Battle of the Bays: Steamers v Magpies
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@Nepia said in Battle of the Bays: Bay of Plenty v Hawke's Bay:
Mathew Cooper signing the praises of the local club ground this match is being played at - clearly he's been living in the Chiefs region too long.
The ground is fine. Completely fit for purpose.
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@Damo said in Battle of the Bays: Bay of Plenty v Hawke's Bay:
@Nepia said in Battle of the Bays: Bay of Plenty v Hawke's Bay:
Mathew Cooper signing the praises of the local club ground this match is being played at - clearly he's been living in the Chiefs region too long.
The ground is fine. Completely fit for purpose.
Stop it. I am enjoy Hawkes fans complaining about playing grounds. The irony is delicious
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Battle of the Bays: Bay of Plenty v Hawke's Bay:
Stop it. I am enjoy Hawkes fans complaining about playing grounds. The irony is delicious
Their ground was fit for a purpose, just not the one they used it for.
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Well Done to The Bay, Looks like the top qualifying spot may be crucial for semis and final where these two teams will almost defiantly meet. Hope the bay of plenty rugby union has signed Tiatia beyond this season he is so dangerous at 12.
Another Outstanding forward effort allowing the backs to show how electric they can be. GO THE BAY!! -
@Stargazer
Had a quick chat to a couple of players and Mark Ozich at the end of the game..
Firstly ,just want to pay credit to the Steamers. Thought they were superb with their physicality they bought both with line speed and breakdown ..
And in the backline Chase Tiatia was a constant threat, in fact he’s more of a threat in the midfield than he is at fullback in my opinion ,simply because I think you can formulate a game plane to expose a weakness he does have around field position (refer super rugby Canes v Saders in Wellington)When he does have his hands on the ball he’s deceptively strong for his size, but thing that impressed me the most he attracts defenders on attack ,but is always talking looking for opportunities for players around him,and the big left foot kick is a bonus..saw that with Joe Ravouvou who was standing directly behind the scrum, we all thought he was gonna come off Trask either in or out, but came off Tiatia instead
One thing I can’t stand is midfielder who does not grow his game and his go to is the tuck and crash..unless you have footwork or some other strings to your bow , your no more than a filler in my book..(and there’s a few of those types running around in Mitre 10 Cup ) won’t name them, not to offend anyone..
Credit to Danny Toala, he’s a genuine line breaker who uses his low to the ground centre of gravity and footwork brilliantly..
Paul from the Driving Maul did an interview with Tiatia where he was lavishing in his praise for Fakatava, McClutchie & Toala regarding their ability moving forward and given how young they all are.
Cant wait to see the full interview .Thought the Magpies set piece scrum was very solid in the main,May and Rakete Stones put a decent amount of pressure on their Steamers counterparts who right up there in terms of completed scrums .
Ash Dixon pulled out a day before with illness ,has some sort of virus from what I believe ,not to serious ,so should be back for the CM game on Thursday night.I know he’s only one man, but he’s also a key figure in the magpies pack, and I know the coaches would not admit it , but being at the game, it stood out like the proverbial..
Isaiah Walker Leawere was also unavailable because of the birth of his child, and to me against a grunty Steamers pack , he would have been a starter in my book..
All in all, I thought it was a very flat performance from the Magpies, O’Connor looks banged up and in need of a rest and I do wonder if rolling most of the same team in the last 7 rounds with not a lot of rotation is starting to bite..
this is not taking anything away from the Steamers, they are the team to beat in the championship, no question, especially with such a solid pack,very good halves and threats in the back division.
I do believe these 2 x teams will meet in the final, but in Rotorua.Just on a footnote, I had some information passed on to me that Geoff Cridge has not been re signed by the Hurricanes..
Sam McNicol is very close to being back on the field, if not against CM, definitely against Ta$man
On Namatahi Waa, Hintz is rated ahead of Waa in the contracting pecking order, maybe not anymore after yesterday. -
@Steven-Harris Thanks for all the info - even if I want this thread to die a quick death and never resurface again.
My takeaway from this game is that if Toala was playing for the Steamers with Tiatia (edit) they probably would have run up a century against us. Thankfully they didn’t poach him along with the Mua’s and Bartlett.
Question: Do you work for Sky/NZR etc? As you always seem to be at various games.
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@Steven-Harris Awesome, thanks for all that info! You confirm my impressions of the game (that's all I'm going to say about it, haha)! I knew about Cridge; it's a pity, but his injuries have hampered his development and may be partly responsible for ruining a potential SR career. I hope he stays in Hawke's Bay and doesn't return to Chch, even if he may be more suited for a bench role in future, due to Flanders/Mikaele-Tu'u/Walker-Leawere leapfrogging him. Really good to hear about McNicol. I hope he can stay injury free from now on.
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@Stargazer be interesting to see if Cridge gets picked up by someone else..?
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@Nepia said in Battle of the Bays: Bay of Plenty v Hawke's Bay:
@Steven-Harris Thanks for all the info - even if I want this thread to die a quick death and never resurface again.
My takeaway from this game is that if Toala was playing for the Steamers with Tialata they probably would have run up a century against us. Thankfully they didn’t poach him along with the Mua’s and Bartlett.
