All Blacks 2025
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@DaGrubster said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@gt12 said in All Blacks 2025:
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@jimmyb said in All Blacks 2025:
Against a decent team you’d have a point.
Apply that to everyone then. Don't be selective. Fact is Akira played really well for the ABs and went up a level for the Blues. He was MOTM and dominant in a number of his games. Fine, don't pick him - that's ultimately the call of the coach and selectors - but you better pick someone who does more for you.
Who do we get? Simon Parker? Finau? Va'ai? Scott Barrett at 6? Struggling to see those as step change options against good teams.
What I am not seeing with this coaching crowd is taking people with attributes (strength, speed, size, etc) and coaching them to better players. Dane Coles is the poster child of this, he went from wild child to incredible hooker. And fucking Jerome K, he developed massively. So did Ma'a. Fuck, pick me someone from this squad whose game has been improved by this outfit. I'll wait.
Extra to that is that players can't escape an image that appears from early performances. In Akira's case, if he were a first year 6 under Cotter, he'd have been quickly ushered in to the ABs as the future. One of the best things about the 2000s coaches was that they didn't lock out players and continued to see their growth and benefit. It's a big issue in my mind that confirmatory bias appears to have crept into the coaches attitudes, not just the fans.
The way GH treated Reuben Thorne springs to mind. Reportedly rang him personally to tell him he'd been dropped, gave him work ons, brought him back into the squad when he did it
Thats where i was critical of the handling of Sotutu.
He was immense with his response and would have smashed all his work ons and was player of the comp. Still not selected.
Its a really bad look for and sends a poor message to players
The word here, from memory, was that he was still too slow to get off the ground.
So, the second issue we've got is that the criteria by which they give players works on may reflect a misunderstanding of the skills needed for international rugby - do we need 30 low quality involvements from our number 8 or do we need 15 high quality point-scoring / defensive stopping involvements?
There is also the issue that some players (e.g., Savea) can get away with the latter, but let's put that to the side.
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@gt12 said in All Blacks 2025:
@DaGrubster said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@gt12 said in All Blacks 2025:
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@jimmyb said in All Blacks 2025:
Against a decent team you’d have a point.
Apply that to everyone then. Don't be selective. Fact is Akira played really well for the ABs and went up a level for the Blues. He was MOTM and dominant in a number of his games. Fine, don't pick him - that's ultimately the call of the coach and selectors - but you better pick someone who does more for you.
Who do we get? Simon Parker? Finau? Va'ai? Scott Barrett at 6? Struggling to see those as step change options against good teams.
What I am not seeing with this coaching crowd is taking people with attributes (strength, speed, size, etc) and coaching them to better players. Dane Coles is the poster child of this, he went from wild child to incredible hooker. And fucking Jerome K, he developed massively. So did Ma'a. Fuck, pick me someone from this squad whose game has been improved by this outfit. I'll wait.
Extra to that is that players can't escape an image that appears from early performances. In Akira's case, if he were a first year 6 under Cotter, he'd have been quickly ushered in to the ABs as the future. One of the best things about the 2000s coaches was that they didn't lock out players and continued to see their growth and benefit. It's a big issue in my mind that confirmatory bias appears to have crept into the coaches attitudes, not just the fans.
The way GH treated Reuben Thorne springs to mind. Reportedly rang him personally to tell him he'd been dropped, gave him work ons, brought him back into the squad when he did it
Thats where i was critical of the handling of Sotutu.
He was immense with his response and would have smashed all his work ons and was player of the comp. Still not selected.
Its a really bad look for and sends a poor message to players
The word here, from memory, was that he was still too slow to get off the ground.
So, the second issue we've got is that the criteria by which they give players works on may reflect a misunderstanding of the skills needed for international rugby - do we need 30 low quality involvements from our number 8 or do we need 15 high quality point-scoring / defensive stopping involvements?
There is also the issue that some players (e.g., Savea) can get away with the latter, but let's put that to the side.
Ardie is barely involved in rucks so of course he can get off the ground when he's not even on the ground!
