Foster, Robertson etc

[MN5]

@mariner4life said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

Cane is copping all sorts of shit that puzzles me tbh. Apart from what the gameplan dictates he isn't playing badly

i think because "not playing badly" is a pretty average mark

Trademark hits? no
Turnovers? no
Errors and ineffective carries? yes.

Absolutely there are structural issues. He's operating in the middle of the field cleaning up the shit not done by the tight 5. His #8 is attack attack attack. His 6 is stationed out wide.
But that doesn't change the fact that he isn't providing a point of difference, was smashed on points by his opposite number against Ireland, and he's wearing the Black 7 jersey, which comes with a heap of expectation. We're getting owned at the breakdown, and consistently run out of support players.
He's the openside flanker and the captain, he needs to show more.

I think Peter O’Mahoney pointed this out to him directly.

[MN5]

@stodders said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders Barnes has a distinguished career in making laughably idiotic pronouncements.

In amongst the dross from Barnes, there are some interesting nuggets:

1. Would you pick Cane in front of any of the no.7 options NZ's main opponents are capable of fielding? Hooper, Kolisi, Van der Flier, Jelonch, Curry. Would you take any of them over Cane?

2. Is Cane the best no.7 NZ have available right now? Papalii and Savea are arguably better options in the here and now. This isn't a question to denigrate someone who has been a real servant to NZ rugby. McCaw was questioned several times over his career and always found an answer to shut up the naysayers.

3. If the answer to 2 is No, the captain question is a redundant one. It would be a long time ago that NZ played someone at no.7 that was not the best the best in the country and did not measure up against the players available to other nations.

No love for Scotlands tenacious Hamish Watson ?

Legend has it he’s never missed a single tackle in 51 tests.

[Catogrande]

@MN5 said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders Barnes has a distinguished career in making laughably idiotic pronouncements.

In amongst the dross from Barnes, there are some interesting nuggets:

1. Would you pick Cane in front of any of the no.7 options NZ's main opponents are capable of fielding? Hooper, Kolisi, Van der Flier, Jelonch, Curry. Would you take any of them over Cane?

2. Is Cane the best no.7 NZ have available right now? Papalii and Savea are arguably better options in the here and now. This isn't a question to denigrate someone who has been a real servant to NZ rugby. McCaw was questioned several times over his career and always found an answer to shut up the naysayers.

3. If the answer to 2 is No, the captain question is a redundant one. It would be a long time ago that NZ played someone at no.7 that was not the best the best in the country and did not measure up against the players available to other nations.

No love for Scotlands England born, raised and rugby educated but traitorous, tenacious Hamish Watson ?

Legend has it he’s never missed a single tackle in 51 tests.

[Crucial]

@Stargazer said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial What else can he do, if he doesn't want to commit career suicide?

Say nothing (or something generic) he has come in full support and said more than needed to “save his job”

[MN5]

@Catogrande said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@MN5 said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders Barnes has a distinguished career in making laughably idiotic pronouncements.

In amongst the dross from Barnes, there are some interesting nuggets:

1. Would you pick Cane in front of any of the no.7 options NZ's main opponents are capable of fielding? Hooper, Kolisi, Van der Flier, Jelonch, Curry. Would you take any of them over Cane?

2. Is Cane the best no.7 NZ have available right now? Papalii and Savea are arguably better options in the here and now. This isn't a question to denigrate someone who has been a real servant to NZ rugby. McCaw was questioned several times over his career and always found an answer to shut up the naysayers.

3. If the answer to 2 is No, the captain question is a redundant one. It would be a long time ago that NZ played someone at no.7 that was not the best the best in the country and did not measure up against the players available to other nations.

No love for Scotlands England born, raised and rugby educated but traitorous, tenacious Hamish Watson ?

Legend has it he’s never missed a single tackle in 51 tests.

Shows how out of touch I am. I assumed he was as Scottish as oatcakes and haggis.

[Machpants]

@Crucial said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Stargazer said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial What else can he do, if he doesn't want to commit career suicide?

Say nothing (or something generic) he has come in full support and said more than needed to “save his job”

He's saying what the media managers tell him to say

[Chris]

@Machpants said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Stargazer said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial What else can he do, if he doesn't want to commit career suicide?

Say nothing (or something generic) he has come in full support and said more than needed to “save his job”

He's saying what the media managers tell him to say

Thats exactly it, especially with the Media Manager standing right behind him to the left in the video.

