Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November
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@Chris-B said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@nzzp Now might be a bit too late for Luke, but I think he could have played a sort of Brad Thorn power role.
We didn't often lose when he did play.
Isn't the power role assigned to Patty T? Luke won't have to worry about having big shoes to fill (I think he is a size 17).
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I'm not an AB coach, I like exercise. But if I was an AB coach I'd probably suggest spending 70 minutes running into a tireless wall that pushes you back without a penalty indicates you need a plan B but you also need to execute it sooner. Oh and use your bench at the right time, not just enough to get their boots dirty,
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@Chris said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
That game plan is obvious and has-been shut down now,Time to sort out another way of beating these teams.The AB's have to go back to finding a dominate forward pack so we can then release our X factor backs.
100% this.
Our thinking should be about how we can rethink ourselves to get ahead of the pack who have closed in on us.
Argentina played well, and we nearly did enough to get past them. On replay, it looks even better frankly - we were some sloppy passing and handling away from pulling it out. The big question for me is are we in a 2009, where we roared back, evolved our game, and dominated the next 6 years? Or are we 1998, where it turned to custard for another few years, bookended by failure at RWC once again?
One thing's for sure, it's going to be an interesting few years ahead...
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@bayimports said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@Donsteppa said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
Initial thinking:
- Moody
- Taylor
- Laulala
- Vaa'i
- Whitelock
- A Ioane
- Cane
- Sotutu
- Smith
- Mo'unga
- Clarke
- ALB
- Goodhue
- R Ioane
- B Barrett
Haven't thought through the reserves yet, but S. Barrett and TJP aren't in them. Tuipulotu needs to bring some more physicality back to his game off the bench. For a big unit with a lot of potential, he sometimes plays under his weight at the top level.
No chance in my mind, as it is close to what most people have asked from the start and Foster has consistently done things differently to what we have been asking for. Where I do think you will be close is that there wont be many changes. If we had won the last two then yes, but we didn't and the pressure is on.
I suspect we will still see fullbacks on the wing, inside and outside centers around the other way and I doubt we finally get a balanced back row. I also suspect big name players that were not dominant in their last game get a chance to redeem themselves.
and no this is a guess, not a source guess
So given what I said, I guess I should try pick a team as if I was Ian Foster.
Given a must win, I would expect a XV looking much the same with no balance in backrow, like we have seen but maybe change in a couple of areas where physicality has been mentioned openly, but no changes in the backline
1, JM, 2. DC, 3, NL, 4. SB, 5.SW, 6.AI, 7. SC, 8.A.S, 9.A.S, 10.R.M, 11. C.C, 12.JG, 13. ALB, 14.JB, 15. BB
The bench probably mostly the same as well, just Patty coming off bench for impact
16.CT, 17.KT, 18.TL, 19. PT, 20.HS, 21.TJP/B.W, 22.RI, 23.WJ
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@bayimports I reckon you are pretty much bang on there. I can't Foster starting 2 rookies in his loosies in a must win game - he's way too conservative for that.
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@KiwiMurph said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@bayimports I reckon you are pretty much bang on there. I can't Foster starting 2 rookies in his loosies in a must win game - he's way too conservative for that.
the last "must win" game he put his "best team" out and they got fucking hammered. maybe do the opposite of what you have been doing aye Ian?
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The Argy defensive system is pretty annoying. They are ignoring the rucks and just fanning out, rushing up and making tackles. There is little space, and outflanking it is nigh impossible.
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@bayimports That's close to what I'd expect - I don't think we'll get two changes in the starting loosies, either - but, maybe we will.
I'm thinking Hodgman still ahead of Big Karl.
I think Fozzie might have enough gumption to replace Jordie with Rieko to give us a bit more offensive threat. Which would leave probably TJP, NL and JB as our "safe" back reserves.
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@mariner4life said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
The Argy defensive system is pretty annoying. They are ignoring the rucks and just fanning out, rushing up and making tackles. There is little space, and outflanking it is nigh impossible.
Pick Kevvy Mealamu to punch through the middle of the ruck, ala a dummy half run in league.
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@Gunner said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@mariner4life said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
The Argy defensive system is pretty annoying. They are ignoring the rucks and just fanning out, rushing up and making tackles. There is little space, and outflanking it is nigh impossible.
