Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November
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It is not the players. If it were the players, we would have been saying a month back how well we were doing with a very average team. (I have always had issues with Frizzell, and I really don't like picking Jordie on the wing, but they're not tragically bad. We've fielded B teams in the past that are doing better than the current team.)
They've been overseas, in an English-speaking country on approximately the same time zone, for less than a month. It can't be that they are tired of the travel. Most tours are much longer than they have been away for and involve much more travel.
It has to be the coaching set-up. They look aimless.
(Even if part of it is Cane's captaincy, which is an odd time for it to suddenly start becoming an issue, that is also part of the coaching and selection decisions.)
I had thought it would take a year for Foster to lose the AB magic. Turns out, that was optimistic.
(It was a specialty of the Foster era with the Chiefs that they would look like world-beaters against good sides, then play like turkeys against sides that they would be expected to beat easily. The pattern repeats, it would seem.)
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@Chester-Draws he's done more in less time to hurt Aura than any ABs coach since John Hart went on his losing run
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@chimoaus said in Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November:
Argentina on the other hand have had months of build up for this one game, to beat a team they have never beaten and a clear game plan to train for.
Wait, Argies don't have family? If I was an AB I'd be training to beat a team we'd never lost to.
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Well with the benefit of some space here’s my take.
The ABs have been riding their luck for a while now against a rush defence, with the theory being (as I understand it) that as defences tire you get misalignment because it becomes increasingly difficult for the big forwards to move up at pace while staying aligned with the backs. Then take advantage of the small misalignments to breach the d line.
In practice that worked too, which may be why we saw points coming in the 3rd quarter, the ABs made the oppo make tackles and tired out their forwards earlier in the game, then when the subs come on for the oppo it’s too late because they’re now playing catch-up and they have a different problem.
But all that is based on the AB doing their jobs really well. Good body position taking the tackle, good handling and great cleanouts to force the defence to move. Instead though we’ve now got slow and unreliable breakdowns so by the time the halfback has cleared the ball the rush has had plenty of time to align. As oppositions get fitter it becomes even harder manipulate the line.
I’m interested to know what Foster’s plan is now. The players obviously know their jobs but they aren’t executing. Sam Whitelock on his own isn’t going to secure quick ball for 80 minutes. And press conferences aren’t going to fix that, coaching is. But I haven’t seen any evidence of coaching happening.
If all you have to do to be AB coach now is selection then I’ll have a go. After all it seems you don’t have to actually win. I reckon I can do a selection conference then a post match where I can say the players didn’t execute. After all they’ve already fucked the legacy so I don’t have to worry about that.
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@MrDenmore said in Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November:
Foster’s a dead man walking.
He is if I see him.
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@PecoTrain said in Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November:
Where I do disagree with you is in the Henry/McCaw era
Point of order: I said "since [they] left"
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@raznomore said in Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November:
The scrum got eaten yesterday. This is something we have been extremely strong in for a number of years now. So why have we suddenly gone backwards? I’m a fucken winger so can a prop explain it to me please. Redbeard was always good for that.
I think its down to your second row inconsistency. When you've got BBBR or Thorn pushing it is a markedly different prospect to Whitelock (who is no slouch) and almost anyone else available ATM. Throw in Whitelock having a couple of up and down performances, and swapping combinations through selection.
Our lineout is consistently the best or in and around the best, year in year out. But not last night.
It wasn't great last week either. Camped on the Wallaby line at the end of the first half and then got picked off. Again: consistency.
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man if you look at some of the game stats (which are a bit dubious to say the least - like the defenders beaten ones for us) we should have won this game
28 tackles by Kremer from 31 attempted, Montoya with 2nd highest in the team with 16, and none missed
https://www.espn.com.au/rugby/playerstats?gameId=592925&league=289274
Just shows we did absolutely nothing with the ball we had.
Instead we just kept running into the wall expecting it to break.
This is where we needed Cane to step and say look, we need to do this instead, or BB to say he guys I can see we need to set our pods wider, or SMith to say look I can see we need to get over them cos we aint gettign through them...instead we stubbornly kept trying to break them down.
McCaw struggled in his early years as captain, I think Cane could be a very good captain too, but we need our senior players to step up and react to the situation, rather than seemingly keep banging away blindly
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As an aside, I'd like to know what the Argie number 5 was penalised for when knocked the ball from Aaron Smith's hands.
I heard the ref telling him he was ok in the maul, so why penalise him?
And if he was penalised for deliberately disrupting the hb, how is that different from barrets yellow card?
Big decisions being refereed differently is a problem.
Similarly what happened to "player safety" when ALB got HIA'd and Nugget got walloped?
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@Siam said in Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November:
As an aside, I'd like to know what the Argie number 5 was penalised for when knocked the ball from Aaron Smith's hands.
I heard the ref telling him he was ok in the maul, so why penalise him?
And if he was penalised for deliberately disrupting the hb, how is that different from barrets yellow card?
Barrett got a yellow card because he was off his feet, illegally positioned at a ruck, being a fuckwit.
The Argie 5 got a penalty because he was ON his feet, LEGALLY positioned at a maul, being a fuckwit.Both got penalised for knocking the ball with no attempt to rip or possess it. Effectively it is a deliberate knockdown but generally against the spirit of the game.
But the Laws give referees discretion to determine what is a professional foul or not. Barrett's met that definition because he decided to double down on stupid.
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@Siam all depends on the guy with the whistle.
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@taniwharugby and the replay guy, it would appear😉
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@Siam to a lesser extent I think so, but largely on the ref, I mean the douche moment by Coles, most refs would tell him to pull his head in, but AG said that was a 'slap' and reversed the pen...
Man in the middle calls them as he sees them (even if he sees them wrong
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@Siam said in Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November:
@NTA ok, I can understand that. So you need to be committing numerous offences to warrant a card.
Let's see how that plays out...
Not necessarily.
The first thing to remember is that rugby has Laws. Not Rules. Not Strictures. Not Gospel.
Laws have interpretation. That means in different situations you're going to have different outcomes, because ultimately rugby is a fluid game and you're going to get differences in refereeing depending on the flow of the game.
If Argie #5 did exactly the same thing BUT the ABs were 2 metres out from the goal line on a rampage with their maul, he probably gets yellow carded. I believe I commented at the time in this thread I thought it was "yellow, surely" but AFG didn't see it that way.
Remember that the guy with the whistle is generally the closest to the action. He's out there breathing every minute of the contest so he's making these interpretations run on the fly.
I would like some consistency around using the TMO but that has its own pitfalls and you can*'t* please all the fans all the time.
I love complaining about referees not penalising the ABs enough, but I like to think I've backed off on that since refereeing a game. In fact I think all rugby fans should do a shortened version of their local Union's refereeing course. Might help calm everyone down.
OK, not everyone, but some...
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@PecoTrain said in Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November:
@akan004 said in Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November:
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that only Cane and Whitelock would currently be selected in a combined AB/Bok pack. Whitelock may not even make it tbh.
That unfortunately is the reality of where our forwards are atm. We simply aren't world class up front anymore.Who would you take Cane over in the Bok pack?
Kolisi.
