For the record: I'm supporting you guys.

just threw up in my mouth a little

Wow. Just when you thought everyone had the complacency knocked out of them, Ireland Schmidt the bed.

@Frank said in RWC: Japan v Ireland (Pool A):

Schmidt is on to "Hometown."

Ireland are usually the most disciplined team on the pitch but they came out on the wrong end of a 9-6 penalty count, with Schmidt hinting at some frustrations at referee Angus Gardner – who the Ireland head coach had curiously decided to criticise as recently as Thursday.

“We’ll go back and have a look at it,” said Schmidt. “I certainly understand the frustrations of some of the players and in discussing things with them based on what I saw on the monitor, it’s not too dissimilar from the last time we had this referee.

Murray Kinsella

Another dismal day for Ireland at the World Cup as Schmidt's side crumble

The Ireland head coach was most frustrated by his side’s inability to push on from a 12-3 lead.

"Our brand of cynical bullshit finally got called on us. It happened with this referee last time but we were too stupid/arrogant/complacent to understand and rectify this either in our preparation, or during the game"

@chimoaus said in Argentina One: Parramatta, 14 November:

@NTA As a neutral are we overreacting or were we really that shit?

I can't speak for all of you as a collective but some of you may be egging it a bit too much in terms of this game being a disaster beyond all disasters. The fact is, this has happened before (RWC2019 SF) and will happen again.

EDIT: I mean in terms of this being rugby. You have to accept losses. Just makes it hard for you bastards you only lose occasionally.

Argentina won the way you always beat the All Blacks: minimise your errors, make your tackles, and don't take any shit at set piece.

I've said it a few times the last month, but I think as fans you guys occasionally get carried away with the freakish skills some of your guys possess, and think that is the difference i.e. that they're just better as a group than everyone. Really, its just that the fifteen individuals you put on the park at one time (fourteen is S Barrett is playing ;)) are probably better players than the other blokes, but what is that saying about Champion Team versus Champion Individuals? Doesn't always work.

@mariner4life - in the same period - has pointed out a few times that when under the pump, the ABs haven't really looked that special. Nothing more than good even in Sydney - it was either dinky kicks breaking things open for you + counterattack (26-0 at halftime), or getting whacked (first part of the second half).

I count one set piece try in the period - and that was a 5 metre scrum where our flanker didn't get off in time at ANZ, leaving the wing stranded.

That has been the AB game plan since Henry / McCaw left: defend, counterattack, and (occasionally) pull off your skills and fitness, complemented occasionally by the odd piece of streaky bullshit. And I'm not saying those skills and fitness aren't great, because the winning record over the last decade speaks for itself.

BUT these skills and fitness aren't really built around any structure besides "You're the Fucking All Blacks, go out and win".

Looking at the last few weeks, maybe the depth isn't as good as everyone thinks. I'll talk about the tight five, because that's my jam.

Big concern for the Wallabies was second row in particular, but we generally stood up physically with Philip, LSL, and even Simmons. On the flipside, guys like Tuipolotou have not shown up with consistency. Whitelock is still a stalwart but looked a helluva lot better with BBBR (as would any of us!)

Your props are fine around the park but getting a bit of a lesson at scrum time, as a collective - that also comes back to your second row being a little frail. The combination there is important, and what stands out is you're not learning on the run. A couple of times the Wallabies put the ABs under pressure and you didn't adjust.

Must say that Coles is a fuckwit who throws his toys when he's not allowed to just swan around on the wing while everyone else does the hard yards (like Codie Taylor).

The backs are going through the motions, and look it isn't park footy and you can't always have a highly structured plan, but "play what's in front of you" has dangers of its own, especially when half the backline changes in the space of 2 weeks from A to B and back again.

Maybe making 9+ changes two weeks in a row wasn't the right decision. Maybe the selections and combinations are just wrong.

Regardless, you haven't really moved the needle in close to a decade, tactically speaking. It makes the ABs an easy target for coaches to plan for: front up physically, don't miss your tackles, and don't give away cheap ball. Of course, that relies on players executing and the Wallabies continue to be plagued by inconsistency.