Pick Kevvy Mealamu to punch through the middle of the ruck, ala a dummy half run in league.
Yep, a series of quick pick'n'go's without a certain halfback in the way slowing things down. Hopefully that will bring some of their fatties closer to the ruck, and introduce a bit more uncertainty to the defence.
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@Donsteppa and mix it up with A Smith doing his thread the needle pass to the pod standing outside 1st receivers spot too, put indecision into the defence about where we are going, make them think about who has to make the tackle, who has to drift, or who shouldnt drift.
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@bayimports I like your confidence by not selecting a left winger.
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@taniwharugby said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@Donsteppa and mix it up with A Smith doing his thread the needle pass to the pod standing outside 1st receivers spot too, put indecision into the defence about where we are going, make them think about who has to make the tackle, who has to drift, or who shouldnt drift.
Argies defence doesn’t bother drifting. They rush hard on the mark.
We have spent so long with patterns to negate the drift D that we have forgotten how to manipulate a direct one. -
@Crucial but they didnt need to drift the other week anyway, we just ran at them, only decision they had to make was do I tackle him or do I let him run past me...
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@Bovidae said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@bayimports I like your confidence by not selecting a left winger.
lol cheers, I did so no changes.. but good spotting edited
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TAB not liking the Argies chances of backing up their win regardless of who Fozzie picks.
ABs $1.12
Argentina $6 -
@Chris said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
That game plan is obvious and has-been shut down now,Time to sort out another way of beating these teams.The AB's have to go back to finding a dominate forward pack so we can then release our X factor backs.
That is almost exactly how England crushed Ireland, except replace 'X factor backs' (plural) with 'X factor back' (May)
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@Donsteppa said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@Gunner said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@mariner4life said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
The Argy defensive system is pretty annoying. They are ignoring the rucks and just fanning out, rushing up and making tackles. There is little space, and outflanking it is nigh impossible.
Pick Kevvy Mealamu to punch through the middle of the ruck, ala a dummy half run in league.
Yep, a series of quick pick'n'go's without a certain halfback in the way slowing things down. Hopefully that will bring some of their fatties closer to the ruck, and introduce a bit more uncertainty to the defence.
Worked a treat Lions 1
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Short passes amongst forwards (and our guys are good enough) to make the oppo forwards commit.
If they don't we go straight through them.
If they do, they aren't lined up waiting for us, and we get some space for the backs.
We do seem to have lost the plot on some of the basics, but hey, what do I know.
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@mariner4life said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
The Argy defensive system is pretty annoying. They are ignoring the rucks and just fanning out, rushing up and making tackles. There is little space, and outflanking it is nigh impossible.
Which makes it so annoying that our 9s did not snipe around the ruck to draw in defenders. There were a couple of big holes immediately next to ruck late on when Weber came on that went ignored. Smith, TJP and Weber all snipe regularly at SR level, so it leads me to wonder why they all almost exclusively choose to pass at test level, even when they have opportunities to run. We know that the ABs have for years used their 9s to move the ball away from the breakdown as quickly as possible in order to outflank their opposition. However, as you say, the gig is up and we are now so predictable it doesn't matter how quickly the ball is being moved away from the breakdown.
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I remember a rugbypass article, from last year, about beating the rush defence with old Brumbies tactics.
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@junior its something I have always been critical of with Sam Nock, up until this year, he passed or kicked, rarely sniped, makes it easer to defend...similarly what you say, we have become too predictable, we are usually the innovators, with other teams always playing catch up.
Often they would, but we'd change shit up again and pull away...now, it seems we let everyone catch up, a couple have crept ahead while we are still cruising along in 3rd, seemingly unsure how to get into 4th.
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Plumtree saying Jordan is fit for selection.
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of course he is, didnt you see my if I was Ian Foster team..
Perhaps the second post was a little saucy
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@bayimports So.... is Fozzie not bothering with a left wing?
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@Chris-B said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@bayimports So.... is Fozzie not bothering with a left wing?
not while George is injured
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@bayimports said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
of course he is, didnt you see my if I was Ian Foster team..
Perhaps the second post was a little saucy
Is that so?
Then:
The good: getting Jordan a run and Ioane out there.
The bad: Still picking pairs of players they like and not making the tough calls.
If Aonae gets injured (or taken off when SB does something stupid), we’ll be very light and athletic in the loosies with a tired Cane and a tired Savea. Yuck.
