The Silver Fern

@Bones Ouch

@Bones said in All Blacks 2024:

@pakman you still suffering from jetlag? That's hardly phenomenal insight fella! Or have you forgotten Aaron Smith already?

1. Yes! 2. Nugget is no longer wearing Black.

We never should have let Frogs come away with win.

God I wish we still had players of Michael Lynagh’s composure.

“ I’d taken over the captaincy as Nick (Farr-Jones) had gone off injured. I knew I had to come up with something precise and factual. I was determined not to resort to the cliche of, ‘don’t panic, don’t worry’. There were no clocks at the ground so I asked referee Jim Fleming how long there was to go. Four minutes, came the reply. So, that’s what I said to the boys. I stuck to the facts. ‘Four minutes, still time, we’ll kick long from the restart, press, they’ll kick out and we’ll strike from the lineout’.
What was is that Ireland scrum-half Rob Saunders sliced his clearance, Australia had a lineout around the 22-metre line, David Campese took it up and was on hand later in the sequence but was tackled. Lynagh’s role had been to track play. He swooped and dived over the line.“

@gt12 said in Italy v All Blacks:

@African-Monkey said in Italy v All Blacks:

@game_film said in Italy v All Blacks:

Compare and contrast the fortunes of Havili and Sotutu. It ain’t right, I’m telling ya, it ain’t right.

Havili is good on both sides of the ball.

Positive body language.

He’s world class on both sides of the water bottle.

@Bones I'm just back in UK from NZ with jetlag and you were posting at 4 am!

@Bones What time zone are you in at the mo?

@Bones The source was Scooter, who when asked said BBBR and Niggles were the two NZ players he least wanted to be cleaned out by. "Possibly" indicates my scepticism!

With the exception of Cane, and possibly Niggles, our loosies could do with taking a close look at PSDT's cleaning technique.

@mariner4life said in AB missing piece:

Despite arguably our best player all year being our blindside, if we had a good blindside we would have won every game?

yeah, top thread

Wally was probably emerging player of the year but he doesn’t fulfil the 5/6 hybrid space.
Imagine our pack with RD at 7, PSDT at 6 and Wally at 8!

Reading daily rugby press and had a intriguing thought.

Would ABs have lost any games this year if they could have fielded a clone of PSDT?

So far, my reflections suggest they would have not, with obvious implications.

Food for thought.

@MN5 said in Italy v All Blacks:

@nostrildamus said in Italy v All Blacks:

I hope Love plays and touches down. So I can tell my Italian friends "hey, that's Amore!"

I love humour like that

Like a big meaty pie, that's amore?

@booboo said in Italy v All Blacks:

@pakman said in New Zealand v Italy:

I’d quite like to see:

EDG/Aumua/Newell/Paddy T/Vaa’i/RD/Barrett (S)/Sititi/Roigard/BB/Lam/ALB/Jordan/Rieko/Perofeta

Bench T’Mighty/Bell/Tosi/Lakai/Lord/Ratima/DMac/Love

Barrett at 6?

I see it as a chance to run three locks. Word is that Vaa'i might get run at 6. If Cane back then RD or Wally for 8.

I’d quite like to see:

EDG/Aumua/Newell/Paddy T/Vaa’i/RD/Barrett (S)/Sititi/Roigard/BB/Lam/ALB/Jordan/Rieko/Perofeta

Bench T’Mighty/Bell/Tosi/Lakai/Lord/Ratima/DMac/Love

@canefan said in New Zealand v Italy:

@mariner4life said in New Zealand v Italy:

more likely Lakai starts and Kirifi comes off the bench? Which means no Sam Cane.

That cut was pretty deep...

Vaseline.

@canefan said in All Blacks v France:

@Daffy-Jaffy said in All Blacks v France:

All Blacks sadly in their away strip this week -

At least it's not grey

Until the second wash.

@Machpants said in All Blacks v France:

@antipodean said in All Blacks v France:

Harsh on Aumua but this might go to Henry's stated belief that you can't play three hard games in a row.

Big fan of Finau and Sititi in their best position. Baffled by the choice of Savea at 7. A lot resting on Finau's shoulders here.

On face value it's harsh on DMac but they probably feel Beaudy's varied kicking sets up conditions for DMac to better exploit.

Dmac is a game changer when he comes on, if necessary to ignite. Makes sene to me, despite the accolades I don't think he was MotM last match. Indeed I remember a comment someones saying 'surely no one can advocate for DMac now?' in the match thread. But he can change the way the game is played, BB not so much anymore, and if we are after a more conservative ten style, whch seems to be the case, this is the way around to play them. We will miss his goal kickig though, that's exceptional.

In the clutch that goal kicking is deadly.

@Daffy-Jaffy said in All Blacks v France:

All Blacks sadly in their away strip this week -

Isn’t that the official tennis jersey?

@Landers92 said in All Blacks v France:

Not hearing too much this week but will post what I have heard, none of it is really ground breaking stuff.

Told to expect not too much change other than Beaudy in for Perofeta(sounds like he will be on the bench) and Reece for Telea. As Canes posted above, Lakai training with the idea he’s starting 7.

All pretty obvious stuff I know but thought I’d share and will try find out more as per.

Taylor will be in 23, but where?

@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Ireland:

@Lancaster-Park said in All Blacks vs Ireland:

Also whats the new ruling about defending a high ball chase? The commentators seemed to suggest its a new tweak but could understand why we got pinged when no one obviously changed their line. Was I just blind?

I'd like to know too as it appeared to my weary eyes that players were penalised for running a straight line back to there the ball was predicted to land.

In fact, as Chandler might have said about Jordie’s line, ‘Could it be more straight?’!

@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks vs Ireland:

@Jailbreak7 said in All Blacks vs Ireland:

No Procter again. Cam should have started. Love should have been on the bench.

I'm not convinced Roigard is 100% match fit - took a while to get up to full speed when he came on against England Think they are being very careful with him.

Quite rightly.