RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1)
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Shameful hindsight now but I would have preferred bowing out to England while still testing the "experience wins you world cups" hypothesis.
I only learnt of the hypothesis from Ted and Shag and last night it got a tick with Bender, SBW Crotty and Cane all showing that old legs can be overcome easier than new heads.
Surely one of those four would have changed the leadership malaise last week. A combination of them had to have helped.
Hindsight, fuck it
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@Siam said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
Shameful hindsight now but I would have preferred bowing out to England while still testing the "experience wins you world cups" hypothesis.
I only learnt of the hypothesis from Ted and Shag and last night it got a tick with Bender, SBW Crotty and Cane all showing that old legs can be overcome easier than new heads.
Surely one of those four would have changed the leadership malaise last week. A combination of them had to have helped.
Hindsight, fuck it
When the shit hits the fan , old heads are less likely to panic ,
The worst part of that game for me now in hindsight, although it was all england in the first half , the comeback was well and truely on after the savea try , yet we played like the wallabies, looked nervous and panic stricken .It was unlike the Allblacks.
Maybe with all the old heads out there, there may have been more composure
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@gt12 said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
Jordie Barrett on the bench in place of Ben Smith seems criminal now.
Not starting Sam Cane was criminal.
Crotty yesterday also reminded us why he and ALB might still have been our best midfield. But four into three doesn’t work.
Crotty instead of SBW might have given us more brains and helped Richie out of his deer in the headlights state.
So the selections were half of it, tactics from the coaches were found wanting too.
Time for a fresh start. Could argue it’s the first time since 2004, thats exciting in itself.
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Perhaps the most shocking thing was that AB pack didn't see fit to grind things out for a while. Not as though there weren't enough Crusaders there (5)?!
At end, BFA to come on with 25 to go was a no brainier.
Not sure TWM ever sorted midfield conundrum. Given RWC knockout I'd have wanted Crotty on field at end. Goodhue was excellent but maybe not 100% so seems starting the only option for him. Could have done with big unit at 12 to start, which means SBW. And can argue both ways for Crotty.
So SBW and any one of other three to start. If Crotty then ALB bench, and vice versa. If Goodhue, then Crotty bench.
In other words, almost any other option to the one taken!
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@Nepia said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
40 minutes on the field against Wales has seen Crotty turn into the messiah. 🤣
I don’t remember many people having issues with Goodhue, ALB and even SBW (aside from the never SBW club) throughout the rest of the cup.
Not the messiah just better than 2019 SBW, and works well in combination with ALB. And in keeping with the experience helps in tough situations, would have been a good selection with Cane, Ben Smith (at 15) Rieko, BB at 10.
Just one of his good decisions against the rush could have been enough to put doubt into the English when we were only a try behind.
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@Nepia said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
40 minutes on the field against Wales has seen Crotty turn into the messiah. 🤣
I don’t remember many people having issues with Goodhue, ALB and even SBW (aside from the never SBW club) throughout the rest of the cup.
Crotty will NEVER be a Ngatai!
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@pakman said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@Nepia said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
40 minutes on the field against Wales has seen Crotty turn into the messiah. 🤣
I don’t remember many people having issues with Goodhue, ALB and even SBW (aside from the never SBW club) throughout the rest of the cup.
Crotty will NEVER be a Ngatai!
We can have a Pakeha Jesus too!
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@Nepia said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@pakman said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@Nepia said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
40 minutes on the field against Wales has seen Crotty turn into the messiah. 🤣
I don’t remember many people having issues with Goodhue, ALB and even SBW (aside from the never SBW club) throughout the rest of the cup.
Crotty will NEVER be a Ngatai!
We can have a Pakeha Jesus too!
Yeah the real one was white anglo saxon protestant
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@Machpants said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@Nepia said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@pakman said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@Nepia said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
40 minutes on the field against Wales has seen Crotty turn into the messiah. 🤣
I don’t remember many people having issues with Goodhue, ALB and even SBW (aside from the never SBW club) throughout the rest of the cup.
Crotty will NEVER be a Ngatai!
We can have a Pakeha Jesus too!
