The Silver Fern

@nzzp said in CWC Game #9 Black Caps v England:

@mofitzy_ said in CWC Game #9 Black Caps v England:

@ACT-Crusader said in CWC Game #9 Black Caps v England:

I’m glad we made it to the semis. Chance to turn around our form. It doesn’t really matter in a tournament setting how you get to the knock out games.

Pakistan, SL etc too bad so sad.

Agreed but after the last 3 games it feels more like supporting the black knight from Monty Python than the plucky underdog.

I'll get into that as a supporter - the Black Knights supporting the Black Caps.

We've got them right where we want them! This is our year!

Sotutu deserves all his plaudits but Mikaele-Tu'u has to be in the same conversation. Good to see 2 young 8s coming through.

@victor-meldrew
Players of a known quantity are underperforming, new players don't cut the mustard. That's on the coach.

Also, even if that doesn't solve everything, what other option is there?

Foster is the inbred grandson of a once great King. Only there because of what his ancestors did, and even his father wasn't all that great.

@Crucial

He knew his 7 and 8. Any diversion from them was due to injury.

Except apparently in a world cup semi...

Read's decline certainly hurt us in hindsight, he went from one of the world's best players to a shadow of his former self that seemed to struggle with elements of being a captain (like controlling the ref). Still a fine player at the end and no doubt would've been starting regardless of whether Akira had forced his way in, but putting a lock at 6, arguably our 2nd best openside at 7(who seems much more effective against tired legs) and a declining Read was a weak loose forward trio.

I voted now but I have zero faith he will be gone before the world cup, let alone at the end of his contract. Why is it that the entire rugby public could see this was a bad appointment but they went ahead? Most people were annoyed at the time, now they are justified.

We beat the 8th ranked team by 2 points and had 37 point put past us.

Context.

If they can throw a better forward pack at us and create more on attack, and still lose by 10 points, I would say they were nullified pretty well.

@Yeetyaah
He's grown on me but a he's taking the spot of a NZ eligible player so good luck and good riddance to him.

I don't know what would be more embarrassing, losing to Japan or the coach blaming the ref afterwards.

Man for man the Japanese players arguably are all inferior to their Irish counterparts but they are well coached and played with more passion and skill. Schmidt and the players and fans should take it on the chin and move on.

First and second losses to Ireland were poor but at least they were a reflection of their level and ranking, which they had never reached in their history. Hell, they were the number one ranked side going into to RWC, which in combination with recent history explains why we 'played our final' against them in the quarter.

Lions series was a silly red card (which the fact a forward was subbed instead of a back was a bit strange, but we still could have won the game which is remarkable) and/or a non call by a filthy, cowardly frog away from a won series.

England game was bizarre. We didn't seem to ever get to out of 2nd gear, mainly due to how they played but have to wonder how much psychology and selections affected our performance. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. At the end of the day we lost a lot of legends at the end of 2015 that were replaced with players that were too green and probably never will never be at the level of their predecessors.

Make no mistake, SA wanted desperately wanted to win the pool game and didn't, then were flat against Wales. There will be a bit of history written about this SA side because they dominated the England side that dominated us - and fair play as they got up when it really counted - but they aren't head and shoulders above any other team. Perhaps their style was simply a better match for England.

Funny old game when the Boks lose to us, scrape past the Welsh then make England look like boys in the final.

@junior said in England & Eddie:

@MiketheSnow said in England & Eddie:

@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:

@MiketheSnow said in England & Eddie:

@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:

Is this a troll post? No English here to troll....

Last night showed how tough it is to win a World Cup. If you look at the three tournaments South Africa have won, they haven't been very good in any of them.

• 1995 they beat Samoa, France and New Zealand.
• 2007 it was Fiji, Argentina and France.
• 2019 it was Japan, Wales and England.

Relatively speaking those are very easy runs. In the two most recent cups we won we had off performances in the knock outs. 2011, it was the final. 2015, it was the semi. We could have lost either game.

Before this game people clearly discounted the effect that England's tougher run had had. It's exceptionally tough to win a World Cup having had three tough knock out games. In 2015, we beat Australia in the final who had a much easier draw. However, Australia were much worse than us. England and South Africa are generally closely matched so the tough run was always going to be a factor.

People also discounted how South Africa were a much different team to us. We didn't try to take England on up front; South Africa were always going to. If Sinckler doesn't get injured, England could have won. Maybe if the first couple of minutes of how semi had happened differently, we could have won as well.