We are all on the outside, but it felt very much like there were different rules for different players. Some guys just can't do enough to earn a spot. Other guys can make mistake after mistake and retain their spot. All people want to see is fairness and meritocracy, all these guys are creating is suspicion and lack of trust based on their actions
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
The way they talked about Hoskins and how he doesn't play both sides of the ball reminded me of the way Mitch talked about Cully and how he held the ball in the wrong hand. Rude and disrespectful
That was absolute bullshit however Mitchell got vilified for doing exactly what people wish Razor would do to Beauden Barrett ( jettison a guy whose electrifying pace had dropped just a tad )
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@Mr-Fish said in All Blacks 2025:
@reprobate said in England Vs All Blacks:
@Mr-Fish said in England Vs All Blacks:
@reprobate said in England Vs All Blacks:
@Mr-Fish said in England Vs All Blacks:
@reprobate said in England Vs All Blacks:
@stodders said in England Vs All Blacks:
@jimmyb said in England Vs All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
@jimmyb said in England Vs All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
@reprobate said in England Vs All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
Still nothing compared to the media firestorm Fozzie had to face
I think that's largely because Foster took over a good team, whereas Razor took over a bit of a shit show. It's deterioration vs going nowhere.
Cue someone saying 'oh we should have won the WC final with 14 men but for the ref'... yeah nah bullshit, we were crap and the good performances were the outliers.I'd argue that the team Fozzie inherited were already on the way down as demonstrated by our 2019 loss. I think Fozz got a lot of shit because there was fatigue for the outgoing coaching group by that time, and he didn't seem like he had the credentials for the HC gig
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
@reprobate said in England Vs All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
Still nothing compared to the media firestorm Fozzie had to face
I think that's largely because Foster took over a good team, whereas Razor took over a bit of a shit show. It's deterioration vs going nowhere.
Cue someone saying 'oh we should have won the WC final with 14 men but for the ref'... yeah nah bullshit, we were crap and the good performances were the outliers.I'd argue that the team Fozzie inherited were already on the way down as demonstrated by our 2019 loss. I think Fozz got a lot of shit because there was fatigue for the outgoing coaching group by that time, and he didn't seem like he had the credentials for the HC gig
That is disgusting revisionism
Care to elaborate? I was as critical of Fozzie as anyone. And he made lots of mistakes in selection and in gameplan. Things didn't seem to improve until Ryan and Schmidt joined him. But Razor's record probably isn't much better, and some of our play has been as bad. So I'm curious to hear your argument
I’m just not sure how Foster can inherit a team he’d already been coaching for 7 years. The RWC final team only had 4 (I think) players that had debuted post 2019 RWC. He didn’t have to do any work to develop players and he was still shit. Razor on the other hand has to develop a 2nd row, entire backrow, two halfbacks, a 10, a centre pairing, and a back three. Foster had his squad handed to him on a platter and only needed to tweak a few small elements
Foster was a poor AB coach. Nobody was surprised though as he was a poor Chiefs head coach too. Pretty good assistant though.
Dave Rennie came in and instantly turned Foster's Chiefs shitshow around, whereas Robertson has completely failed to do that for Foster's AB shitshow.
The same year that the contracting model completely changed for Super Rugby.
Not comparing apples with apples at all.
How so?
Switched from selecting from within your region to having carte blanche to contract from anywhere.
Around half the squad in 2012 came from provinces outside the Chiefs region (including 10 who featured in the final). In 2011 (and prior), Foster could largely only select from within the region (draft players excepted, who were largely players left out by other franchises).
Completely different landscape.
I'm not suggesting Foster's a better coach than Rennie, but he did a very good job with the Chiefs over a number of years. There's good reason why he was kept on for so long.
Different landscape, but the guys Rennie was competing with were playing by the same rules as he was, and he beat them all. And he did not have a team stacked with ABs by any means, there were a whole lot of young guys and journeymen playing above themselves.
Foster at the Chiefs: losing semifinalist 4th, 6th, 7th, 7th, 7th, losing finalist 2nd, 10th, 10th. Playoffs 2 years out of 8 and a 50% win ratio according to wikipedia. They played patches of very attractive rugby, but were not very good, a frustrating team to follow. If there was a good reason for keeping him on so long, it wasn't apparent in the results.That's exactly right - went from an unfair landscape to a fair landscape.
Rennie had access to relatively better players, more on par with the rest of the competition (especially Blues, Hurricanes and Crusaders). Even if Rennie weren't a better coach than Foster (which I believe he is), you would expect him to do better given the comparatively stronger team he was able to assemble.
Keeping Foster at the Chiefs was not hugely dissimilar to why Townsend is still coaching Scotland now. Are Scotland ever going to be better than they currently are? Probably not. But that's a product of the players they have, regardless of who's coaching them. The best crop of talent from within Scottish borders is never going to compete with the best teams around the world. Same sitch for Foster in Super. Occasionally they might outperform, but that should never be the expectation.