Question: Do you work for Sky/NZR etc? As you always seem to be at various games.
Last time he played against Hawkes Bay he lost 08 - 06 and ended up finishing the game pretty much fast asleep if my memory serves me correctly!
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@Steven-Harris Yeah, 2m locks are hard to find in NZ and his time with the Canes must be handy for any franchise. The Highlanders lose at least Tom Franklin and I don't know whether they've re-signed all of their other locks. Cridge won't be a starter, but with further development he could be handy on the bench, esp because he plays at 6 as well.
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I think the Hawkes backs are being over rated. They looked incredibly average, and as for Toala... meh... he had a couple of good moments, but he fell off a lot of tackles and went backwards alot.
Alot of that could be either a tough day at the office or inexperience.McClutchie and Ili just had bad days, Ili in particular should wipe this game, I think it was the 5th try? The kick through bu Tiatia Ili a ventre was ahead of Karpik in the cchase by 5 metres, dawding back.. karpik oasses him and wins the try,lazy lazy work.
And McClutchie was an incredibly incredibly ineffective in the tackle.
MAybe these guys just had an off day, -
@Baron-Silas-Greenback .I think the average age of the Hawkes Bay backline is 21, 3 x 20 year olds ,they are practically kids, to call this an average backline so early in their careers is either just a cheap shot or so poorly thought through.
Chuck in the fact they are missing Brad Weber on All Black duty..Jonah Lowe, Sam McNicol and Tiahn Falcon who would all be starters if they were not injured ..
As previously said, the Steamers were deserved victors yesterday ,but it was the Hawkes Bays backs that pulled the score back to 24-36 with 12 minutes to go -
What?? I explicitly said it could be just inexperience or an off day, but they did not play at all well in this game. I explicitly did not say they were bad players.
Try and calm down with the knee jerk defensiveness. Your eye patch doesnt mean you have to defend players that play poorly on a given day, -
@Baron-Silas-Greenback average is not exactly flattering..
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@Steven-Harris Oh boo hoo buttercup.
Newsflash... they did look average. In fact I am willing to bet they and their coaches thought they played very average, in fact you had better hope so, because if that was them playing above average.... then they are not going to have much of a rugby career.
Looks like I actually have more faith in young players than you do, as I stated it was likely just an off day or inexperience. You are actually defending that performance?
I know you are desperately looking for a silver lining because your team got an old fashioned ass kicking, but knee jerk defence of poor play is pathetic.
You would better off just remembering that we will likely meet again in the finals and that is a whole new day and the previous result will count for little and you have a great chance of winning the comp. if your young players actually step up. -
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Battle of the Bays: Bay of Plenty v Hawke's Bay:
@Steven-Harris Oh boo hoo buttercup.
Newsflash... they did look average. In fact I am willing to bet they and their coaches thought they played very average, in fact you had better hope so, because if that was them playing above average.... then they are not going to have much of a rugby career.
Looks like I actually have more faith in young players than you do, as I stated it was likely just an off day or inexperience. You are actually defending that performance?
I know you are desperately looking for a silver lining because your team got an old fashioned ass kicking, but knee jerk defence of poor play is pathetic.
You would better off just remembering that we will likely meet again in the finals and that is a whole new day and the previous result will count for little and you have a great chance of winning the comp. if your young players actually step up.Just to clarify things. Steve Harris is a Northland Supporter who is also a rugby lover that attends a lot of other games not involving Northland. HB is definitely not "his team" other than it contained one of his whanau. Us followers that regard HB as "our team" all recognised that we were pantsed fair and square and do not think you will find any of us overly enthusiastic or too complimentary about the way "our team" played nor did we offer much in the way of excuses.
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@Higgins said in Battle of the Bays: Bay of Plenty v Hawke's Bay:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Battle of the Bays: Bay of Plenty v Hawke's Bay:
@Steven-Harris Oh boo hoo buttercup.
Newsflash... they did look average. In fact I am willing to bet they and their coaches thought they played very average, in fact you had better hope so, because if that was them playing above average.... then they are not going to have much of a rugby career.
Looks like I actually have more faith in young players than you do, as I stated it was likely just an off day or inexperience. You are actually defending that performance?
I know you are desperately looking for a silver lining because your team got an old fashioned ass kicking, but knee jerk defence of poor play is pathetic.
You would better off just remembering that we will likely meet again in the finals and that is a whole new day and the previous result will count for little and you have a great chance of winning the comp. if your young players actually step up.Just to clarify things. Steve Harris is a Northland Supporter who is also a rugby lover that attends a lot of other games not involving Northland. HB is definitely not "his team" other than it contained one of his whanau. Us followers that regard HB as "our team" all recognised that we were pantsed fair and square and do not think you will find any of us overly enthusiastic or too complimentary about the way "our team" played nor did we offer much in the way of excuses.
Thats a pretty big 'other than' though....
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback just as I thought ,did not take long for the ungracious side to rear it’s ugly head ,you obviously don’t adhere to any of the values that make rugby the game that it is between not just players but also as supporters..as I previously said ,full credit to the Steamers..at no stage have denigrated the performance of the steamers but I have every right defend what is a very young backline..as I said your the team to beat..
