The Silver Fern

<p>It's never a good idea for a "celebrity" to engage anonymous trolls who have nothing to lose and aren't necessarily representing an actual view they hold, whereas the celeb can end up saying something they regret later and look foolish.</p>
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<p>It's obvious BOD has a slight chip on his shoulder but that may be a result of a literal one too...</p>

<p>Have Douglas or Poite spoken up? I suppose Poite wouldn't regardless but Douglas' silence on the matter, both during the game and after seems to indicate it wasn't as bad as some are making it out to be. The question then becomes, if it wasn't a gouge is it still foul play? It's like a tackle that rides the line between legal and illegal in that is becomes an inkblot for your own personal biases. </p>

<p>Does the Olympic gold affect funding in any significant way?</p>

<p>Update on Moala?</p>

<p>At least 1 gold and another few possible medals in the sailing today.</p>

<p>DQed surely?</p>
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<p>I have no idea what I'm watching but that looked deliberate.</p>

<p>Matching or bettering the 6 golds we got in London seems like a stretch right now but still within reach.</p>

<p>Think a gold puts at 12th, no?</p>

<p>Photo finish shows Drysdale ahead by a few mm though.</p>
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<p>Also, woohoo!</p>

<p>Amazing her and Carrington are both from Tauranga.</p>

<p>So from this list we have got 1/2 predicted golds so far, 1/1 predicted silvers and 1 unexpected silver, and 0/1 bronze.</p>
<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11684418'>http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11684418</a></p>

<p>Reiterating a point made in the Olympic thread,  it's hard to think of excuses like lack of talent or money invested when the likes of Fiji and Japan got further than us.</p>
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<p>I personally think Titch comes out of this with a tarnished reputation, this was building up to be his swansong and has been a long time coming. It will be interesting to see if there are identifiable mistakes that are made public following this embarrassment. </p>

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="hydro11" data-cid="604825" data-time="1470862149">
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<p>It's gone. We just lost the quarter final.</p>
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<p>Well damn. Not surprised at all but still had a bit of hope left. Go Fiji!</p>

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="taniwharugby" data-cid="604820" data-time="1470861634">
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<p>I listened to the game on the radio, and to me it sounded like Fiji had the ball about 5/7 mins in the 2nd half, a few 50/50s that didn't go our way, but when you are down, luck does not fall your way either.</p>
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<p>Oh well, have NZH revised their medal predictions recently from what they were pre-Olympics?</p>
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<p>NZH predicted a bronze for NZ, which is not completely out of the picture yet, however unlikely it seems.</p>
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<p>What is the strike rate on this so far?</p>
<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11684418'>http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11684418</a></p>
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<p>As far as I can tell most of our predicted medals are still yet to be played out.</p>

<p>Playing Fiji in the quarters. So even if we miraculously beat them, we deny them an opportunity to get their first Olympic medal.</p>

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="hydro11" data-cid="604314" data-time="1470729321">
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<p>Silver was best we could have realistically done. We would beat that Aussie team about once in every 6 or 7.</p>
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<p>I don't watch a lot of women 7s and I know based on history (and that game) that they are a better side <em>but </em>I don't think the gap is so big that we couldn't have won that game. A few decisions going the other way and that game could been in the balance until the very end.</p>

<p>Yeah, Aussies definitely got the rub of the green. Not that they aren't the better side but the ref is very one-eyed.</p>

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Don Frye" data-cid="602543" data-time="1470138078">
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<p>But in general I don't think we have a lot of big white hard running backs because they are earmarked as flankers early on. Whereas in countries like South Africa and England they are considered too small to play in the forwards so get shunted into the midfield.</p>
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<p>Crazy to think how many players futures are probably set in stone at a young age by an amateur coach. For a lot of guys it's fairly obvious what their future will be (e.g. lanky guy = lock) but there must be plenty of guys who would've been in a completely different position had they grown up in a different system.</p>

I agree that anything less than a gold is a failure and I'm sure the team and the NZRU feels the same. It is more competitive than ever and by its nature a fickle and unpredictable game, but we have a team good enough to win therefore shouldn't consider anything other than winning a success.

Could be that this is just a particularly poor side. Which might be a selection issue but with near 100% turnover there is bound to be significant fluctuations in quality over the years.