The Silver Fern

@Bones

@antipodean said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@booboo said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@antipodean said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@canefan said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@antipodean said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@Luigi said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@MiketheSnow said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@sparky said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

Not really sure what Matt Todd could do there?

Tackle?

Exactly. It ain’t about intent anymore. Or even it being an accident. If you’re in the way, flailing around like a epileptic squid you’re gonna get pinged. Todd got sent off for being a muppet. Can’t even claim cynicism, just rubbishness.

He's directly responsible for both of Ireland's tries. His YC was deserved - you're supposed to tackle.

Please explain to me the rule that Todd broke? He was inside, the vision clearly showed that. He did not make shoulder or arm contact with the irish player's head. It was at best a collision I would have thought? Honest question

I'd go with foul play obstruction. He made no attempt to tackle and simply plopped himself in the way.

Who is he obstructing. Isn't obstruction preventing someone from playing?

The ball carrier, from playing the ball. I suggest you watch a replay. It's obvious and uncontroversial. Ignore that he got flustered in his explanation, the penalty and card are justified.

I had to go and watch again after reading this. He did not prevent the ball carrier from playing the ball. The ball could have been made available to a team mate at any time and Todd didn’t stop him from trying to do that. He was, for the record, behind the try line when the ball carrier picked up the ball and only moved forward after that. He flopped clownishly at the base of the posts but was onside when he did it. If you called it a tackle or a breakdown then he was on the NZ side of it. If you called it open play then he can be wherever the fuck he likes.

Or are you saying that defenders have an obligation to let a player attempt to place the ball and score a try? Because I missed that law change and so has everybody else who tries to hold up the ball and prevent a score, like in every game ever.

As you’ll have gathered, I’m not accepting it’s obvious and uncontroversial just because you say so.

Of course I could be wrong but you’ll need to cite your source.

@Crucial said in All Blacks vs. B&I Lions test #1:

Edit: credit where it is due to a good article by Stuart Barnes. If anyone has cut and paste abilities for the Times others here may wish to read it

Barnes's column:
"The Lions are on the horns of a dilemma. If they play with as much attacking fluency as they did for much of yesterday’s match they open the way for New Zealand to cut them to pieces. If they strip back their game and attempt to take all tempo out of the match they will be criticised on all sides, unless they win. And the chances of that are pretty remote. Remote but not out of the question.

For all the brave talk in defeat, for all the majesty of what was one of the great Test match tries, the Lions are doomed if they see that score as the template for how to win in Wellington. That try was exceptional. British and Irish rugby is not. It may well be that last night was as good as it gets in attack.

There is constant talk of chances being created, not finished. It echoes through the press conferences of this tour. The failure is so repetitive because it takes a higher quality player to turn most chances into tries. Lions make breaks but, most of the time, the support isn’t close enough, the final pass isn’t good enough.

When the Lions get turned over my eyes immediately scan the New Zealanders ready to counterattack. It makes a match into a magnificent spectacle as much of yesterday’s game was. It is also a style of rugby with only one possible ­outcome.

The Lions say they can fix the fault lines from Auckland. The tries not being finished is not easy to fix. Otherwise the squad would have fixed them three weeks ago. Another awful problem that keeps popping up is the lack of discipline and the number of errors. “Discipline wasn’t where it was at,” said Peter O’Mahony. “Discipline and errors cost us,” said Jonathan Davies. The Lions talk about these issues. They do not resolve them. When they play at a pace to which they are accustomed, the penalty count drops to acceptably low levels. However, when the game spins out of control, as it did against the Blues, Highlanders and again yesterday, the penalty count rises into the teens. They haven’t worked out (or maybe acknowledged) that the quicker the tempo of the game, the more mistakes — penalties and errors alike — are made. Things are happening at a level outside their comfort zone. This is when the fixable (yet still unfixed) penalties and errors are made.

The breakdown has been an area of strength, especially against the Crusaders and Maori, where the Lions pack dictated the pace of the game. Not last night, not against the All Blacks. Suddenly the players were puffing, oxygen levels low as they struggled to think straight at the point of contact. New Zealanders, playing at a more familiar lick, bossed the breakdown.

