England v All Blacks
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@sparky said in England Vs All Blacks:
@MN5 I'm no fan of the man, but that was an excellent review of the game by Stephen Jones. He's damn right on his comments about our players. Only thing he missed out was England's lineout woes.
I couldn’t bring myself to be that magnanimous
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You know what is now fucking me off?
If our attack revolves around wide cut out passes to a winger, why can't that winger have some depth so he can run on to it? Right now they get it flat, forcing them to stop, allowing the cover to get across.
FFS boys the NRL is on every weekend. Go watch Latrell hitting Johnston on the chest at pace on repeat.
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This for me was the game defining moment.
A determined and powerful run by Ollie Lawrence. Passive tackling by Leroy Carter. Weak cover by Roigard and Beauden Barrett.
The All Blacks need to pick and to develop Wingers with better defensive qualities or sides like South Africa, England and France are going to overrun you.
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@game_film said in England Vs All Blacks:
Razor needs to be coached how to coach at the international level. Shouldn’t be getting sacked…. Yet…. but needs someone to come in as a sounding and challenge every decision from selection all the way down.
Isn’t Wayne Smith meant to be doing some of this?
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@sparky said in England Vs All Blacks:
@game_film said in England Vs All Blacks:
@MN5 I think Beauden is smart enough to go out on his own terms. I reckon he calls it when he lands back home.
Beauden Barrett was awful today. He was totally outplayed in every facet of Outside Half play by George Ford.
He looked like he knew it when he went off.
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Maybe recency bias, but in so many ways this felt worse than Wellington for me. There was a large part of the Boks test which felt freak/one of those days - today we were just hopelessly outplayed.
The more I reflect, the more I feel I have lost faith in Razor turning this around.
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@frugby said in England Vs All Blacks:
Maybe recency bias, but in so many ways this felt worse than Wellington for me. There was a large part of the Boks test which felt freak/one of those days - today we were just hopelessly outplayed.
The more I reflect, the more I feel I have lost faith in Razor turning this around.
Don't worry mate, he'll do some deep thinking while out surfing and come to some cliche ridden conclusion about learnings and ownership.
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@Frank said in England Vs All Blacks:
@frugby said in England Vs All Blacks:
Maybe recency bias, but in so many ways this felt worse than Wellington for me. There was a large part of the Boks test which felt freak/one of those days - today we were just hopelessly outplayed.
The more I reflect, the more I feel I have lost faith in Razor turning this around.
Don't worry mate, he'll do some deep thinking while out surfing and come to some cliche ridden conclusion about learnings and ownership.
Don't forget vibes
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@frugby said in England Vs All Blacks:
Maybe recency bias, but in so many ways this felt worse than Wellington for me. There was a large part of the Boks test which felt freak/one of those days - today we were just hopelessly outplayed.
The more I reflect, the more I feel I have lost faith in Razor turning this around.
Wellington was a fairly even Test for sixty minutes and then South Africa went up a couple of gears in the last twenty, the wheels totally fell off our game and our line out and defence turned to goo.
Yesterday, there were some positives (three good tries, no penalties against in the first half, the first half was in general okay, we had much the better of the lineouts and slightly the better of the scrums), but at no point did we look the better, more balanced, more organised, more threatening team than England. Our defence was poor and we leaked 33 points without England having to do terribly much out of the ordinary.
I can't see us under Robertson being anything better than a team at the Rugby World Cup that labours to the Semi Final stage then loses badly against decent opposition.
The questions NZR need to ask are: is that acceptable? Can we do better under anyone else out there? If they do stick with Robertson, then how to get his team performing better at Test level?
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@Jet Rugby was much more enjoyable to watch when Bernie was scoring in the corner.
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@BerniesCorner said in England Vs All Blacks:
@Jet Rugby was much more enjoyable to watch when Bernie was scoring in the corner.
I dug up some of that corner after they demolished atheltic park and before they built. Transplanted it to my flat ... but it got left behind. You'll be pleased to know his corner lives on somewhere!
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@Kruse said in England Vs All Blacks:
Just finished watching.. hopefully not sour grapes, but am I the only one asking... is Pollock an absolute cock?
Too much media cock-sucking at too young an age?As I said in my post earlier, I like him, despite the fact he's the most children of the corn looking mofo I've ever seen.
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Come to God Moment for Surf Jesus
For All Black fans, this team offers a constantly recurring cycle of briefly raised hopes followed by crushing disappointment.