[Crucial]

Gee there’s a cynical bunch on here.
Who’d have thought.

[mariner4life]

@Chris said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Machpants said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Stargazer said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial What else can he do, if he doesn't want to commit career suicide?

Say nothing (or something generic) he has come in full support and said more than needed to “save his job”

He's saying what the media managers tell him to say

Thats exactly it, especially with the Media Manager standing right behind him to the left in the video.

lol fuck now we are jumping the shark

"oooh what can he say, he's got the NKVD at his back ready to execute him if he strays from the party line"

[Machpants]

@Crucial said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

Gee there’s a cynical bunch on here.
Who’d have thought.

Yeah once Fozzie proves us wrong with actually producing a win with team work rather than bursts of individual brilliance, I'll park my cynicism

[Chris]

@mariner4life said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Chris said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Machpants said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Stargazer said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial What else can he do, if he doesn't want to commit career suicide?

Say nothing (or something generic) he has come in full support and said more than needed to “save his job”

He's saying what the media managers tell him to say

Thats exactly it, especially with the Media Manager standing right behind him to the left in the video.

lol fuck now we are jumping the shark

"oooh what can he say, he's got the NKVD at his back ready to execute him if he strays from the party line"

I am glad you understand.

[Victor Meldrew]

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders Barnes has a distinguished career in making laughably idiotic pronouncements.

In amongst the dross from Barnes, there are some interesting nuggets:

1. Would you pick Cane in front of any of the no.7 options NZ's main opponents are capable of fielding? Hooper, Kolisi, Van der Flier, Jelonch, Curry. Would you take any of them over Cane?

Possibly, but it depends on the type of defence and who you have around them.

2. Is Cane the best no.7 NZ have available right now? Papalii and Savea are arguably better options in the here and now. This isn't a question to denigrate someone who has been a real servant to NZ rugby. McCaw was questioned several times over his career and always found an answer to shut up the naysayers.

It is arguable whether he's in the best form given how well Papali'i played in Super Rugby, but his impact in defence can't be denied.

3. If the answer to 2 is No, the captain question is a redundant one. It would be a long time ago that NZ played someone at no.7 that was not the best the best in the country and did not measure up against the players available to other nations.

Well we're not fielding our best no.8, so there's that.

I'd say the broader problem is that our loose forwards are situated to be effective when we have the ball, but we don't play to that shape because we don't go forward with the tight five or our backs.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but what do people think of Sam at 6 rather than 7?

Would a Cane/Paps/Ardie or Cane/Paps/Sotutu be a better balanced trio?

[Old Samurai Jack]

@Dan54 Wasn't having a go at Cane. It is just that nobody was answering the question.

[Machpants]

@Victor-Meldrew said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

Would a Cane/Paps/Ardie or Cane/Paps/Sotutu be a better balanced trio?

That's still 5 out of 6 are 7s. Cane is a 7, Paps is a 7, Ardie is a 7. That's the problwm, we tried the first three together already, test 3, didn't go well. Cane is the third best 7 in the team, and now we are stuck with him starting 'cos he's captain

[pakman]

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders Barnes has a distinguished career in making laughably idiotic pronouncements.

In amongst the dross from Barnes, there are some interesting nuggets:

1. Would you pick Cane in front of any of the no.7 options NZ's main opponents are capable of fielding? Hooper, Kolisi, Van der Flier, Jelonch, Curry. Would you take any of them over Cane?

Possibly, but it depends on the type of defence and who you have around them.

2. Is Cane the best no.7 NZ have available right now? Papalii and Savea are arguably better options in the here and now. This isn't a question to denigrate someone who has been a real servant to NZ rugby. McCaw was questioned several times over his career and always found an answer to shut up the naysayers.

It is arguable whether he's in the best form given how well Papali'i played in Super Rugby, but his impact in defence can't be denied.

3. If the answer to 2 is No, the captain question is a redundant one. It would be a long time ago that NZ played someone at no.7 that was not the best the best in the country and did not measure up against the players available to other nations.

Well we're not fielding our best no.8, so there's that.

I'd say the broader problem is that our loose forwards are situated to be effective when we have the ball, but we don't play to that shape because we don't go forward with the tight five or our backs.

It is indisputable that the decision to replace Read with Savea as our regular eight has substantially lessened our effectiveness.

