The Silver Fern

@catogrande said in ABs v Scotland:

@kruse said in ABs v Scotland:

@catogrande said in ABs v Scotland:

@snowy said in ABs v Scotland:

@Chester-Draws

A rule like "A player must not take any action to make the opposing team think that the ball is out of the ruck while it is still in the ruck"?

Rule 16.4 (f) in other words.

Yep, definition of "still in the ruck" though is questionable?

*16.6: A ruck ends successfully when the ball leaves the ruck, or when the ball is on or over the goal line.

(c)
When the ball has been clearly won by a team at a ruck and the ball is available to be played the referee will call "Use it!" after which the ball must be played within five seconds. If the ball is not played within five seconds the referee will award a scrum and the team not in possession of the ball at the ruck is awarded the throw-in.*

So unless the ref calls "use it" the ball is still in, and "hands off' for the opposition as I see it. A lot of refs are getting that wrong I reckon.

Yep. And five seconds seems an awful long time often.

It sure as hell did during the Lions tour.

Hmm. Strong is the bitterness in this one.

Ha - yeah. A little bitter, if only because it felt like we lost a couple of minutes of rugby, per game, with the Lions taking FULL advantage of that 5-seconds, every single fucking time. Well within their rights, of course, but it was jarring, after a season of Super BANG BANG BOOM BOOM Rugby.
And @Chester-Draws comment is a good point - it's better having clear ball and getting the game going again ASAP... perhaps the current laws are all good, we just need an edict to the refs to be more aggressive about giving the "use it!" command?

Naholo, Cane and Hames.

@Crazy-Horse said in ABs vs Kangaroos?:

"What would prime Franz Botha do?"

@bones said in AB Test Team v France.:

Maybe SBW is mistaken and Gardiner said he's sorry about the card, but that thems the rules.

Thats what i thought , he probably said something along the lines of sorry to have to do that to you mate , but didnt mention it was the wrong decision ,

SBW jumps to the wrong conclusion ,

later , Gardiner is probably reading it in the media , and thinking you fucking dickhead , I didnt say that .

@disgusted-of-tw said in Future All Black coaches...:

@crucial D'oh, I forgot him. Maybe I should have excluded the West Island from the question - what about an NH coach, then?

Considering that NH teams are grabbing SH coaches in order to get away from stodgy rugby it is unlikely that we would go the other way.
Perhaps a set piece coach once Cron retires?

@pakman said in MotM vs Barbarians:

TKB went close to my vote. His tactical decision making came just when we needed it and exposed the scratch nature of the oppo.

Agreed. He would have been my 4th choice.

For those criticising the decision to select TKB on this tour, would you have been confident if it was Pulu/Weber/Drummond coming on in the 2nd half?

I'd be having TKB on the bench in Paris. It won't happen though.

@victor-meldrew said in What is the best AB Midfield?:

@nepia Reuben Thorne is the glue in the AB pack. Gets thru a huge amount of work.

😎

@mn5 said in All Black training:

@family-man said in All Black training:

@higgins could u find out please where in wales (what Hotel) staying at please?

Getting in early to set up cameras and microphones in the bathrooms?

Ha ha yeah

Right now playing NH sides, I feel like they are always close to stealing our ball at the breakdown, where as we never seem to be in an ideal position to do so. Ireland to me seem to be the best at competing at the breakdown right now.
I've also noticed this year the NH sides are much better at exploiting poor body position of the ball carrier, and attempting to hold the player up.

@mimic said in MotM vs Australia III:

@hydro11 said in MotM vs Australia III:

@mimic said in MotM vs Australia III:

@hydro11 said in MotM vs Australia III:

@kiwimurph said in MotM vs Australia III:

@hydro11 youll happily vote for Cane who knocked on at the end I see.

Knock ons happen. SBW chose a terrible option. I can get over mistakes - dumb passes, kicks and penalties are tougher to deal with.

Was it a terrible option? He was chipping ahead for Ioane, who we would back for pace..
His offload leading to Ioane's try was high risk, but when it came off it was amazing..
If the grubber came off, people would be lauding SBW for his array of skills.

I went with SBW, Read and Cane.

You might, I wouldn't. I hated the praise Garden-Bachop got for his stupid chip kick the other week.

I guess you weren't a fan of Goldie who used to do it and seemed like he had the ball on a string.

that's a bit different. wilson was generally at full pace with one man in front of him when he did it - and if it wasn't on, he had no problem taking contact. as an option for wilson it was reasonably good percentage-wise, and he was very well-practised at it.
sbw's biggest flaw has always been trying too much on his own. trying low-percentage hero plays. despite a good game, he did it again.