Yeah the real one was white anglo saxon protestant
Crotty looks a bit swarthy, I reckon he could be the Catholic or Greek Orthodox Pakeha Jesus.
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My review:
Not starting Cane at 7 and not having BFA on the bench were dreadful decisions.
Crotty Vs SBW on the bench was a closer call, but Crotty was the better option against that opponent. I remember Crotty being superb from the bench against England in 2018 when he came on and turned the game.
It was obvious from their earlier performances that the big improvement in England's game at RWC 2019 was at the breakdown. Why was there more work on the week before on preventing Curry, Itoje, Underhill and the Vunipolas becoming dominant there? This makes the non-selection of Sam Cane even more baffling.
Why didn't we attack England's lineout more and earlier?
What was up with Aaron Smith's and Beauden Barrett kicking games? Both kicked too short and at times away from the chasing players.
Why was the All Blacks discipline so poor, especially at key moment of the game before and after half time and after the Savea try when they were hauling themselves back into the contest? Was thorough analysis done of Nigel Owens and his decisions as referee?
The All Blacks ran over 680 metres in that game. Why were they unable to turn that into points?
In short, our opponents seem to have been much more thoroughly prepared for this game.
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Cane starts, B Smith instead of Bridge, probably enough there.
That said, I thought the biggest issue wasn't the cattle so much as our inability to protect our ball in tackles. The English used a swarm defence to nullify our offloading game, and then outnumbered us in the resulting tackles for turnovers. Can't do much about the swarm preventing offloads, but we didn't have to also lose the ball, and should have adapted by committing more numbers to our own rucks.
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Having watched the final gives me more perspective, there is not much between ABs , Boks and England, if any team is slightly off their game they will get beat and sometimes it will not be pretty. Barrett over Cane was probably a mistake but watching the final I can understand what Hansen was thinking of even though it did not work. The two brutes in the back row at were very effective or the Boks. BFA was never an option once Bridge played that Bledisloe and backed it up, it wasn’t realistic to drop him but I was puzzled that BFA wasn’t on the bench.
However all that said honestly think the high intensity wins against Wallabies, Boks and Ireland just left us drained and we were flat for the England game. Likewise the AB game drained England and the Boks built just right, obviously with a little bit of good fortune too which you need to win a World Cup.
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Headline inaccurate as always given it should include Farrells name.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12281859
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@DMX said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
Barrett over Cane was probably a mistake but watching the final I can understand what Hansen was thinking of even though it did not work. The two brutes in the back row at were very effective or the Boks. BFA was never an option once Bridge played that Bledisloe and backed it up, it wasn’t realistic to drop him but I was puzzled that BFA wasn’t on the bench.
Yeah - there was some logic to the Barrett selection. I guess the plan/hope was that we'd do the England lineout what the Jaapies managed to do to their scrum. Unfortunately, it didn't come close to working.
The Jordie over BFA thing - I can mainly think it was in case Richie or Beaudy got injured early, he would be a better fit to carry on with the two playmakers pattern - or maybe, as Hansen mentioned - they wanted the option of him being able to bang over a late penalty from 60 metres.
With the benefit of hindsight, probably two selections Hansen would change - but, unfortunately he doesn't get that chance.
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Yeah - there was some logic to the Barrett selection. I guess the plan/hope was that we'd do the England lineout what the Jaapies managed to do to their scrum. Unfortunately, it didn't come close to working.
The main issue was we didnt evan appear to attack their lineout, sometimes didnt even contest...imo made a mockery of the supposed advantage there.
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@taniwharugby Yep - I don't know what they were doing.
It was almost as if having a new system with four good jumpers confused them!
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@sparky said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
Crotty Vs SBW on the bench was a closer call, but Crotty was the better option against that opponent. I remember Crotty being superb from the bench against England in 2018 when he came on and turned the game.
I can understand why they wanted SBW in the mix as he offers something different to the other 3 midfielders. Neither ALB, Goodhue or Crotty are particularly big so I am sure they wanted SBW's greater size to allow them to play more direct, if needed, and to counter Tuilagi. The problem to me, outside the non-selection of Cane, was more about tactics and how they didn't maximise the strengths of the player that were selected.
