Bledisloe #1
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It has been interesting to read this thread from beginning to end in one go.
Team announced: Thank Fark. That really is our best team apart from Retallick. The Wobblies are in for a world of hurt.
Post Game: Hanson's shit. Team's shit. Tactics shit. Captain Shit. Wallabies brilliant. We are doomed. Worst loss ever. We need to bring in more Blues/Crusaders (delete depending on your provincial bias).
The only bit I really agree with is the Wallabies were brilliant. The shame of the game for me is that we really didn't see enough IMO to determine if the two experiments held any promise although I agree Smith looked ponderous. I'm also struggling to remember when tandem open sides has ever worked for us. To be fair Hanson came out against the idea but I guess Savea's form and the lack of bona-fide 6's made it worth a go. I didn't read too many complaining about it earlier in the week. As such I think it is worth persevering with. We know what the other options at blindside are.
The one player I thinks has well over-stayed his welcome is Franks.
It confirmed what I have thought for the last 4 years; Retallick is our most important player. When he went down against the Boks I feared our RWC defence was in tatters.
We looked much better when we kept hold of the pill instead of aimlessly hoofing it downtown. I think we created at least two dead cert tries if the 15th man had been there to take the final pass.
How good were Aussie? Very, very good. How good did we allow them to be? Too friggin good...
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@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:
Post Game: We need to bring in more Crusaders
To be fair I was saying that pre-game 😀
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@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:
We looked much better when we kept hold of the pill instead of aimlessly hoofing it downtown.
This has not been mentioned enough. The option taking was poor.
Even allowing for us having to kick more because of bad territory.. we still kicked a lot more often than them.
It contributed to the forwards not performing. -
@Duluth said in Bledisloe #1:
@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:
We looked much better when we kept hold of the pill instead of aimlessly hoofing it downtown.
This has not been mentioned enough. The option taking was poor.
Even allowing for us having to kick more because of bad territory.. we still kicked a lot more often than them.
It contributed to the forwards not performing.It felt like we barely had the ball in the first 40, and the ball we did have we either spilled or kicked away. Time to tighten up. Those flat passes in the face of the D are not working
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@canefan said in Bledisloe #1:
@Duluth said in Bledisloe #1:
@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:
We looked much better when we kept hold of the pill instead of aimlessly hoofing it downtown.
This has not been mentioned enough. The option taking was poor.
Even allowing for us having to kick more because of bad territory.. we still kicked a lot more often than them.
It contributed to the forwards not performing.It felt like we barely had the ball in the first 40, and the ball we did have we either spilled or kicked away. Time to tighten up. Those flat passes in the face of the D are not working
We’ve had a fair amount of success with the close in flat passing over the years because of the players that we have done it with - Whitelock, Retallic, Squire, Faumuina, Tuipulotu, Moody and dare I say even Franks (in the past). Guys like Cane and Savea shouldn’t be getting those balls.
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@Duluth said in Bledisloe #1:
This has not been mentioned enough. The option taking was poor.
Even allowing for us having to kick more because of bad territory.. we still kicked a lot more often than them.
It contributed to the forwards not performing.Just expanding on this: We had more kicks from hand than the Aussies. This is despite them having a significant possession advantage
Just for a rough gauge of how often we kicked I though I'd check the number of kicks per minute of possession (clock time, not ball in play time of course)
Aussie one kick every ~4mins 20secs
NZ one kick every ~1min 45secsNow plenty of that is forced by field position etc but its a rough measure of the frequency
It was clear pretty early in the match we were struggling to get possession. Also our defence was falling off tackles way before the card.
Yet we still voluntarily gave the ball back to them time after time.At least that should be relatively easy to fix
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@Duluth The opposition not kicking the ball to us should not be a surprise as teams have mentioned that doing so invites the AB to counter-attack, and they have adjusted to take away a strength.
Even allowing for the lack of possession in the 1st half, a lot of the kicking was aimless with no chance to contest. And when it was, the likes of Smith were beaten in the air.
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@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:
The only bit I really agree with is the Wallabies were brilliant. The shame of the game for me is that we really didn't see enough IMO to determine if the two experiments held any promise although I agree Smith looked ponderous. I'm also struggling to remember when tandem open sides has ever worked for us. To be fair Hanson came out against the idea but I guess Savea's form and the lack of bona-fide 6's made it worth a go. I didn't read too many complaining about it earlier in the week. As such I think it is worth persevering with. We know what the other options at blindside are.