@antipodean said in BLEDISLOE 3:

@kiwimurph said in BLEDISLOE 3:

@antipodean said in BLEDISLOE 3:

@kiwimurph said in BLEDISLOE 3:

Fancy backline moves were used (which led directly to Hodge's opening try) when the conditions called for keep it simple stupid.

The problem wasn't a fancy backline move; it was Sopoaga throwing a panicked ball because he was pressured.

The reason Sopoaga was under pressure was because the ABs tried a move where Aaron Smith got the ball on the right hand side of the scrum and threw it back left across the scrum to Sopoaga. A fancy move that wasn't required - trying to be too cute.

And a better player would have taken the tackle rather than hurl the ball away in a blind panic.

Sopoaga probably would have on other occasions too - even Carter threw a few silly intercepts and we can all agree (some Canes fans aside maybe) that he is the best of the better players.

Top 10 after RC:

Retallick 169
Cane 155
A. Smith 111
R. Ioane 109
Read 107
D Mac 84
Whitelock 74
Moody 68
B. Barrett 64
Laulala 62

A photo I took. The cemetery is surrounded by farms.

0_1507196184376_IMG_3984.JPG

@pakman said in Springboks v All Blacks:

Interesting analysis: http://www.planetrugby.com/news/372787/

Funny how in all of those clips they didn't pick p the obvious which was that SA targeted running at A Smith. Nugget may eventually make the tackle but invariably he is hanging on the ankles and the ground has been gained.
ABs will need to adjust their system as it isn't even necessary for the halfback to be defending fringes in general play. No reason he can't adapt to defending further out.

@chimoaus said in All Black backs' passing:

Perhaps the AB's need to go back and visit the Storm again. Their passing into space sure is impressive.

For most players on a league field there is only two things they need to be good at -- passing and tackling. Only the odd one has to kick, and the outsides catch a high ball, but a guy can be really good at league without any major skill except tackling and passing. Oh, and be fit.

The rest of the game comes from playing -- if you have the hand-eye co-ordination to pass, then you have it to catch. Nice if you can see space, but brute physical force will do instead.

So a league team better be good at passing.

Edit: not saying no league players don't have other skills, sometimes extraordinary ones. Just that passing and tackling are the key ones.

@antipodean said in Springboks vs All Blacks - Newlands:

Vaea Fifita, Ngani Laumape, Waisake Naholo, Luke Romano and Ardie Savea.

I'm annoyed Naholo isn't getting another shot, thought he was no worse (and probably) a tad better than NMS. SBW had his best game all season, but I would have also liked Laumape to get some more game time.

Let's be honest, this has nothing to do with giving frontline players a balanced workload to keep them fresh for November, this is just sending the fringe players back home (Savea excepted).

I'm confused. How can I vote for BBBR when he wasn't there?

I thought the kick was fine.. poor communication on the receivers to go up and compete..

SBW was solid I thought. Still not a well oiled combo with BB and Crotty though, can still hesitate 😞
For MotM I thought Ione and Smith (who at one stage was just outrageous), most others excellent, locks and bench especially. Read was there when he needed to be, lineouts and tackles. Also marveled at Cole's magic awareness of where ball would be (but thought he has lost a bit of speed) and Taylor for his pressure when he came on. SB was great, Squire's cameo was wrecking ball material, showed heaps of bogan mongrel (is that bongrel?) Thought of BB as 3rd but he varied from incredible to good to why did he do that, so no.
Went for Cane, really important part of team, so he is my #3.

@pakman said in All Blacks vs Boks:

Second half thoughts:
Again, Boks weren't too bad for first 30.
In third quarter ABs scored in pretty much the only time they got into SB 22. At 58 Boks replace TH and hooker. Their scrum under the pump from then on. Three successive penalties, which dissipated any momentum they gained. Lineout not much better.
Lima coming on got the AB backs humming. Some nice touches from BB outside centre.
At 74 Pollard bad miss on ALB and Lima under sticks. Little resistance from there.
To me, Boks can stay with ABs for reasonable periods, but the pace at which we play eventually gets them to 'overheat' mentally (and physically), at which point decision making lets them down. ABs absolutely ruthless in such situations.
I think their Super set up this year, with only Lions playing dynamic rugby and too many dud teams has meant the players simply aren't used to extended periods of making decisions at speed. In contrast ABs have had benefit of many NZ Super derbies, which are probably second tier nation test standard.
Until and unless they can get their Super set up sorted can only see Boks are playing for second.
With their huge talent base we're all the poorer for this.

The new Super format will be a hell of a lot better for SA, and all the more so if Jaguares can reach anything like their potential:http://allblacks.com/News/31458/home-derbies-to-kick-off-super-rugby-2018