Contrast Brisbane and Wellington versus ANZ and Auckland from a Wallabies point of view. Chalk and cheese in terms of execution.

The most burning example of this was Caleb Clarke: breaks 8 tackles on his way to setting up a try in Auckland, but was well looked after tonight. Simple game, really.

I've played suburban rugby in Sydney.

Every fucking Kiwi I played with or against was an All Blacks trialist.

Just ask them.

@geebee said in RWC Final: England v Springboks:

@NTA nah its true,and remind me where you are from and why you are here please?

Australian. Long time contributor here, and I've had my share of disagreements with these kiwi bastards but I'm not about to spout fuckwit statements like "not world champs to me".

Wind your neck in, you've got school tomorrow

Watched the game this afternoon.

First point to get out of the way: the bitching and fucking moaning from everyone. Pearce has the patience of a saint. I'd have been carding people left, right, and centre for some of that shit. Sexton was the worst (and yes Dane, he is a mouthy fluffybunny, you mouthy fluffybunny) but several on both sides weren't far behind.

The Ref: I saw a few things that went against the ABs early I thought were a bit rough but they didn't make a difference to the result IMHO; none of them were unrecoverable.

The game: Ireland won through intensity, accuracy, and cohesion. A lot of these guys have spent a lot of time together, and it shows.

The All Blacks' constant rotation shows in the lack of connection between a lot of players. Losing Beaugan early was a bit of a blow but all he'd done to that point was kick badly. Mo'unga continued the trend.

That was the story of the AB possession stats: kicking what little ball they had without purpose. The worst part was they'd do that around halfway, but inside their 22 they're taking dumb shit taps. Looked panicked and rudderless.

Some genuine stupidity in hitting Sexton late a couple of times, and TBH Blackadder was lucky not to escape harsher sanction; the ref was well within his right to explain to Whitelock that it was a clear professional foul and it had to stop, therefore yellow card was the lesson. There was a later one from Lomax on an Irish reserve which was just petty and stupid. Again: ref would have been well within his rights to go harder on that given repeat offences.

Foster must have a fucking airtight keg of powder in a secret volcano lair, that he's keeping dry for RWC2023, because the same basic, through-the-hands attack line happens again and again and again. No subtlety. No work off the ball. It is great when it is Aussie falling off tackles, making Akira Ioane look like a superstar, but looks utterly amateur when it is someone who doesn't miss very much.

The AB defence is built off waiting for a turnover (big de ja vu moment here as I type this), but they got fuck all in that department and so the rest of the plan - just score more points when the other side fuck up - fell to shit.

AB defence was outstanding in terms of tackle percentage BUT it was all down the wrong end. And add in that Ireland pick and choose their moment to go into contact that stands out, using their hands to create yards post-breakdown. The ruck is accurate and quick. The backline has bodies in motion, all players across the squad, with hands dropping the ball short and/or in behind to sweeping backline moves with varying depth, pace, and angle. Beautiful to watch, and similar to Scotland.

This isn't just the Wales-under-Gatland 2 dummy runners with a ball out the back that won a couple of 6N because NH sides didn't do back play back then. It is ambition and shows the work and planning to get that execution right when they're in their green zone - centre field - with what looks like no set ruck count like some over-engineered plans.

The Kiwi imports helped turn the screws. Lowe was great. The halfback was awesome. It shows the depth NZ is gifting to the world, but these guys played far better than their opposites.

Ringrose was the best on ground for me - always threatened, always hard to put away. Made the right decisions, stretched the defence.

But fucking hell their forwards put in some work. Utterly bitched the AB pack who looked like they'd just met in the carpark, and forgot to tell their backrow they were required for 80 minutes besides.

I'm not saying Whitelock and Retallick are a spent force, but you look at their effect on a game and think their best years are behind them besides pushing at scrum. Laulala is so hit and miss. Taylor is the guy you want to grind out the first 60 and then bring Coles on to be a niggly fluffybunny for 20. Moody needs to improve.