If you lose the breakdown against the All Blacks you lose the match. So it transpired. The stark reality is that no matter how much the Lions finishing, discipline, error count and breakdown improves, only a quantum leap will see them beat a home team happy with a fast game. New Zealand too will improve.

The more committed the attacking intent, the greater the opportunities available for each side. There was something noble about the Lions performance, something truly admirable, but a winning formula it was not. I can envisage a scenario where the Lions play even faster and better and score, say, four tries instead of two. If that happens the All Blacks will probably double their own tally and score six. 60-30 to New Zealand.

The greater the ambition the more the outcome is settled by players and not strategy. Look through the two squads and it is hard not to notice the marked superiority of the Kiwis. Man for man they are more skilled; which is why they tend to take their chances and we Europeans do not. The inability not to link missed opportunities with skill deficits is truly mind-boggling but we are intent on pretending New Zealand are not that much better than the rest of us when the results scream otherwise, year after year.

Play the same game and go down in flames. Play a game with more box kicking, as we saw in the first 30 minutes in Auckland, more kick, more chase — all done well of course — and they might box the Blacks in, in the right parts of the field. Close enough to the line to turn last night’s many excellent line breaks into tries.

An ugly plan will win no friends outside the UK and Ireland. Maybe a few within would prefer their rugby as wondrous as the one try to which we were treated at Eden Park. Such a game will lead to penalties and errors, which ends in defeat. It has happened three times already this tour. Bet your last Kiwi dollar that New Zealand will be praising the Lions attacking game and luring them towards the rocks."

Apropos of nothing, last night after the game I was sitting talking and beering with my bro and every so often Mrs JC, who was doing something else, said something I couldn’t catch. It turned out that every time she heard “Hansen” she was saying “Mmm Bop” to herself. Didn’t even realise she was doing it. She’s a keeper. And I’ll be referring to the coach as Mmm Bop from now on.

That is all, carry on.

Donncha O’Callaghan in today’s Times:

All Blacks deserve their status – they really do sweep the sheds

Phrases such as “sweep the sheds” and “no dickheads allowed” entered the sports lexicon quickly after James Kerr’s book Legacy came out five years ago. Now they’re almost clichés and more than a few people have become weary and cynical about All-Black culture.

They point towards their knack for getting the benefit of the doubt with decisions time and again as proof that their “special culture” is a construct embellished by themselves in order to get every edge they can. I do not go along with this, and think their exalted status is hard-earned.

My admiration for Kiwis comes from their deeds over generations, and from playing against and with them. The sweep-the-sheds mindset is not a gimmick. I remember chatting to Sean Dempsey, chef at the Killiney Castle hotel a few years ago, long before Kerr’s book came out. He told me their rooms were spotless, they left no trace after checkout.

We signed Doug Howlett at Munster in 2008. New Zealand’s record tryscorer, you may have expected some ego. He displayed nothing of the kind. I was struck by how, when he had finished eating, he would clean up after himself and give the plate back to the counter. Others would see this and the best elements of his culture became part of ours.

Doug brought a new level of critical thinking to Munster. We used to have goal-setting sessions for the season ahead. This made us accountable to each other as well as setting the bar for the term. One year Jerry Flannery was adamant that our goal had to be a perfect season — anything else was planning to lose.

We could see his rationale but the fear was, what then happens when 12 players go to Ireland camp? We’d be heaping too much pressure on the rest of the squad. And defeat is inevitable in sport — what do you do after that loss? How do you put air back in the balloon?

In this case, and others, Doug was lucid and practical. Goals needed to be broken down. If we wanted more players in the Ireland squad, which was one aim, then we needed to examine how the Ireland squad was picked. Did the interprovincial games carry a greater weight? If so, we needed to target those matches.

A whole season could be too great an entity. So make it more manageable. We’ve got eight games before the November internationals. How many points should we secure from those, for wins and bonus points? Suddenly it was more tangible, less intimidating. Yet by demanding more over shorter timeframes, and being more specific, it made for a season of greater achievement.