Rennie built that squad with castaways. BBBR not wanted by the Crusaders, the front row not wanted by the Canes - and that's just the Magpies guys.
He lucked into Cruden because the Hammeteur was the Hammeteur and he took SBW's game to a level above what it had been at the Crusaders.
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
The way they talked about Hoskins and how he doesn't play both sides of the ball reminded me of the way Mitch talked about Cully and how he held the ball in the wrong hand. Rude and disrespectful
That was absolute bullshit however Mitchell got vilified for doing exactly what people wish Razor would do to Beauden Barrett ( jettison a guy whose electrifying pace had dropped just a tad )
Cully was still one of the best two 15s in SR that year. On the decline, but he wasn't being chosen to start and would have probably been able to contribute more than Ben Atiga for starters
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@reprobate said in England v All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
Still nothing compared to the media firestorm Fozzie had to face
I think that's largely because Foster took over a good team, whereas Razor took over a bit of a shit show. It's deterioration vs going nowhere.
Cue someone saying 'oh we should have won the WC final with 14 men but for the ref'... yeah nah bullshit, we were crap and the good performances were the outliers.That's a fucking weird take. The ABs in Fozzie's tenure had two clear iterations:
- Terrible with hopeless assistants.
- Marked improvement with excellent assistants.
It's fucking churlish to suggest otherwise.
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@antipodean said in England v All Blacks:
@reprobate said in England v All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
Still nothing compared to the media firestorm Fozzie had to face
I think that's largely because Foster took over a good team, whereas Razor took over a bit of a shit show. It's deterioration vs going nowhere.
Cue someone saying 'oh we should have won the WC final with 14 men but for the ref'... yeah nah bullshit, we were crap and the good performances were the outliers.That's a fucking weird take. The ABs in Fozzie's tenure had two clear iterations:
- Terrible with hopeless assistants.
- Marked improvement with excellent assistants.
It's fucking churlish to suggest otherwise.
I'd even go as far as to say the Fozz era left the team in better shape than he had them before Ryan and Schmidt joined.
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@gt12 said in All Blacks 2025:
@DaGrubster said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@gt12 said in All Blacks 2025:
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@jimmyb said in All Blacks 2025:
Against a decent team you’d have a point.
Apply that to everyone then. Don't be selective. Fact is Akira played really well for the ABs and went up a level for the Blues. He was MOTM and dominant in a number of his games. Fine, don't pick him - that's ultimately the call of the coach and selectors - but you better pick someone who does more for you.
Who do we get? Simon Parker? Finau? Va'ai? Scott Barrett at 6? Struggling to see those as step change options against good teams.
What I am not seeing with this coaching crowd is taking people with attributes (strength, speed, size, etc) and coaching them to better players. Dane Coles is the poster child of this, he went from wild child to incredible hooker. And fucking Jerome K, he developed massively. So did Ma'a. Fuck, pick me someone from this squad whose game has been improved by this outfit. I'll wait.
Extra to that is that players can't escape an image that appears from early performances. In Akira's case, if he were a first year 6 under Cotter, he'd have been quickly ushered in to the ABs as the future. One of the best things about the 2000s coaches was that they didn't lock out players and continued to see their growth and benefit. It's a big issue in my mind that confirmatory bias appears to have crept into the coaches attitudes, not just the fans.
The way GH treated Reuben Thorne springs to mind. Reportedly rang him personally to tell him he'd been dropped, gave him work ons, brought him back into the squad when he did it
Thats where i was critical of the handling of Sotutu.
He was immense with his response and would have smashed all his work ons and was player of the comp. Still not selected.
Its a really bad look for and sends a poor message to players
The word here, from memory, was that he was still too slow to get off the ground.
So, the second issue we've got is that the criteria by which they give players works on may reflect a misunderstanding of the skills needed for international rugby - do we need 30 low quality involvements from our number 8 or do we need 15 high quality point-scoring / defensive stopping involvements?
There is also the issue that some players (e.g., Savea) can get away with the latter, but let's put that to the side.
Lakai had a high workrate on attack in the weekend but what impact did he actually have?
0 Tries
0 Try Assists
0 Linebreaks
0 Turnovers Won
0 Offloads
2 Defenders Beaten
0 Dominant tackles
1 LineoutHe probably got off the ground quickly but did he make enough tackles?
He was 7th for completed tackles out of the AB players. 4 of the players who made more tackles than him came off at the end of the third quarter.
Sititi was on the field from the 54th minute and made zero tackles.
How are Lakai and Sititi there based on both sides of the ball?
