All Blacks v Japan

nostrildamus

@Jet said in All Blacks v Japan:

May as well have Codie Taylor or Coles on the wing. They can execute the stop running and cut back in just as well as Reece and Telea.

Could of called Coles up, he was in Japan with some other AB legends

Imagine that for a bench . .

kpkanz

@Jet said in All Blacks v Japan:

@sparky said in All Blacks v Japan:

The whole thing had an end of season Barbarians "let throw the ball around" feel to it.

Get ready for the intensity to be turned from 1 to 10 for the next three weeks.

The next 3 weeks will be a different sport.

Dublin on a Friday night, with a pissed up after work crowd, the RWC quarters, Ioane-gate fresh in the memory.

We are in for a hiding.

No we're not

What is with the doom and gloom.

Why are we hyping up these northern teams to this level?

We beat England 2-0 up front first 2 games with the new regime. We are much better than we were then.

The same England team that beat Ireland and were about to beat France but conceded a penalty in the 80th minute to lose.

nostrildamus

Were there enough glimpses of what Finau can offer to see him as a potential long-term 6?

mariner4life

Of all the games of rugby, that was certainly one of them.

Positives: a run in the legs.
Negatives: yuck

I had to laugh at one point Justin was talking about getting out of our structure. What fucking structure? We just played fast fast fast, offloads where possible, players constantly in motion. 2nd quarter was good. Everything else was terrible.

Set piece okay, but Japan's probably better.

Players went in and out of the game because it was impossible to he in the right place constantly as the ball pinged around

DMac good and also really bad.
Midfield good and bad
Outsides too slow.

Loose forwards were good. Patty T was pretty good. Tight forwards got to run, but everything else was average. Tough day for the big lads.

Finau ate so many people but I don't think he's fit enough. I like his combination with Sititi though, as they are such different players.

Flush it, move on

brodean

@kpkanz said in All Blacks v Japan:

@Jet said in All Blacks v Japan:

@sparky said in All Blacks v Japan:

The whole thing had an end of season Barbarians "let throw the ball around" feel to it.

Get ready for the intensity to be turned from 1 to 10 for the next three weeks.

The next 3 weeks will be a different sport.

Dublin on a Friday night, with a pissed up after work crowd, the RWC quarters, Ioane-gate fresh in the memory.

We are in for a hiding.

No we're not

What is with the doom and gloom.

Why are we hyping up these northern teams to this level?

We beat England 2-0 up front first 2 games with the new regime. We are much better than we were then.

The same England team that beat Ireland and were about to beat France but conceded a penalty in the 80th minute to lose.

We ain't. Those were our best results so far this year by far. They're the only games where we played 80 minutes against a top 5 team. Overall I've seen little in the way of improvement in any facet.

darylmitchell

This post is deleted!

reprobate

Exhibition game. You can argue whether playing it like that was a good idea or not, but that was very clearly the intention for the whole game - so criticising guys throwing it around and rash offloads etc is kinda missing the point.
Good things:
Aumua finally got a decent run, his early throwing yips improved, and he showed some of the offensive and defensive power that could see him become a real asset.
Some decent minutes into both the giant props.
Big Pat played pretty well.
Finau more minutes more confidence.
Sititi unsurprisingly at home at 8.
Roigard getting more minutes.
Bad things:
Roigard was pretty average really, apart from the try - and there's only so much credit you can give for that with Japan's tackling performance. Hopefully he still makes the England team.
Defensive alignment was really poor at times. Soft tries conceded, and a few glaring missed tackles.