The same has been the case with Leinster and Isa Nacewa and Brad Thorn, Ulster with Jared Payne and Connacht with Bundee Aki. These players don’t just improve the team, they enhance the organisation and local people’s perception of it.

I can’t think of anybody who embodied what it means to be a Munster player more than Rua Tipoki. Rua was only with Munster from 2007-09, but he threw himself into local life. He brought his kids to Irish dancing, helped out loads with young teams in the Douglas area of Cork, where people still ask after him. Whenever I go to this Turkish barber in Carrigaline, he quickly gets around to Rua — how’s he getting on? There are two jerseys on the wall of his shop, a Galatasaray one and a Munster shirt signed by Rua.

Lifeimi Mafi was with us for six years but, at the risk of sounding corny, when you’re with us, you’re one of us for good. I remember him coming into our dressing room after he’d moved to Perpignan. One of our traditions was to get into a huddle and sing Stand Up And Fight after a match. Lifeimi was beckoned into the huddle, and there he was, his yellow shirt in the chain of red, belting out the words and crying.

It’s easy to be cynical about professional sport, where players go from team to team and allegiances are fleeting, but you cannot fake that emotion and those tears. He’s a Munsterman as much as any of us who were born there or who played for the team over a longer span.

Lifeimi, Rua, Doug and Jeremy Manning famously performed a greeting haka for Munster against the All Blacks in 2008. That was something that didn’t just happen. Rua asked New Zealand if he could do it, and also spoke to Maori elders.

It was incredibly emotional for us because it showed how much their new home meant to them; they were willing to perform the haka, with everything it means in their culture, while representing us. That would not have been a decision they arrived at lightly.

There is a special quality to Kiwis; they give you their full respect and attention when they shake your hand. They’re decent. A few years back I was walking on O’Connell Street a day before playing the All Blacks for Ireland. Kieran Read passed a few yards away and we just about caught each other’s eye. In such instances you’d typically keep walking, but he stopped and came over. Quick handshake.

“Are you good?”

“Yeah, thanks, yourself?”

“I’m good. See you tomorrow.”

The dignity with which they carry themselves, that humble and friendly nature, is one side to Kiwis. Come the “see you tomorrow” moment, you see the other.

The idea of losing represents much more than a sporting setback. It is a vexation to their being. To them, to be defeated is to let down their community and family and heritage. They will go to some outlandish lengths to avoid this, and to win.

We’ve seen the light and shade of this mindset here in the past few years. Their 60-metre drive to win at the death in 2013, nine phases and 23 passes, most of them with the clock in the red — what phenomenal resolve and coordination under pressure.

Then there was the Aviva Stadium in 2016, when their desperation to avoid a second loss to Ireland in a month led to them to play with a ferocious intent. There was a lot of commentary afterwards about how they went beyond the laws of the game, but that’s not something I’d entertain, nor would the players. When you’re hit by an All Black, you know you’ve been hit — it’s a different quality of impact.

This I learnt in my first collision with Richie McCaw. As over the top as it may sound, you need to be prepared to risk a career-ending smash if you want to be in the contest with them. To that end, you will often see opposition players sprawled around the field during games with them.

They will give it to you hard in defence and at the set piece. When they’re in their flow, though, there aren’t too many collisions; their skillset is too great, their ability to attack space too attuned for them to be bashed around the place. Oddly, I’ve sometimes come off the pitch against the All Blacks feeling I could play another game, because I’ve been unable to get near them.

There will be no such mismatch tomorrow and I expect skin and hair to fly up front. There has been a bit of focus on Steve Hansen, the All Blacks head coach, and his team’s barbs this week — about Johnny Sexton “liking to get his own way”, about Bundee Aki “looking Irish now”, according to Ian Foster, their assistant coach.

Of far greater interest I think were Hansen’s comments about Sexton and Conor Murray, when he was predicting that Murray would start. “I think the guys up front did the damage and that was what allowed him and Sexton to play,” said Hansen about Ireland’s win in Chicago two years ago.

Then on Thursday, on whether New Zealand would target Kieran Marmion: “We never go out to target anybody. If you’re going to target anyone, you want to target the big boys, because they’re the boys that lead you around the park.”

