TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98)
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@akan004 said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
Listened to today's PC. The good news is they won't be taking SBW to Australia, the bad news is that Hansen thinks Frizell played well.
And I agree with him. He hoovered up line out ball in the first half and was more prominent in the 2nd. He defended well. It was a 7/10 from me compared to 3/10 from Fafita the week before.
Not convinced he’s the answer but he wasn’t hopeless.
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In other news, plumbers made an emergency call out last night to a local residence for sewerage overflow. The workers weren’t giving anything away, but a neighbour reported it was the Hansen residence and the problem stemmed from flushing the dunny one too many times.
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So the All Blacks are usually burnt out by November, and also 'always start the season with rust'. We must be due for some exciting rugby in the middle then...
As for the 1991 parallels, let's hope no-one has a David Campese to run around the entire backline!
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@Rapido said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
I though Moouga was good after shaky start.
Actually one of the few bright spots for me.
Dark spots are forward grunt lacking, tactics, some selections, and just getting old. Oh, and shit skills for entire first half .... and shit game management while such shit skills were putting us under pressure.
I thought our forwards looked much better after Angus and Ofa came on. The ability of those two with ball in hand (and in Ofa's case when he doesn't drop it) and in defence went a long way to us looking much more dynamic in attack in the 2nd half.
While Frizell went ok, better in the 2nd half, he still had minimal impact for such a unit.
Yes, he actually did quite a lot in that match (particularly in the 2nd half) but didn't do any of it with any real force. Maybe he's too nice a guy?
That said, I don't think selection issues does anything to deal with the real problem, which is dealing with the rush defence.
It appeared to me that we set-up our attack much differently to what we did last week against Argie, who also employ the rush D. Our runners seemd much more one-out, whereas against Argie, we ran in two-man pods and sent a lot of balls behind the decoy runners close to the ruck. (Someone posted a rugbypass article highlighting the new set-up in the Argie match - I wonder if they'll do something similar for this match.)
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@Billy-Tell
I also thought Frizell did well, wasn't a roving test for a 6 and I thought he worked hard in D and the breakdown seemed to me more involved in the tough stuff than Fifita was last week. -
@Chester-Draws said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
McCaw, Woodcock and Conrad Smith were all playing well enough in 2015. There was no-one sufficiently better, all around the field, to be clearly superior, and the edge in experience was useful -- more so, since on that occasion we were going to be defeated by the pressure, not ability. But this year ALB is clearly superior to SBW, Ardie is streets ahead of Read and I didn't even know Franks was playing last night, so invisible is he in general play.
That's not true. Woodcock was awful in 2015 and many people - particularly many on here - felt relief when he got injured. The real issue this year, as compared with 2015, is whether Franks' natural replacement - Taaovao is up to it as a starter (I think we could all see in 2015 that Moody was more than up to it). Nepo was on the right trajectory pre-injury, but seems to have fallen off track and out of favour.
Read's good games are fewer and further between, I'm a bit more concerned about him, but hopefully he's still got three or four big games left in him because he won't be dropped.
This is an important point. Read only needs 3 big games (probably 2 will suffice if the guys around him do a good enough job) to justify his inclusion. I actually thought he was more effective last night than he's looked since 2017 (that's not saying much, I admit). But, I think the uncertainty around his ability to play with dynamism means we absolutely need Cane and Ardie on the field with him. I just don't think we can go into a big test match again with such a low-impact loose trio.
I honestly do think we are holding stuff back for the WC , under shags reign, he has history of doing that and I don’t suspect it will be any different this time.
I hope you're right. Selections aside, I didn't see much last night to indicate any new thinking about ways to overcome the Boks' defensive patterns.
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@Billy-Tell said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
@akan004 said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
Listened to today's PC. The good news is they won't be taking SBW to Australia, the bad news is that Hansen thinks Frizell played well.
And I agree with him. He hoovered up line out ball in the first half and was more prominent in the 2nd. He defended well. It was a 7/10 from me compared to 3/10 from Fafita the week before.
Not convinced he’s the answer but he wasn’t hopeless.
6.5/10, IMO. He still doesn't know how to use his size and plays far too nice. I reckon we get far too caught up in "work rate" and "involvement" stats, in respect of which I'm assuming Frizell did quite well. However, we really need to measure his impact. (Adam Thomson was one guy who used to run around like a madman, joining rucks and making tackles willy-nilly, but more often had bugger all impact compared to Kaino who often had 50% less "involvement".)
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@Stargazer said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
@Kirwan I think BB would have struggled at 10 tonight.
At least in the first half.
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@Duluth said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
@Snowy said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
Nah. He is an AB fullback to me. He has been shifted to wing when it suits, but he is a full back.
Smith offers so much more at fullback. He’s ok on the wing, but I want him touching the ball more often and making more decisions
Want Bender in the team as wise heads are essential come knock out time. That said, Beaudy looked deadly at 15 and was my MOTM. Bender available at 14 OR 15 is for me a good arrow to have in the quiver.
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@Machpants said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
@pakman how much was losing BBBR in that? I can't remember exactly
From memory Fifita was only LH lock in second poor scrum. But on hit Ofa's shoulders got bent to the right and once he was at 45 degrees who was behind him at lock probably didn't matter. Could have done with a good shove from his flanker, which by then was Papali'i.