I hope Hansen saw enough in the first half to be kicking himself for breaking one of his coaching precepts - i.e. playing a big, physical blindside. We are going to have to beat several teams with big, physical packs to win this RWC and I don't see us doing that without matching them up front.
Krusty has tried using Hooper and Pocock enough against us that he's got a blueprint for how to play against it - we looked pretty much like Australia out there.
I'm also wondering whether the "two pivots" thing is something that sounds better in theory than it works in practice. Toddy Blackadder was quite a proponent of cramming first fives into his backline - Carter, Slade, Tom Taylor etc - and it didn't ever work out happily across a season for him.
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I was surprised with how little trouble the Savea/Cane/Read backrow caused us at the breakdown.
From memory they won three turnovers, one of which was dubious. But more than that, they rarely slowed our ball at all, allowing White to have a great platform to keep the attack rolling.
It's a chicken-and-egg discussion in some ways, because quick, front-foot ball allows our forwards to get over the gain line, which in turn makes it harder for the ABs to disrupt at the breakdown. But still I expected more from three world class players.
Retallick is such a huge loss, and once Barrett went off you were fielding a very light pack indeed. In the end Arnold, Naisirani and Salakai-Loto all had a field day, both in their clearouts and with ball in hand.
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@barbarian Wobs domination upfront negated ABs any loose forward or backs potential dynamism. "Games are won upfront" couldn't have been clearer on Saturday.
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@Chris-B the two pivots has worked well in the final 20 when Mo’unga has come off the bench and provided impact, and I think that is where it will be most effective moving forwards. I’d be starting Beauden at 10 from here on out.
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@No-Quarter Yeah - that's the way I'm leaning too.
We've had success with lifting the tempo in the last quarter and running teams off their feet - but, I think maybe we need to "earn that right" by wearing them down first.
It was us who looked knackered at the end on Saturday - we'd defended ourselves into the ground.
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@dogmeat said in Bledisloe #1:
It has been interesting to read this thread from beginning to end in one go.
Team announced: Thank Fark. That really is our best team apart from Retallick. The Wobblies are in for a world of hurt.
Post Game: Hanson's shit. Team's shit. Tactics shit. Captain Shit. Wallabies brilliant. We are doomed. Worst loss ever. We need to bring in more Blues/Crusaders (delete depending on your provincial bias).You don't need to read very much of the recent Fern to find plenty of people here who have been saying for a long time that our tactics have been shit for a while, that our selections have been abysmal for a while and that Read is in worryingly bad form. I've been saying that I have terrible 1991 vibes all season.
There were some people who didn't think we would crush them, though the majority were of the opinion we would. I thought we would win, but that didn't mean I thought our issues were sorted. Mostly we were foolish to believe what Hansen had told us -- that he was building up to this game, and ignore the form up to then.
The other surprise was how good the Wallabies were. That came out of nowhere. Did you predict it?
As for "we are doomed". Well, we probably won't win the RWC, but we're hardly doomed. Provided Foster is not appointed coach, I expect us to be in decent form next year. If Foster is appointed coach, well yeah, then we up are up Shit Creek, we don't have a paddle and the boat is leaking.
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Who’s saying more Blues? It’s a stretch to call BB a Blue yet.
I’m after Taylor and Ofa/Angus in the front row, Sam to be captain, smith to fullback and was even talking about Ennor on one wing.
Were is the bias in that?
There are a few comedy Cantabs wanting more Crusaders, but ACT is joking and nobody takes the other two seriously.
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@Chester-Draws said in Bledisloe #1:
You don't need to read very much of the recent Fern to find plenty of people here who have been saying for a long time that our tactics have been shit for a while
We had tactics in Bledisloe 1?
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@Kirwan Interesting Ofa/Angus for Franks ? I agree with Taylor for Coles as impact of the bench from Coles is greater,
Sam Whitelock/Cane ? as Captain maybe we seem to lack direction like McCaw brought.
Ennor brings pace to the wing and is solid on the tackle.
And RM to the bench brings impact like Coles.
But we need a brutal 6 so Savea back to the Bench as he has greater bench impact than Cane.Fuck knows who that 6 is Squire,Hemapo I am a bit stumped there.