To me it was a great game to watch, and the right team won by at least the correct margin.

@duluth said in Wallabies vs Springboks I:

Anyone picking the Aussies?

I'd like to go to the game, but I'll probably be on the couch, recovering after too many minutes at hooker for both grades on Saturday.

Hopefully survive the 2nd Grade match in order to run on for First Grade in what would be my 100th game at the club.

Only taken 15 years...

@nzzp said in Climate Change:

@NTA 5 hours storage is still a heck of a lot right

Agreed. 120GWh is not a small amount of energy to store, but that is the figure they're using as the absolute peak storage required at the absolute peak power demand on the NEM ~24GW = 24,000MW. That usually happens in high summer when the heat waves are on. Typically low wind conditions and solar efficiency goes down above 25C.

To put that in perspective, current network battery output is maximum 260MW with storage of a bit over an hour, but another 18GW is planned - no figure on energy for that power output I might add. https://aemo.com.au/en/learn/energy-explained/energy-101/energy-explained-big-batteries

Now, to need that storage running full whack at 5 hours you would have to need it to be night time without much wind at all over this entire area:

None of the above takes any future hydro into account, or future changes in the NEM like adding the storage capacity of hundreds and thousands of EVs with appropriate integration.

Energy efficiency would be a lot cheaper in the long term as well. If our housing standards were increased, we'd use less. And the cheapest kWh is the one you never buy.

Lot to do on the demand side, even for heavy industry.

@nzzp said in Climate Change:

we'd start incentivising solar/wind at any time. Not sure what the efficiency numbers are ( @NTA ) will have an opinion I'm sure, but shifts the problem from 'generating power when we need it' to 'just generate power'.

Electricity networks: Overbuild wind and solar for less than coal, gas, and nuclear.

Store in whatever you can to even out the network; pumped hydro, chemical storage (lithium, vanadium, bromide, sodium, heat, etc), flywheels, thermal, whatever. Use the excess to create green hydrogen for other applications

Putting money into transmission and a few syncons is the real issue because you can't just centralise generation in a modern network. Resources are distributed which has the added benefit of making the network more robust. Just that we haven't invested in transmission properly so it isn't in great condition.

Everyone* likes to think it is super difficult and needs tons of storage, but it really isn't, and you really don't. Here's an expert who runs regular modelling on this sort of thing against live demand data.

*idiots who listen to talkback radio

@voodoo said in Aussie Rugby:

At least at 108-zip you wouldn't have had to pack many scrums...

You'd like to think so.... I lost count but think we packed at least 15 scrums. The conditions were otherwise dry so they had no excuse for dropping the ball.

Their Fijian fullback scored 3 tries and converted 13 in total.

@antipodean said in Aussie Rugby:

@NTA said in Aussie Rugby:

My rugby weekend - strap yerself in:
Saturday
Knew we had a heap of guys out, but still fronted up for 2 Grades at Epping, who are sitting in the top 3 both grades.
Fuck me. I was expecting 25 guys at least, not 21. As a result, I started both Grades, played about half of Seconds, and all of First Grade at hooker. We were shit - lost 2nd XV 53-19 and First Grade 108-0.
No, that is not a typo. Nor did we switch to AFL. One Hundred And Eight. And the ref called it about 10 minutes early.

I've been on the wrong end of a hundred point flogging and it feels like they kick off, 30 seconds later you're behind your posts. Rinse, repeat.

The secret is to call Prop's Justice and just stay at halfway

@MN5 gold.

I would be lying if I said I wanted the season to go on - I'm basically spent at this point. The weather is warming up a little but still crisp nights for camping. We've got Old Boys Day this Saturday and that is it.

My rugby weekend - strap yerself in:

Saturday
Knew we had a heap of guys out, but still fronted up for 2 Grades at Epping, who are sitting in the top 3 both grades.

Fuck me. I was expecting 25 guys at least, not 21. As a result, I started both Grades, played about half of Seconds, and all of First Grade at hooker. We were shit - lost 2nd XV 53-19 and First Grade 108-0.