I suspect it's led to the pack trying to play around Ardie's strengths and weaknesses, unbalances our lineout, probably our ruck work, maybe effects our maul, and definitively our off the scrum punch.

If we want to sort our game plan, please move Savea to seven/bench and bring in an eight which allows a better pattern to be played.

Luatua would have been perfect, but that's water under the bridge. For now that's Sotutu, so for Christ's sake give him a run.

End of rant.

[pakman]

@pakman said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders Barnes has a distinguished career in making laughably idiotic pronouncements.

In amongst the dross from Barnes, there are some interesting nuggets:

1. Would you pick Cane in front of any of the no.7 options NZ's main opponents are capable of fielding? Hooper, Kolisi, Van der Flier, Jelonch, Curry. Would you take any of them over Cane?

Possibly, but it depends on the type of defence and who you have around them.

2. Is Cane the best no.7 NZ have available right now? Papalii and Savea are arguably better options in the here and now. This isn't a question to denigrate someone who has been a real servant to NZ rugby. McCaw was questioned several times over his career and always found an answer to shut up the naysayers.

It is arguable whether he's in the best form given how well Papali'i played in Super Rugby, but his impact in defence can't be denied.

3. If the answer to 2 is No, the captain question is a redundant one. It would be a long time ago that NZ played someone at no.7 that was not the best the best in the country and did not measure up against the players available to other nations.

Well we're not fielding our best no.8, so there's that.

I'd say the broader problem is that our loose forwards are situated to be effective when we have the ball, but we don't play to that shape because we don't go forward with the tight five or our backs.

It is indisputable that the decision to replace Read with Savea as our regular eight has substantially lessened our effectiveness.

I suspect it's led to the pack trying to play around Ardie's strengths and weaknesses, unbalances our lineout, probably our ruck work, maybe effects our maul, and definitively our off the scrum punch.

If we want to sort our game plan, please move Savea to seven/bench and bring in an eight which allows a better pattern to be played.

Luatua would have been perfect, but that's water under the bridge. For now that's Sotutu, so for Christ's sake give him a run.

End of rant.

The French had a specific ploy to take Ardie out:

[Frank]

@Crucial said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

So whadda we think about Mounga throwing his full support behind Foster? Going as far as to declare that he’s the man.
This isn’t a player that is seemingly a favourite or owes his ongoing selection to Foster. He’d be close to first name on a team list from Razor.

LOL

[pakman]

@No-Quarter said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@mariner4life said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@Crucial said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

For some reason we don't have our 7 playing the way they are used to the next level down where they have a roaming licence to hunt

there's a reason for that

We'd honestly solve a lot of our loose forward issues if we played Akira at 6 and Sotutu at 8. Put Cane, Ardie or Papalii between those two and we have a really well balanced trio.

(edit - added Ardie who should be starting at 7 or on the bench)

Sam, Frizzel and Hoskins, with Paps on bench, were pretty handy against Oz on Halloween 2020.

[Dice]

@Victor-Meldrew said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@antipodean said in Foster must go / Assistant Coach changes:

@stodders Barnes has a distinguished career in making laughably idiotic pronouncements.

In amongst the dross from Barnes, there are some interesting nuggets:

1. Would you pick Cane in front of any of the no.7 options NZ's main opponents are capable of fielding? Hooper, Kolisi, Van der Flier, Jelonch, Curry. Would you take any of them over Cane?

Possibly, but it depends on the type of defence and who you have around them.

2. Is Cane the best no.7 NZ have available right now? Papalii and Savea are arguably better options in the here and now. This isn't a question to denigrate someone who has been a real servant to NZ rugby. McCaw was questioned several times over his career and always found an answer to shut up the naysayers.

It is arguable whether he's in the best form given how well Papali'i played in Super Rugby, but his impact in defence can't be denied.

3. If the answer to 2 is No, the captain question is a redundant one. It would be a long time ago that NZ played someone at no.7 that was not the best the best in the country and did not measure up against the players available to other nations.

Well we're not fielding our best no.8, so there's that.

I'd say the broader problem is that our loose forwards are situated to be effective when we have the ball, but we don't play to that shape because we don't go forward with the tight five or our backs.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but what do people think of Sam at 6 rather than 7?

They like the 6 playing the wider channels and Sam is probably the least suited for that of all the backrowers in the team.

[Catogrande]

@pakman

Balance. What a novel idea. Certainly novel in England anyway...