The message is clear: half backs, no matter how experienced or accomplished, cannot carry the game if the platform isn’t right. The arm wrestle up front has to be won. Expect this to be the focus.

Who will win? Before we make the customary prediction, we should never lose sight of the fact that it is a commendable achievement to be facing New Zealand with no consensus as to who will edge things. They are No 1 in the world in their No 1 team sport. We are No 2 in our No 4 game.

That we’re up there with them is to the immense credit of Joe Schmidt, the ultimate example of a Kiwi who has changed our standards for the better, and the system which the IRFU has overseen in recent years. It is one based on getting the most out of a small pool.

We simply do not have the depth of athletes playing rugby that they do; if Beauden Barrett were Irish he would probably be a winger with that pace. Brodie Retallick’s power and mobility would mark him out as a No 8 instead of a lock.

Their whole country is invested in the All Blacks, physically and spiritually. We come from a tradition too, though, one which has climbed its way to the second rung of world rugby on the back of four professional teams. Our days of deferring to anybody, no matter how much we respect them, are over.

Still, I believe New Zealand will have enough to get over the line tomorrow. And between now and the World Cup they will only improve.

● Donncha O’Callaghan won 94 Ireland caps and played on two Lions tours

Wow @Luigi and @BartMan both turn up in the same week. Is there a game on or something?

Aaah. A fifty pointer and the boys are arguing about who was shittest.

Welcome back TSF, I’ve missed you!

Against England I’d like to see Reiko on the left wing instead of Clarke. I know I won’t get it but that’s what I want.

I'll tip my hat to Hazlewood too for calling for a review of his catching Broom's six on the boundary. Sure replays would have picked up his boot touching the rope but he called it straight away. Classy.

I never thought I would type these words but Ardie Savea my MoM

@stockcar86 said in And the winner of the RWC broadcasting rights is...:

A combo of John McBeth and Keith Quinn

Too many old white men. Diversity will trump rugby knowledge so they'll have Anika Moa and Golriz Ghahraman calling the game. John Campbell and Hillary Barry in the studio.

It could happen and you know it.

Well I’ve got my temper under control and, while I don’t think we’re over yet, there are some pretty hard questions that need to be answered.

Top of the list is what exactly does Ian Foster do?

Why do we persistently stand static in defence and let a team that’s on a roll carve off 10m at a time before we engage a ball carrier?

Why, apart from the great buildup to BB’s try, was our game based around passing the ball to players who were standing stock still?

What has happened to our tackling? We’re not dominating and missing way too many.

Why is ALB crabbing across the field now?

I thought Franks said during the week he was having to put some mobility and running into his game. When does he intend to start that?

Why isn’t KR in the ref’s ear? I only saw Aus get pinged once for offside but they were just as bad as us, why no mention to Garces? Why didn’t he challenge the touchie’s call for a lineout instead of a knock on in the lead up to try number 5 (may be wrong number, I can’t count well once I’ve lost the will to live).

Jeez someone call Wayne Smith and beg him to come down to a training session, because it has become pretty farking clear where the brains were in our heyday.

Well I watched the Namibia game yesterday and Spark Sport has a lot to answer for. Aaron Smith kept buffering.

If Aaron Smith stands at another ruck and waves his arms about I’m going to fly over to Japan and chin him

@Yeetyaah said in All Blacks squad - The Rugby Championship:

Fuck sake give us Grace, Robinson or MMT over Frizell.

I’d take Jerry Collins over Frizell, and he’s dead.

@Victor-Meldrew said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@jegga

Always thought Ireland would be a great place to host a RWC.

Yeah, the capital has some fabulous stadiums. Wembley, Emirates and West Ham’s home are all terrific 😉

@Winger said in All Blacks vs Ireland - series decider:

NZ won the 2nd half.

Let’s not do that. We used to belt teams and their only commiseration was that they won a 20 minute spell. Now we’re one of those teams ourselves. It’s beyond sad.

Codie Taylor is a fucking donkey.

Hard to believe either of those teams were involved in the Christchurch debacle. Hard to know what to away from it TBH. The All Blacks looked good but I suspect Italy would have tested that Pumas team.