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
The way they talked about Hoskins and how he doesn't play both sides of the ball reminded me of the way Mitch talked about Cully and how he held the ball in the wrong hand. Rude and disrespectful
That was absolute bullshit however Mitchell got vilified for doing exactly what people wish Razor would do to Beauden Barrett ( jettison a guy whose electrifying pace had dropped just a tad )
Cully was still one of the best two 15s in SR that year. On the decline, but he wasn't being chosen to start and would have probably been able to contribute more than Ben Atiga for starters
Fair call and for whatever reason I'm not quite as tiggered as some ( including his own son haha, I always found that funny ) that he dropped one of my favourite ever players because his reasoning about the slight drop in pace was sound.
If only Razor ( no, actually Foster ) had done the same with Barrett.
....and I was no fan of Mitchell overall, strange man.
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@gt12 said in All Blacks 2025:
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@jimmyb said in All Blacks 2025:
Against a decent team you’d have a point.
Apply that to everyone then. Don't be selective. Fact is Akira played really well for the ABs and went up a level for the Blues. He was MOTM and dominant in a number of his games. Fine, don't pick him - that's ultimately the call of the coach and selectors - but you better pick someone who does more for you.
Who do we get? Simon Parker? Finau? Va'ai? Scott Barrett at 6? Struggling to see those as step change options against good teams.
What I am not seeing with this coaching crowd is taking people with attributes (strength, speed, size, etc) and coaching them to better players. Dane Coles is the poster child of this, he went from wild child to incredible hooker. And fucking Jerome K, he developed massively. So did Ma'a. Fuck, pick me someone from this squad whose game has been improved by this outfit. I'll wait.
Extra to that is that players can't escape an image that appears from early performances. In Akira's case, if he were a first year 6 under Cotter, he'd have been quickly ushered in to the ABs as the future. One of the best things about the 2000s coaches was that they didn't lock out players and continued to see their growth and benefit. It's a big issue in my mind that confirmatory bias appears to have crept into the coaches attitudes, not just the fans.
The way GH treated Reuben Thorne springs to mind. Reportedly rang him personally to tell him he'd been dropped, gave him work ons, brought him back into the squad when he did it
Thorne got selected by four different coaches so obviously wasn't the invisible suitcase that everyone thought he was. In saying that I remember his try in the 2003 semi final and very little else though !
He had two decent periods to bookend his career, in the middle, well the Aussies named him correctly.
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@antipodean said in England v All Blacks:
@reprobate said in England v All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
Still nothing compared to the media firestorm Fozzie had to face
I think that's largely because Foster took over a good team, whereas Razor took over a bit of a shit show. It's deterioration vs going nowhere.
Cue someone saying 'oh we should have won the WC final with 14 men but for the ref'... yeah nah bullshit, we were crap and the good performances were the outliers.That's a fucking weird take. The ABs in Fozzie's tenure had two clear iterations:
- Terrible with hopeless assistants.
- Marked improvement with excellent assistants.
It's fucking churlish to suggest otherwise.
I'd even go as far as to say the Fozz era left the team in better shape than he had them before Ryan and Schmidt joined.
I would say that the 2023 RWC team was better than 2019 RWC team.
As far as assistant coaches go - in hindsight Foster was better than most of the ones we have had in the twenties - maybe Schmidt is better? I think we underestimated the impact of assistant coaches and took his role for granted in one of the All Blacks all time most dominant periods during the 10's.
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
because his reasoning about the slight drop in pace was sound.
I don't think it was sound at all. He was still the best fullback in the country at the time. If there were better fullbacks then his reasoning might have been sound. Blanco had a number of good years for France after his pace and flair had a slight drop.
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@jimmyb said in England v All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
@jimmyb said in England Vs All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
@reprobate said in England Vs All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
Still nothing compared to the media firestorm Fozzie had to face
I think that's largely because Foster took over a good team, whereas Razor took over a bit of a shit show. It's deterioration vs going nowhere.
Cue someone saying 'oh we should have won the WC final with 14 men but for the ref'... yeah nah bullshit, we were crap and the good performances were the outliers.I'd argue that the team Fozzie inherited were already on the way down as demonstrated by our 2019 loss. I think Fozz got a lot of shit because there was fatigue for the outgoing coaching group by that time, and he didn't seem like he had the credentials for the HC gig
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
@reprobate said in England Vs All Blacks:
@canefan said in England Vs All Blacks:
Still nothing compared to the media firestorm Fozzie had to face
I think that's largely because Foster took over a good team, whereas Razor took over a bit of a shit show. It's deterioration vs going nowhere.
