Blues vs Stormers
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@sparky said in Blues vs Stormers:
@Kirwan said in Blues vs Stormers:
Our bench is really making a mark in games now, the second half injection of three All Blacks is working well. Four I guess if you include Pulu.
Considerable maturity and mental fortitude from the Blues tonight. Not seen those qualities from them in a long time.
SBW superb off the bench. Akira Ioane and Patrick T have so much potential and are developing into better players. Reiko Ioane was absolutely outstanding. 2019 could be his year.
As opposed to his other shit years?
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According to the Sanzaar stats page Tom Robinson made a match high 23 tackles without missing one. Also the Blues made 182 tackles missing 25 to the Stormers 92/26.
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@Daffy-Jaffy Those are some defensive stats
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Well shit, this feels weird. Three in a row - can't remember the last time that happened. I'm looking forward to watching the replay, but some good efforts out there.
MOTM for me was Big Karl. He made a serious difference when he came on - in teh scrums, and around the park. The Black try came because the props got go-forward in the scrum, and those inches turn into metres wider. A thing of beauty.
Rieko may have looked quiet on TV, but by god he oozes class on the field. His pace to set up Telea was unreal - was there and covered, and suddenly away and throwing a perfect ball. Very good on defence, some decent reads and chased hard. Looked outstanding.
Nonu is showing his age. Too slow to be an AB, and struggling at this level to impose himself. He puts himself in great positions - the brain and instinct is still there - but then the acceleration and pace is gone and people just pull him down. Old Nonu of a few years ago would have busted out of or run away from some of the tackles he got hit with. That said, his 25 m pass was a thing of beauty tonight.
The pack is looking better - like last week, very good in teh loose and working on the set piece. Amazing that we're going OK despite some of the weaknesses. Winning is a habit, and goddamn it feels good. We're a long way from 2015, with our 3-13 record
More than anything, you can see theplayers starting to play for each other and the team, and play a pattern where they are on the same page as each other. Some of the defence was EDIT: outstanding. Good fun, and let's keep rolling baby. Next year might be our year!
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Haha if that's a red card then the game has lost it's way. Silly move by nanai though.
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@Stargazer said in Blues vs Stormers:
This is circulating on social media. South Africans
claimingwhining that Nanai should be cited (and the usual crybabery about refs).Fixed that for you.
Having done that I was surprised at the time that the ref didn't want to have a closer look.
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Special mention to Ruru.
That was his best Super game so far.
Defensively he is very good - in terms of instincts and physicality. I think the game suited his style.
His kicking was also good.
Yes his distribution is an issue but his passes for the Blues two set piece tries were bang on the money.
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@taniwharugby said in Blues vs Stormers:
@KiwiMurph is an automatic visit to the headmasters office...guess it depends if World Rugby intervene to quash the card....wont hold my breath
It OUGHT to be taken into account that Stormer lifted his knees very high, meaning that if he made ANY contact he was going to tumble. Reckless. Further sanction not justified.
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@pakman said in Blues vs Stormers:
@taniwharugby said in Blues vs Stormers:
@KiwiMurph is an automatic visit to the headmasters office...guess it depends if World Rugby intervene to quash the card....wont hold my breath
It OUGHT to be taken into account that Stormer lifted his knees very high, meaning that if he made ANY contact he was going to tumble. Reckless. Further sanction not justified.
All this is what we want the laws to be, not what they are. The interpretation is very clear; what Telea did was clumsy and/or reckless, but intent doesn't matter. Telea's options were to pull out early and tackle the player when they hit the ground, or go up and contest.
What you are not allowed to do is to run into that zone on the ground, which is what he did. As soon as you do that, and contact the player, it's always a yellow/red.
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@Nogusta said in Blues vs Stormers:
@nzzp his inexperience on the wing really showed in this instance.....he sprinted up then put the brakes on then...'ok what do I do now....?'
Yep. You'd expect him to improve in that area (along with the rest of the wings). If we keep seeing improvements, I'm happy. the Blues have been stagnant for so long that I'm seizing on any improvement as the latest false new dawn!
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@Nogusta said in Blues vs Stormers:
@nzzp his inexperience on the wing really showed in this instance.....he sprinted up then put the brakes on then...'ok what do I do now....?'
It was a tick in the con column for sure, I doubt we’ll ever see him do that again.
He gets a boat load of ticks in the pro column for that fend for his try though. Worth sticking with.
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@nzzp said in Blues vs Stormers:
@pakman said in Blues vs Stormers:
@taniwharugby said in Blues vs Stormers:
@KiwiMurph is an automatic visit to the headmasters office...guess it depends if World Rugby intervene to quash the card....wont hold my breath
It OUGHT to be taken into account that Stormer lifted his knees very high, meaning that if he made ANY contact he was going to tumble. Reckless. Further sanction not justified.
All this is what we want the laws to be, not what they are. The interpretation is very clear; what Telea did was clumsy and/or reckless, but intent doesn't matter. Telea's options were to pull out early and tackle the player when they hit the ground, or go up and contest.
What you are not allowed to do is to run into that zone on the ground, which is what he did. As soon as you do that, and contact the player, it's always a yellow/red.
Whilst I think you capture the current 'official' thinking, it must be the fact that in some cases an oncoming player's trajectory will be unpredictably horizontal, as opposed to vertical, and if the distance is large between takeoff and landing, and the approach rapid, an opposition player could readily be (and sometimes is) unable to avoid the oncoming player short of diving out of the way. In such an instance, if he can't dive away in time his only option would appear to be to try and catch the player!!
I'd have to watch the incident again, but I'm not sure the 'official' options were feasible on this occasion.
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Went to the game and although our ball retention was a bit off at times, it's been a long time since we've seen defence like that from a Blues outfit. Rieko's defence gets overshadowed by his fantastic attacking abilities, but nothing goes through him. He really does read play brilliantly. The only time the Stormers looked like getting through was kicking in behind Tele'a but Nanai was always there sweeping behind stopping any sort of danger. Tele'a has been fantastic but unfortunately will get suspended for that tackle but he's always looking for work and is a handful to stop, same for Nanai. Is there any chance of stopping Nanai from leaving haha. Nonu turned back the clock with some of his plays especially with the big long ball out to the winger after a vintage Nonu break. Despite his age and slight loss of pace, he still throws himself around like a youngster. Ruru I thought was very good and has cemented himself as our number1 halfback for now. His physical strength at breakdown time against a big pack got us out of trouble a lot and was very good in general play.
Our backrow had another big night at the office especially on defence. They were hurting them on defence was nulified any threat the Stormers threw at us as well as Tuipulotu whose workrate has picked up massively this year and is really putting pressure on the ABs selectors for a bench spot. He also seems to be growing into the captaincy role as well. Cowley-Tuioti, despite his slow start to the year has also started to step up which he has had to do with Goodhue and Scrafton competing for spots. The lineout was poor and I dont know why they kept throwing to the back on a pretty windy night. It wasn't the smartest tactic on a night like this but hopefully they learn going forward. The scrum is going well and I like how we start with Mafileo and Hodgman with Tu'ungafasi and Tu'inukuafe coming on for 25-30 minutes to close the game out. Tu'ungafasi and Tu'inukuafe were massive at scrumtime and on defence when they came on.
A great team performance and great to have 3 wins in a row, but I hope we don't come back to regret dropping the Crusaders and Jaguares games early on, games we should have won as it could cost us a spot in the playoffs but at the moment, things are looking good but there are no easy games this year and another big must win game against the Waratahs coming up this week.