No, that is not a typo. Nor did we switch to AFL. One Hundred And Eight. And the ref called it about 10 minutes early.

I went over to the sideline at one point, and asked the opposing coach if they had anything left they wanted to show us. He says "My players want 80 minutes. What's happening out there isn't my fault". Yeah spirit of the game you shitcunt.

Still, the opposition guys out there were nice enough and we all had a bit of a laugh. That's park footy some days. Hope they all woke up with sore hamstrings from running in a mud bath. Shit field

Sunday
Got up at sparrowfart to go run a womens 7s tournament at our ground. Stressed as fuck thinking no volunteers were coming but it all worked out. The womens tournament hasn't run for a couple of months due to the wet weather here so everyone was grateful just to play.

Two fields, 9AM kickoff, nonstop rugby. Our girls won their division (tho why they were in Third Division I'm yet to understand)

At one point I spied Matt Burke - yes World-Cup-Winning-Wallaby Matthew Fucking Burke - whose daughter plays for Manly Womens Rugby. Marched over in my Ground Marshal bib and introduced myself. Had a good old chat. He compliemented our field and I said "yeah but the ingoals are a bit narrow" to which he replied "I remember one year at Murrayfield we had the same thing - barely anywhere for the reserves to warm up!" so that was a reality check

Later on I learned that one of our girls (fantastic AFL player and rugby fits her like a second skin) is going out with Aussie 7s player Matt Gonzalez who came by the canteen and I said hi. Poor Jade hyperextended her knee in our last pool game and so Matt had to take her to hospital.

Stopped just after lunch at Parramatta Eels office to talk to their Football Operations Manager about how the day was going. There were a few things to chat about like the upcoming development in the precinct and how things were going during the season. They're a good bunch and you always know where you stand.

Packed up the second field when they finished at 3PM. Winding down to finals on the main field just before 5PM the Treasurer and I toasted a pretty successful day overall. Got compliments on our ground, canteen banked $2K, and I got to press the flesh and promote the club. Racked up 23,000 steps on the Garmin and didn't get badly sunburned despite the glorious sunshine.

Went through about 30 loaves of bread and probably 300 of our butcher-quality snags on the day, as well as a fuckload of powerade. Not much beer or spirits which was a little disappointing TBH but we're all set for Old Boys Day next weekend.

Got home, wife has defrosted steak and snags for a fucking BBQ I could barely go through with it after smelling BBQ all day. Got it done, then sat down with a bourbon to watch the Wallabies.

Fuck me, what a weekend!

@nzzp said in Springboks v All Blacks I:

@NTA said in Springboks v All Blacks I:

None of my posts should be taken in any other context than "The Boks are a very good side with a fairly solid history together, so any loss against them should be part of the accounting".

Marx is a fucking weapon.

He is. But christ, just settling in to watch a replay and the first of a number of turnovers look as dodgy as shit. Leaning on players to get hands on the ball, and AG just looks at it and thinks 'fair enough'.

I also thought a couple of them failed to show "strong body position" and "lifting the ball" which is what the refs are after.

None of my posts should be taken in any other context than "The Boks are a very good side with a fairly solid history together, so any loss against them should be part of the accounting".

Marx is a fucking weapon.
Malherbe is rock solid.
The second rowers are huge slices of beef who know their job well, despite looking like a mutant male model and the work experience kids who just wandered onto the pitch.

Sure, Nyakane is a fairly useless lump who is just there to hold up a scrum and lift at lineouts, but when you've got Kolisi, PSDT and Wiesser in your back row you don't need much other mobility.

Can say their game won't set TV sets on fire all over the world, but they do it effectively enough that they could lose one of the world's best halfbacks a few minutes in, and still execute.

In terms of props, I don't think there is necessarily anyone better. You can't pick Laulala any more because he's just a penalty magnet around the park and doesn't do much else.

The four you had weren't bad necessarily, just need a bit of adjustment.