Cue someone saying 'oh we should have won the WC final with 14 men but for the ref'... yeah nah bullshit, we were crap and the good performances were the outliers.I'd argue that the team Fozzie inherited were already on the way down as demonstrated by our 2019 loss. I think Fozz got a lot of shit because there was fatigue for the outgoing coaching group by that time, and he didn't seem like he had the credentials for the HC gig
That is disgusting revisionism
Care to elaborate? I was as critical of Fozzie as anyone. And he made lots of mistakes in selection and in gameplan. Things didn't seem to improve until Ryan and Schmidt joined him. But Razor's record probably isn't much better, and some of our play has been as bad. So I'm curious to hear your argument
I’m just not sure how Foster can inherit a team he’d already been coaching for 7 years. The RWC final team only had 4 (I think) players that had debuted post 2019 RWC. He didn’t have to do any work to develop players and he was still shit. Razor on the other hand has to develop a 2nd row, entire backrow, two halfbacks, a 10, a centre pairing, and a back three.
LOL at thinking Razor has developed a god damn thing.
His second row (Holland) came from Otago and the Highlanders.
His back row is a handicapped parking spot in a nation famed for it's loose forward production line.
We've got one good halfback and Razor had fuck all to do with his development.
What 10 has been developed under Razor? Beauden? Were you going to say Beauden because he's the only one getting any game time.
And his back three is Clarke (nothing to do with Razor), an out of position winger in Jordan and then ..? -
@Nepia said in All Blacks 2025:
@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
because his reasoning about the slight drop in pace was sound.
I don't think it was sound at all. He was still the best fullback in the country at the time. If there were better fullbacks then his reasoning might have been sound. Blanco had a number of good years for France after his pace and flair had a slight drop.
Yeah that's probably right. Leon MacDonald was decent and Muliaina was only just emerging. Cullen may well have adjusted his game and worked on some work ons......we'll never know. But once that uncanny pace, swerve and balance was fading Mitchell made that tough call.
Cullen went out on top with 60 tests instead of crawling to 100.
"The star that burns twice as bright....." ( I've just rewatched Blade Runner )
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
The way they talked about Hoskins and how he doesn't play both sides of the ball reminded me of the way Mitch talked about Cully and how he held the ball in the wrong hand. Rude and disrespectful
That was absolute bullshit however Mitchell got vilified for doing exactly what people wish Razor would do to Beauden Barrett ( jettison a guy whose electrifying pace had dropped just a tad )
Fuck no. Cullen would have had to have the better part of a decade of decline first for it to be the same thing.
Cullen was mid 20s when he was dropped, Barrett is 34.
We used to be ruthless (arguably in that case too ruthless), but now? Now we are pathetic. -
@Nepia said in All Blacks 2025:
@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
because his reasoning about the slight drop in pace was sound.
I don't think it was sound at all. He was still the best fullback in the country at the time. If there were better fullbacks then his reasoning might have been sound. Blanco had a number of good years for France after his pace and flair had a slight drop.
Can someone please remind me who played 15 when we lost to Australia in 2003? IIRC MacDonald was chosen as first choice but he played in the MF.
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@reprobate said in All Blacks 2025:
@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
The way they talked about Hoskins and how he doesn't play both sides of the ball reminded me of the way Mitch talked about Cully and how he held the ball in the wrong hand. Rude and disrespectful
That was absolute bullshit however Mitchell got vilified for doing exactly what people wish Razor would do to Beauden Barrett ( jettison a guy whose electrifying pace had dropped just a tad )
Fuck no. Cullen would have had to have the better part of a decade of decline first for it to be the same thing.
Cullen was mid 20s when he was dropped, Barrett is 34.
We used to be ruthless (arguably in that case too ruthless), but now? Now we are pathetic.At the time I thought it was ridiculous. In retrospect it makes some sense. Although Cullen and Jonah bowing out around the same time was devastating as a fan.
....and there's absolutely no denying Barrett is WELL past his use by date.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2025:
How are Lakai and Sititi there based on both sides of the ball?
You have an ex-All Black loose forward selecting them...
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One thing I don't get about the 2025 ABs is how they squander leads so easily. Even if they jumped out to a 28 point lead early in a test match the opposition would be within 7 points with 20 to play, you can guarantee it.
They just can't control a game after having built a lead. Even if they were up 19-0 at HT on Saturday you know that England would have chipped away at that in the second half and the game would be on the line at the business end of the match. They just can't kill games or opponents off.
