All Blacks 2023
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That Paul Cully article was stupid as shit, but he claimed that Sotutu had "inconsistent" seasons over the last two years. Sotutu was the Blues best player last year, when they won 15 games in a row. His defence was excellent. Real garbage take from a terrible "journalist".
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It was a game to erase any doubts, rather than confirm them, particularly for players such as Sotutu who have been in the All Blacks since 2020 without ever developing into a feared defender at Super Rugby level.
Absolutely get fucked, he was one of the best defenders last year. 15 games in a row, and he was the best player in it.
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@reprobate said in All Blacks 2023:
It's clearly a shit stat. one dominant tackle per game could be Ardie or Akira scragging Mitch Hunt backwards for a few metres, whereas Sam Cane is making solid contact on big guys 10+ times per game. They may not be knocked backwards, but they're stopped and put down vs gaining momentum. A better stat would be soft-arse scrag tackles. I'm no Cane fluffer, but to pretend that Savea is a better tackler than him based on stats is just a bit silly.
Entirely agree with this. Statistics in rugby are irrelevant without context. The eye test, will always be the best way of rating players with the nature of the way rugby works.
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At risk of a Fern flogging,
I'd put Sotutu, Frizzel and Akira in much the same category.. Plenty of opportunities in black and the odd good performance in black.. But a real lack of consistency and none of them have demanded selection based on form... Certainly not this season.That said, Sotutu has Savea and Jacobson ahead of him so always going to be tough, but very surprised he wasn't in the NZ XV.. Did he dump in someone's weetbix?
The whole frizzel and akira situation.. I'm still surprised frizzel is there.. IMO They both have a habbit of going missing in big games.. I feel the Blues questionable tactics of having loosies playing really loose has counted against the individuals concerned as much as it hurt the performance of the team.
Personally I thought Akiras game against the Tahs in the quarters, alone would have put him ahead of Frizzel. He played tighter that game and looked good...its that sort of game I thought the selectors would have loved... Maybe it was "just the tahs???" -
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@frugby said in All Blacks 2023:
The eye test, will always be the best way of rating players with the nature of the way rugby works.
..and the eye test was that Shannon has been a lazy shit this year. The bonus is it's backed up by statistics
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@pakman said in All Blacks 2023:
If Ardie were to be injured who else would be a closer like for like replacement than Sotutu (recognising that no one would be that close to Ardie)?
It's a good point. They aren't identical styles but they are playmakers from no 8. It's almost like back in the early 90's talking about constructive and destructive 7's.
But Sotutu wasn't good enough to be in the mix this year
Ardie will likely be the first choice 8 but the balance of the trio really changes if he picks up an injury
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No, it's just in context with the rest of the thread.
Cully made a retarded half argument using stats that conveniently left out one of his favourite players. I pointed that out using the same stats.
Some people then started talking about people relying only on stats.. which is a strawman because no does that, even a simpleton like Cully -
@Duluth said in All Blacks 2023:
No, it's just in context with the rest of the thread.
Cully made a retarded half argument using stats that conveniently left out one of his favourite players. I pointed that out using the same stats.
Some people then started talking about people relying only on stats.. which is a strawman because no does that, even a simpleton like CullyDidn't Cully in his article only focus on No 8 though before he hit his word limit?
From memory (and I'm not going to check) he was talking about Hoskins and compared others at 8? -
Sure. He did make a general statement about all AB forwards too.
It'd be an interesting argument to drop an number 8 for that reason and not drop a blindside for being even worse
But more importantly he's a twat
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You can squeeze a bit of information out of the official match packs
For instance the Final Match Pack has the overall stats plus team breakdowns for the Chiefs and Crusaders. If you are, for instance, looking up a specific Highlander you have to use the match pack from the Highlanders last game
I wasn't aware these existed until they turned up in a google search recently
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The formatting, the black "torn" second on the bottom wasn't used last year....so not just an old post but an actual mistake if they are last years figures
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