Nothing changes - the dropped balls, the pushed passes, the fundamental errors like missing touch from penalties, the brain fades and ill-discipline, the paucity of on-field leadership when heads droop amid the inevitable third-quarter meltdowns and, most galling of all, the Pollyanna rhetoric from Robertson and his mediocre coaches (‘we played some good footy out there, eh’).
Of course, the lottery that is the yellow card-red card ‘system’ is not helping, but that is an issue every team is having to contend with. We just contend with it worse than most.
Absent the sacking of the overrated Robertson and/or his deputies, together with the overdue retirement of a few of the old guard long living on past glories (you know who they are), I really can’t see what changes next year.
What I do know is that the high performance, no-excuses culture that the All Blacks once prided themselves on is now shattered. Rugby NZ ‘monetised’ the AB brand for private equity cash and ever since the marketing department and the PR spinners have been running the show - at the expense of on-field performance.
It is a shambles from top to bottom - from the factional, divided boardroom that leaks like a sieve, to coaching, to strategy, to selection, to on-field leadership, to skill development and to individual performances. The All Blacks are busted. We can all see it. The time for excuses is over. Arguably, they’ve gone backwards since 2023.
What should happen next? Ideally, heads should roll - from the top. More likely, there’ll be an official and non-transparent ‘review’ that will be largely a public relations exercise like everything else NZ Rugby does these days. Someone mentioned the possibility of tell-all books from MacDonald and Holland. Whatever, a light needs to be shone very broadly and very deeply into the mismanagement of the All Blacks brand.
In the meantime, there is simply no evidence that the coaching group have any idea what they are trying to achieve and it is that muddle-headed cluelessness that is reflected on the field of play as a rudderless AB team is reduced to gambling on individual brilliance and luck to win games. It worked against Ireland and Scotland. But England found them out and exposed their significant weaknesses.
You don’t win World Cups by failing to catch a high ball, or kick for touch, or defend on your own line, or rethink strategy when the run-on instructions prove wanting. You don’t win when you resort to tripping opponents up or going for miracle intercepts. And you don’t win when your coaching staff fail to correct the same recurring frailties in test after test and then come back with motherhood statements about ‘walking toward the pressure’.
It’s time for Surf Jesus to hang up his sandals.
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@MN5 said in England Vs All Blacks:
@sparky said in England Vs All Blacks:
@MN5 I'm no fan of the man, but that was an excellent review of the game by Stephen Jones. He's damn right on his comments about our players. Only thing he missed out was England's lineout woes.
I couldn’t bring myself to be that magnanimous
I can't bring myself to click on a Walrus link.
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@BerniesCorner said in England Vs All Blacks:
@Jet Rugby was much more enjoyable to watch when Bernie was scoring in the corner.
Warmed up in that corner when I ran out for the centurions in the official last game. I remember being in awe rubbing shoulders with big names like Norm Broughton and Richard Watt.
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The frustrating thing about all this is we have some really good players. I've seen much worse AB teams in recent years. Historically the ABs invariably won the mental battle with grit and intelligence. This lot are all over the shop.
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@Snowy said in England Vs All Blacks:
@No-Quarter said in England Vs All Blacks:
That's not even fair on the ref, let alone the players and paying fans.
I stopped paying to go to rugby matches because of the card lottery about 15 years ago. Used to go to matches all over the world but just had enough of the inequality of contest with uneven numbers on the field. It changes the whole flow of a match. Watching on TV I can just turn it off when the card inevitably comes out. Sad, but life is like that. I'll probably be back next year, but I don't think rugby does anything for me anymore, except piss me off. I really just watch to see the result rather than actually enjoying it.
Really pleased the cricket is starting.
@No-Quarter said in England Vs All Blacks:
@Dodge said in England Vs All Blacks:
It didn’t ruin the game is my point. Don’t do it. Sometimes the ref will ping you. (Same goes for Earl).
Could not disagree more. Cards have been ruining games for years now and I am sick of it.
Yep.
Having said all that, well done England, you play the cards that you're dealt. I just think that we need better croupiers if they want me to return to their casino. The odds of winning by seeing an equal number of players contest (even if my team loses) aren't good enough for me to invest in tickets at the moment,
It's like being in an abusive relationship. I keep going back thinking surely it won't happen again, but then it does, again and again and again. Spectacle after spectacle ruined by cards and nothing ever changes.
One theory I have is there are quite number of "fans" that actually love the controversy and online outrage that cards generate. It would also generate lots of clicks on media articles etc, so in a way the more controversial a game is, the more money that gets made out of it.
I also suspect that NZ and SA fans are the most vocal about it because we have been on the end of so many absolute howlers. We need far more cards like the Irish got against us for those up North to realise it is destroying the game.
