NPC 2023
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@Chris-B interesting, I thought Wellington would have done better against the Naki aswell. Maybe keeping things on ice and running through the motions.
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Canterbury ran out a lot of non squad members from their B squad in the 2nd half
And still had a number of player to come back for Rd1 Grace,Dunshea,Christie,Jager,Drummond,
Burke,BrewisMoody,McLeod,Ennor may all be back
Plus Gallagher and Darry should be back for Rd 3 -
@Steven-Harris said in NPC 2023:
@Daffy-Jaffy Good performance from Auckland, took every opportunity that came their way
Looked to have a really good attack pattern which saw them get on the outside of the Taniwha , often exploiting the visitors lack of pace
Really liked the look of Zarn Sullivan at first five , his left boot often carved off massive metres and not to afraid to take the line on when required
Based on what I saw of the halfbacks , Kalani Thomas starting , I would start with Funaki looked much more assured
Northland put a ton of heat on Thomas and at times his service to Sullivan was average
The Forward battle was a bit more even with both teams cancelling each other out ,
Ekuasi started at 8 and was always a handful on the carry , all the starting front row were very good
On RTS at fullback , there was some good and not so good doesn’t have a kicking game in fact looks awkward kickingGreat to see Faletoi Peni get a run , did most things right and showed some awesome stepping ability and on one occasion running directly over Scott Gregory look alike Ross Gladish who was a late call up from club rugby
Had a chat to him at games end , he did say the pace was way higher than club level .He will be staying with squad a few more weeks as Tanielu Tele’a has an injury
Tangitu and Rayasi looked sharp on the wings , but I have got to say I was really impressed with Corey Evans when he came on in the 2nd half , slotted into fullback and looked like he had played their all his life.
It definitely looked like one team that had already played one warm up game and another playing their first
Just a shame Northland had few bodies unavailable especially in the backline , I will update their injuries on the Northland ForumPhotosport has a small gallery of the match here: https://www.photosport.nz/gallery/230729-Auckland-v-Nthland-Preseason/G0000uzLda6WuYE0/C0000azGTB7px3Ds
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@Canes4life said in NPC 2023:
@Chris-B interesting, I thought Wellington would have done better against the Naki aswell. Maybe keeping things on ice and running through the motions.
Or maybe Tamati will take some time to find his feet as a head coach
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@Stargazer said in NPC 2023:
There are no pools in the NPC this year. Just the one single table.
Which is an improvement.
Unfortunately we still don't have a full round robin. In the regular season each team plays 10 matches.. but there are 13 other sides
This year Auckland doesn't play Counties, Wellington & Otago
Some teams will get lucky with which teams they miss. Which teams you get during 'storm week' has a big impact too
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@Duluth we open with Canterbury and 'naki in Whangarei then round out storm week away to Southland next week...so if we are sitting on 2/3, I'll be happy, but we could easily be 0/3...
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Tough start
Not playing Counties, Waikato & Wellington. Missing two of the top four sides (according to the TAB) isn't bad
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hard to build rivalries when team dont even play each other every year let alone twice a year like some sports/comps
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This post is deleted!
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The first game kicks off in 2 days so i thought I'd check the official site
Latest news? Zero on the NPC. All their time seems to be taken up with the Woman's competition, the last story on male rugby was on the 21st of June. Squad lists are of course still 2022
What about the large media sites?
Stuff in their provincial rugby section basically has no stories about the NPC (An AB story mentions players in warmup games, there is a Ranfurly Shield story and a couple of RTS articles in the last month)
NZH? No real coverage, just a RTS story a while ago
Rugbypass - I couldn't find anything about the NPC
Newshub? Couldn't see anything
1News - a story on Brad Shields. Within the last month a story on RTS and another on Crotty
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@Duluth it's ridiculous in my opinion how much coverage and build up the NPC recieves these days. It's still a crucial competition in the NZ rugby landscape which has an uncanny knack of unearthing new talent each year. Plus the pure provincial rivalry is still hard to beat I reckon. I guess the focus this year is on the World Cup so most of the media attention seems to be directed there..but we still have a window where the NPC should take the front seat for a few weeks!
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News sites that used to have provincial (sports) reporters fired them several years ago (well before Covid). In the smaller provinces, all the rugby news has to come from generalists who also write about other subjects than rugby and sports generally. In a year that the FIFA Women's World Cup takes place, the men's Rugby World Cup, but also non-sports events like the elections, aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle etc, they don't have much time left.
In the main centres, they have bad rugby writers (Wellington, for example) or rugby writers who prefer to focuss the All Blacks.
The media attention, and also the articles on the NZR site, relating to the FPC only started a few days before the competition started, so at least they're staying consistent and are waiting until a few days before the NPC kicks off. The FPC gets at most two articles per weekend in Stuff (nothing in NZH); that will probably be reduced to one as soon as the NPC starts. The NPC will get a few more per weekend.
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It gets a little worse each year..
Hopefully the official site is about to post some content. They usually have a preview article explaining the squad changes etc
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@Duluth Bunnings must be stoked with all the promotion and ROI.
Go back pre-covid and the site used to have some basic player stats (tackles, turnovers etc) but I think they even ditched these in recent years?
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@taniwharugby The individual player stats are now in the articles with the team lists. Very user unfriendly IMO.
See for an example (click on a player's name): https://www.provincial.rugby/news/bunnings-npc-round-one-team-lists/
I assume ESPN and Rugbypass will again have stats for the NPC, too.
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@Stargazer I know there was a change of what they provided, so maybe they only ditched it for a short period?
But lack of decent stats has long been a bugbear of mine, I love looking at all that stuff.
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It gets a little worse each year..
Hopefully the official site is about to post some content. They usually have a preview article explaining the squad changes etc
pretty depressing, if its not the AB's then NZR doesnt seem to care, i understand if media outlets have downsized and re focused...but you would have thought the actual unions and NZR would have a vested interest in producing their own content
really stupid stuff like, i knew it started this week, and so went onto the otago social to see who we were playing...all the posts about the actual draw going back months are on/y about the home games...would have thought there would be posts every day this week counting down
i would have thought for an away game some easy stuff would be partnering with a local pub to get our away followers together or something