Eddie Jones is a great coach who has achieved great things with England over the last four years. I would still have him as coach of the year.

Not sure about this and commented on it earlier.

England's schedule was tough on paper - and I wrote before the tournament started that England wouldn't win the WC because they had Argentina, France, Wales/Australia, SA/NZ, SA/NZ on the trot - but the reality was very different.

They comfortably beat a 14-man Argentina; the France match was cancelled; and they comfortably beat an average Australia side who'd already lost to Wales.

They produced one of the performances of the decade by dismantling NZ in the SF but really that was their only serious challenge prior to the Final.

Conversely SA had to play NZ first up; then a very good Japanese side who were unbeaten with wins over Ireland and Scotland, in the QF; then Wales who were also unbeaten, in the SF.

For me, SA had the harder path - admittedly losing to NZ didn't derail their progress.

Eddie has done wonders with England but he made some fatal flaws this tournament and in the years leading up to it.

1. Sinckler.
   Great tournament. But if his best back up is Dan Coles then you're always going to struggle if Sinckler gets a YC or an early injury.

2. Youngs
   Great going forward. Shithouse going backwards. I would have yanked him at half-time. Spencer couldn't have been any worse.

3. Daly
   Great athlete, average full-back. Exposed badly today. Willie looked like Cullen in comparison.

4. May
   He was carrying an injury. Barrett caught him ffs. No way Barrett was catching Watson.

5. Slade
   Not match fit and made significant mistakes in the games he played in

6. Ford
   This was not the match to start Ford

7. No nasty fluffybunny in the forwards
   England have great, technical athletes in all positions but no real hard bastard in the Martin Johnson mould who can bollock them.
   Lawes was stuffed twice by Kolbe ffs

How's that for starters?

Strongly disagree with this. Pool play is a bit of an irrelevancy unless you have a tough pool. The New Zealand vs South Africa game happened a long time ago and both teams were going to beat Wales. Japan had had two very good victories but were unlikely to have the physicality to beat South Africa in that game. Japan had already played their final. Wales may have been unbeaten but they were exceptionally poor in the semi final and couldn't threaten the South African line.

Not for the first time today I've questioned whether posters watched the SA v Wales SF.

We scored a try. A good one. England couldn't today, despite 20 odd stabs at it in one passage of play.

It was 16-16 going in to the last 10 minutes.

We had two opportunities to take the lead and blew both.

SA had one chance in the last 5 minutes and took it.

So if we were exceptionally poor, then SA were just poor.

SA didn't do much different tonight, so England lost to a poor team.

Not buying it.

Well, Mike, I get your point, but where does that leave England's performance against us, given that we beat RSA and then spanked Wales? Perhaps England weren't that great after all and, in fact, we were just really shit...?

They were very good on the day, but we were also really shit. Some pundits seem to think that if a team plays shit, then it's 100% because they were forced to play shit but obviously that isn't true. Likewise its possible to play well when the opponent also plays well.

@trodthesod

The most beautiful pickup of a ball at speed from Beauden Barrett,just class.

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@MiketheSnow
3 saffas and one kiwi to 6 poms and 2 taffs. No bias there.

I hope Chiefs win this for multiple reasons. I am a Chiefs fan firstly but as an AB fan I hate to see guys like PUJ and Flanders relegated to the bench while mediocre players like Blackwell, Prinsep and Leger are starting. Leger is a weak 10 in the Mitre 10 FFS.

Who needs a supercar when you could have a team of Hiluxs.

@bones
Looking like prime Arnie, juice and all.

Jonah Lowe tagged @drugfreesportnz in the comments haha.

@victor-meldrew
That's a complete strawman. The point of getting Foster out is that he is not good enough. Simple as that. He was picked with zero credentials as a head coach and purely on nepotism. Probably 80% of fans didn't want him to get the job and we are proven right on a near weekly basis. When we rolled Italy, almost everyone knew we still played shockingly bad so this isn't a kneejerk to losing. I am happier losing when we play well than a comfortable win where we play poorly. Because I know rolling second tier team means nothing if the team isn't clinical, when you are clinical you can apply it to a higher level of opposition. I still think we have the players to be playing much better even if this isn't the 2015 vintage.

Foster out is not a magic bullet or panacea, it's just a simple fact that he isn't good enough to be the coach of the number one ranked side.

@Rancid-Schnitzel
Agreed. The nervousness that used to be there is gone, because I have zero faith we can pull it out of the bag.

The effects of the Foster era will be felt long term as fans and neutrals stop tuning in.