The starting backline still sucks a bit and no issues have been addressed.
We’ll win, and win well, due to passion etc. and these problems will seemingly disappear, but they’ll still be the key weaknesses of the team. Unaddressed.
Let’s hope that next year the younger players are seen to be that much more experienced that they cant get away with it.
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@gt12 said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@bayimports said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
of course he is, didnt you see my if I was Ian Foster team..
Perhaps the second post was a little saucy
Is that so?
Then:
The good: getting Jordan a run and Ioane out there.
The bad: Still picking pairs of players they like and not making the tough calls.
If Aonae gets injured (or taken off when SB does something stupid), we’ll be very light and athletic in the loosies with a tired Cane and a tired Savea. Yuck.
The starting backline still sucks a bit and no issues have been addressed.
We’ll win, and win well, due to passion etc. and these problems will seemingly disappear, but they’ll still be the key weaknesses of the team. Unaddressed.
Let’s hope that next year the younger players are seen to be that much more experienced that they cant get away with it.
We’ll need to be better to win and not because of some mythical thing called passion. So that’s a good start if anything.
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@ACT-Crusader for Aura's sake we need to win
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@canefan hopefully she has been released from Quarantine!
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The refusal to drop JB is mind boggling.
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@Chris-B said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@bayimports So.... is Fozzie not bothering with a left wing?
smart ass!, fixed that edit long ago.
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Yeah Foster is in a no win situation here. Give the fans what they want and it succeeds, egg on face. Or stick with what he wants and it succeeds... well it's expected.
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@taniwharugby said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@canefan hopefully she has been released from Quarantine!
She's showing symptoms of illness and is in self Isolation
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How about we get beaten soundly and Foster gets fired?
Possible?
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@ACT-Crusader said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@gt12 said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
@bayimports said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
of course he is, didnt you see my if I was Ian Foster team..
Perhaps the second post was a little saucy
Is that so?
Then:
The good: getting Jordan a run and Ioane out there.
The bad: Still picking pairs of players they like and not making the tough calls.
If Aonae gets injured (or taken off when SB does something stupid), we’ll be very light and athletic in the loosies with a tired Cane and a tired Savea. Yuck.
The starting backline still sucks a bit and no issues have been addressed.
We’ll win, and win well, due to passion etc. and these problems will seemingly disappear, but they’ll still be the key weaknesses of the team. Unaddressed.
Let’s hope that next year the younger players are seen to be that much more experienced that they cant get away with it.
We’ll need to be better to win and not because of some mythical thing called passion. So that’s a good start if anything.
My concern is that 'passion' will be manifested in stronger attendance to preparation, stronger effort in contact, and a stronger effort on defense.
So, we will be better, and this will allow some turnovers to be gained (i.e., more opportunities), perhaps some turnovers not be given (i.e., less chance for them to score more than 20 points which seems to be the magic number for beating us), and some space to be generated on the margins (which Barrett, Clarke, and Jordan may exploit), and we'll end up getting a lot more points than our actual strategy probably should generate absent this absolute pinpoint preparation that is dependent on us taking advantage of other team's mistakes to generate points.
All of which may the make it seem like we have turned a corner, until we realize that this is Argentina, a team we should put away without needing to have WC final-esque preparation. I know that's a rude thing to say about the Pumas, but they are not close to the class of England. This AB team would likely get pumped by England right now.
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@mariner4life
Retallick is 29, a World Rugby Player of the Year and as far as I know, not crocked.If we were most other countries he would likely be playing for us now. Another question is, is losing a world class player for 2 years the only viable solution for a situation like his?
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@gt12 said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
I know that's a rude thing to say about the Pumas, but they are not close to the class of England.
They beat the ABs by 10 point in an away game, then drew with Australia in Australia. A week apart after not playing rugby for 400 or so days.
Has England done that? -
@gt12 said in Argentina Two: Newcastle, 28 November:
We’ll win, and win well, due to passion etc. and these problems will seemingly disappear, but they’ll still be the key weaknesses of the team. Unaddressed.
Think leadership and game management by the senior players is an issue and has been for some time for some reason. Hope they have sat down and thrashed that out after the last game .
Don't expect an immediate fix though, but hopefully a change for the better. Might be worthwhile keeping an eye out for who's doing the talking on the field alongside Cane.
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