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@kev said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
@pakman he has been a project for a long time but can’t remember him dominating at scrum time ever. Maybe he trains well?
If it's Ofa we're talking about, I think he's good around the field and takes ball up well. Scrumtime OK at LH against run of the mill test THs and holds his own well against good LHs, so excellent utility for RWC. Not someone to start at LH against Boks/Poms/Paddies/Frogs.
And has WICKED reverse pass!
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@Stargazer said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
They have to persist with RM at 10, if only to give him the experience he'll need in case BB goes down with an injury.
It's really Hansen's only option since DMac buggered his knee
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Ofa T is a good all round player but at scrum time he got folded like a tent twice by Trevor Nyakane
I would worry big time for Ofa T against European scrums especially if he play LH prop
TBH only AB prop I'd have full confidence in going into RWC is Franks against European sides
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@Jaguares4real said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
Ofa T is a good all round player but at scrum time he got folded like a tent twice by Trevor Nyakane
I would worry big time for Ofa T against European scrums especially if he play LH prop
TBH only AB prop I'd have full confidence in going into RWC is Franks against European sides
That only happened after Brodie left the field. Before that the scrum went great, pushing them off their ball.
Fifita is not a lock.
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@junior said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
@Rapido said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
I though Moouga was good after shaky start.
Actually one of the few bright spots for me.
Dark spots are forward grunt lacking, tactics, some selections, and just getting old. Oh, and shit skills for entire first half .... and shit game management while such shit skills were putting us under pressure.
I thought our forwards looked much better after Angus and Ofa came on. The ability of those two with ball in hand (and in Ofa's case when he doesn't drop it) and in defence went a long way to us looking much more dynamic in attack in the 2nd half.
While Frizell went ok, better in the 2nd half, he still had minimal impact for such a unit.
Yes, he actually did quite a lot in that match (particularly in the 2nd half) but didn't do any of it with any real force. Maybe he's too nice a guy?
That said, I don't think selection issues does anything to deal with the real problem, which is dealing with the rush defence.
It appeared to me that we set-up our attack much differently to what we did last week against Argie, who also employ the rush D. Our runners seemd much more one-out, whereas against Argie, we ran in two-man pods and sent a lot of balls behind the decoy runners close to the ruck. (Someone posted a rugbypass article highlighting the new set-up in the Argie match - I wonder if they'll do something similar for this match.)
Sonny Bill’s attacking runs were very much one-out and that has been the case ever since he first started. It’s both a good and bad thing.
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@ACT-Crusader said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
@junior said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
@Rapido said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
I though Moouga was good after shaky start.
Actually one of the few bright spots for me.
Dark spots are forward grunt lacking, tactics, some selections, and just getting old. Oh, and shit skills for entire first half .... and shit game management while such shit skills were putting us under pressure.
I thought our forwards looked much better after Angus and Ofa came on. The ability of those two with ball in hand (and in Ofa's case when he doesn't drop it) and in defence went a long way to us looking much more dynamic in attack in the 2nd half.
While Frizell went ok, better in the 2nd half, he still had minimal impact for such a unit.
Yes, he actually did quite a lot in that match (particularly in the 2nd half) but didn't do any of it with any real force. Maybe he's too nice a guy?
That said, I don't think selection issues does anything to deal with the real problem, which is dealing with the rush defence.
It appeared to me that we set-up our attack much differently to what we did last week against Argie, who also employ the rush D. Our runners seemd much more one-out, whereas against Argie, we ran in two-man pods and sent a lot of balls behind the decoy runners close to the ruck. (Someone posted a rugbypass article highlighting the new set-up in the Argie match - I wonder if they'll do something similar for this match.)
Sonny Bill’s attacking runs were very much one-out and that has been the case ever since he first started. It’s both a good and bad thing.
I don't care how good a ball-runner he is - or ever was - it's not a good strategy to send a guy up one-out and straight into 2-3 big Bok loose forwards. He's only ever going to go backwards. Even Ma'a would really battle in that role. Additionally, the offloading game only works if there are supporting player there to receive the offload. In either case, the way they used SBW on Saturday made very little sense to me.
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SBW was ineffective last night
He had 11 runs for 14m with no defenders beaten, no clean breaks and no offloads
When he carried it up he was handled with ease
Pollard along with Farrell is one of the physical fly half in the game & tackle ferociously -
@Jaguares4real said in TRC: The All Blacks against the Springboks (version 98):
Ofa T is a good all round player but at scrum time he got folded like a tent twice by Trevor Nyakane
I would worry big time for Ofa T against European scrums especially if he play LH prop
TBH only AB prop I'd have full confidence in going into RWC is Franks against European sides
I think we agree about Ofa at LH. Nyakane seems VERY effective against taller LHs.
Moody and Franks have been solid as against all comers in past few years. Moody has airlifted Puma LHs and only one I recall him having problems with was Antonio. Karl T and Nepo are also first rate, albeit with the occasional wobble.
Nepo and Franks don't have a second gear, which limits them around park.
After yesterday, for me Karl and Joe are locks at LH. Ofa best utility. Two of Franks/Nepo/Angus for TH. Angus is OK at TH but has much more around the park than other two, so will come down to what TWM are looking for.
