrett had a poor game, but when Cruden came on he provided impact and Barrett performed in this game a little better from the back.
Squire is a work in progress. I thought he did some good things for a guy still developing.
Cane and Read below par for the standards they have provided.
Pairing Crotty and Moala was a great selection IMO. But Moala struggled and Crotty was going okay before the injury.
We were starved of ball and created very little turnover opportunities where we are very dangerous. Our LO sucked and we made errors.
Ireland executed well and put scoreboard pressure on us. They headed into the final 20 with enough in the tank to close us out.
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@ACT-Crusader as usual, the voice of reason and sanity
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I think it was a combination of the Irish playing well and a large number of our guys having an off day at the office.
Be interesting to see if this win 'unleashes' the Irish back in Dublin, or how playing in front of a home crowd with a bit of expectation affects them.
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@taniwharugby FYI my post was neutral and didn't include any judgment of what people were thinking (I guess that's the problem with written communication, that you can't always detect how/with what intention a text has been written; emoji's can only help a bit).
As to Barrett's kicking, this is probably the most interesting that has been said about that during the EOYT team naming (from 15'46''):
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@taniwharugby said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
I think it was a combination of the Irish playing well and a large number of our guys having an off day at the office.
bro. once in over a hundred years.
if i have an off-day, it's usually tuesday.
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Hey Rapido, I agree with the first line but not the second. I do not need to harden up and I am not a princess.
This was not the game to do that. In the leadup to this game we had all and sundry from the AB camp talking about how good a side Ireland are and also how this AB side wanted to set new standards on and off the field and add to the legacy. A 111 year old record is something to treasure and not to give up without a fight.This game demanded the best we could put on the field.
Aaron Smith got yanked against the WBs for getting flustered and has been seriously stuffed up by the well known shenanigans in Christchurch. TJP has really stepped up this year and copes miles better with aggression around the breakdowns and scores tries that Smith can't. He is the form 9 and should have started.
ALB has amazed all of us with his maturity and his play for someone so young. He is to the manor born. I refuse to believe the bs that he is tired and not to have him on the bench defies belief. Fekitoa has been around for a while and has just not improved his game at all which is inferior to the variety in ALB's game. In no time at all ALB has formed a good partnership with Crotty and should have started. Again, in a game of such massive importance you DO NOT fucking rest and rotate. Moala is definitely worth persevering with but with his shortcomings this was not the game for him.
Two big bruisers on the wings, WTF, both of whom have limited skillsets. I thought we gave this away in 2009. Again, we knew what the Irish would bring and they did. Dagg on the right wing has added balance to the side this year and the Irish would have got a lot less change from their efforts if he had been there. Apart from his bust for the first try Naholo looked all at sea which for me pretty much sums up his season in black. Again, Shag, why ?
Jerome is the world's best 6. I don't buy the reasons for not starting Barrett at lock. He is a lock. Why weaken the blindside to plug a hole at lock because you have then successfully weakened two positions. Squire for all his potential is not a starter yet and we really missed Kaino at 6.
Read made a comment about their heads not being 100% right. You said what Keiran. I have said for ages that my biggest worry at McGod's retirement was the captaincy. Read was quoted last week as saying that he has demanded that he and his leadership team are in control of the team from Thursdays on. The coaches pull their heads in apparently from that point. To my eyes there was a deficiency of captaincy smarts in Chicago. That seriously needs to be addressed. All well and good when you are winning but captaincy in adversity is a much tougher gig.
Anyway, just my views. If we were going to lose to Ireland I would rather have done it in a less insipid manner. I am an old geezer and probably get the shits too easily but geez I would have liked to have been able to say that I was immensely proud of a losing effort when the Irish won.
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Doesn't say who the author of the article is
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11743497
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@mariner4life said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
based on internet behaviour over the last 24 hours, i would like to congratulate Australia on their win over the All Blacks on the weekend
I guess it comes with the territory of being so dominant. When we lose the whole world rejoices.
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@Jimmy-Jimmy you're right, you don't need to harden up, perhaps lighten up....
111 year old record of not being defeated by Ireland was a tremendous effort. Now that it's over, it can still be celebrated can't it? I personally don't hold it with too much regard. Nice and all, but in this day and age where there is so much test rugby (and not games), "test records" are going to get beaten. The ABs didn't perform well and that is very disappointing, but it doesn't really have anything to do with them not treasuring the legacy.
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@ACT-Crusader no! they didn't play with enuff pashun!! facking run around a bit! And it's all everybody's fault!! hanging's too good for 'em! disgrace!!
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@No-Quarter said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
@mariner4life said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
based on internet behaviour over the last 24 hours, i would like to congratulate Australia on their win over the All Blacks on the weekend
I guess it comes with the territory of being so dominant. When we lose the whole world rejoices.
The funny thing is, my French friends are telling me that - while French comments were indeed jubilant - they are particularly fearful that the ABs will come back with a vengeance and smash Les Bleus in Paris.
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ACT Crusader, as I said just an old geezer raging at the dying of the light. I admire the Irish for the way they played and I would have liked us to have done the same for more than 15 minutes. I promise I will get over it.
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Mr Boo Boo, apologies for my slackness in not replying to your welcome to the Fern about 600 posts ago. You asked if an olive branch had been extended and the answer is no. Is there one ?
It has taken me a while to move from reading and loving the Fern to contributing and I am sure I will have fun. Thanks again.
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What needs to be said, and Shag will do so behind closed doors, is that the ABs lost a game they should have won.
Sure, we were rats hit in first half, but at 29/33 the Irish were shattered and all which was required was composure and accuracy. In which case, we were looking at a 41-33 score line.
However, the AB backs were conspicuous by their lack of composure and errors crept in from trying to force things.
We needed a wise head in the midfield at that point, and even BB was complicit.
In fact, we were luckier to get out of jail in 2013 than we would have been if we'd won on Saturday.
That cold hard fact is hard to stomach.
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@Jimmy-Jimmy by the way, welcome aboard to a world of time wasting, pointless discussion, circular arguments. Word of caution, enter the Off Topic threads at own risk especially ones that have innocuous titles - they are a trap to lure you in to talk about politics, religion and peak oil
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@pakman said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
What needs to be said, and Shag will do so behind closed doors, is that the ABs lost a game they should have won.
Sure, we were rats hit in first half, but at 29/33 the Irish were shattered and all which was required was composure and accuracy. In which case, we were looking at a 41-33 score line.
However, the AB backs were conspicuous by their lack of composure and errors crept in from trying to force things.
We needed a wise head in the midfield at that point, and even BB was complicit.
In fact, we were luckier to get out of jail in 2013 than we would have been if we'd won on Saturday.
That cold hard fact is hard to stomach.
Yeah, we were storming home, that 50 - 70 minute period we were blowing them off the park. Then from 70 onwards we just went off the boil with constant errors, until we gave Ireland a chance to clear, after which we made yet another error to give them the chance to seal it. The last 10 were very disappointing.
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@mariner4life said in Ireland v NZ - Chicago Showdown:
based on internet behaviour over the last 24 hours, i would like to congratulate Australia on their win over the All Blacks on the weekend
England did too apparently without even playing, because they beat Ireland this year .
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BTW.
I think Joseph Schmidt is one of the world's biggest cock gobblers. An absolute arsrhole who does not deserve any redemption. and deserves to fry in hell.
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.I may be overstating that just a tad but as far as I was concerned he could have been a better Patrol Leader at the 1981 NZ Scout Jamboree and given a little more support to the youngest member of his patrol ...
He is a piston wristed gibbon and shall remain so.
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Just made the 11 hour return drive to Toronto yesterday after watching the game with the wife and kids.
Weather was fantastic. Around 20 degrees, which was unseasonably warm. Two years ago at the AB v USA game it was around 3 degrees (but mercifully sunny at least – the day before that there had been wind, snow and rain).
We were near the front in row 7 right behind the goal posts at the Northern end. Great view of the action when the players were down near that end. But sod’s law they were up the other end for most of the game and when in the far end 22 it was easier to see happenings on the big screen, which we had a perfect end on view of. Overall I preferred the seats we had two years ago that were quite near the back but not too far off the half way line (although being that high up the first 5 metres from the sideline were obscured with the stadium being designed for the narrower American football fields).
Crowd was well behaved and seemed to be about 50/50 black v green jerseys however the green fans were way more vocal. I can’t talk here as I am the worst ABs supporter myself, quiet as a mouse giving them bugger all support. I just can’t get the noise out and spend most of the game with a glum look and my stomach in knots (this game and the game v Bokke at Twickers last year, both way too close for me).
Filing out of the stadium afterwards was strangely sombre. The Irish fans were not as jubilant as I thought they might be. I think most of them were still in shock at the enormity of the win. We didn’t stay out that late with the kids and the long drive back to do the following day but by 9pm with more beer flowing and the singing ramping up things were finally starting to get rocking down town when we called it an evening.
I found the thought of losing to Ireland was worse than the reality when it actually happened. My son though (10) was in bits. He has very little experience of the ABs losing and when they did lose it even after they (as confidently predicted) staged their come back from 8-30 to 29-33, the need to cheer him up after the loss gave me the distraction I needed from my own woes. It also somehow felt a bit better sharing the loss with thousands of others there than at home cursing away at the TV.
We were staying down town and the day before there had been (reportedly, and exaggerated probably) 5 million people watching the cubs celebration parade. It was a lot of people and impossible for us, and I’m sure the All Blacks as well, not to get caught up in. It was a real sea of humanity and we struggled just to get from point A to B even with all the roads closed. I felt this was a big reason the ABs were flat and could not get up for the game (that and Ireland showed great compassion and belief at the same time). 108 years waiting for the cubs and 111 for Ireland. There was a sense for me that the ABs, even if subconsciously, felt that a loss to Ireland given the context and history of what had just happened in the city that week might somehow be more forgivable than otherwise. The parade went right past the All Blacks’ hotel and they were out there soaking it up with the fans. In short, their game the following day was always going to be the anticlimax of the weekend whatever the result. History game them permission to lose this one. Anyway that is my wacky theory.
On a more practical level, I think they lost mainly because this is the first time since (when???) that neither BBBR nor S Whitelock took the field, and they really got out muscled badly in the tight exchanges in the first half, which was aggravated by the binning of Moody and losing Crotty, all of which they never really got over.
As for the haka: why didn’t Smith lead it? FFS hasn’t he been punished enough already? My Mrs thinks he will never be the same player again. Hope she’s wrong about that.
Ground announcement was that it was a record for a game of rugby in the United States. 62,700.
