The Silver Fern

Tim said:

Cracking up at the commentators talking up Canterbury's 3rd choice frontrow today.

No one is intimidated by Daniel Lienert-Brown, Brodie McAlister, and Chris King.

agree with 2/3 of this, I think McAlistair will turn into a very good player tho.

Chris King has always been useless, huge backwards step to bring him back

@stargazer Yes it is. Credit to their fans for turning up week in week out, hope things can get better for them, similar to Northland teams in the past.

@nepia Don't worry, he's good for at least 50 more years in black.

Was at the game on Sunday. Wellington always looked in control even though they were fairly sloppy at times. I was amazed at the size of our front row - probably the smallest front row going around the ITM Cup.

Number of classy operators in the backline but our forwards will need to front week in and week out if we are going to contest this year. The return of Aumua and the pending return of Fidow will boost our chances.

@bovidae said in Game of 3 halves: All Blacks v Canterbury v Otago:

@chris-b Part of the reason for the dropping of Rokocoko and Sivivatu was their vulnerability under the high ball, which was the main SA tactic in 2009-2011. That was more relevant to Rok than Sivi and led to the emergence of Jane, Dagg and then Kahui being selected as a winger at the RWC.

His omission can't have been due to any off-field problems either, given the story about Zac in Aust immediately before the RWC. So I can only assume it was because Sivivatu had signalled he was going to France later that year and coin flip didn't go in his favour.

But wasn’t there some off field issues nonetheless that may have been a contributing factor?

LOL, local rivalry at its best in this game! 😃

Both teams did their best to bottle that last few minutes then the ref finishes it....

It's been a monumental fall from grace by us these last two years. We looked like we had something special brewing after that 2015 season. We had a young and exciting team that was only a hair away from winning a title. With all the young talent we had, it appeared we were poised to be perennial contenders for many years. I seriously didn't think any coach could stuff it up, but here we are.

Man of the match for Ta$man - Mitch Hunt. Honourable mentions for Guyton, Lowe, Taufua and Blackadder. Several others pretty good.

interesting call there, agree with it, but we see often they go the other way on that due to the indiscretion.

@taniwharugby Cheers! It didn't show initially, probably due to slow internet connection.

@Duluth Yeah, he has a bit of a Ben Tameifuna physique. Could be good 30 minute player.

Awesome stuff Harbour. It is excellent for NZ rugby that Harbour are once again a force.

Very happy the Blues have signed up coach Steve Jackson.

@ACT-Crusader can't tell if that's sarcastic or not....was ok going left initially but then had 5m and kept going left and then bundled into touch, so dumb imo.

Aside from a dumb chip kick, agree Cruden did look in a different class.

We won.

That is all.

I saw that stat on Sunday and was surprised how far ahead they were to everyone else.

Rieko is also leading the comp in tries, clean breaks and metres gained. He's practically replaced Moala's production from last year. Too bad we couldn't get those two playing together in the midfield this season.

Akira topped the comp in defenders beaten last year with 71 in 11 games(he looks on track to get those numbers again if we make the semis). He also had 13 clean breaks last year, but already has 12 this year in 3 less games. He's also topping the comp in carries once again this year.

Why did Tei Walden not start? he was running some beautiful lines out there when he came on.

Flattering scoreline for Otago as Canterbury were in complete control for most of it until they rolled on the subs.

@Chris-B. Thanks mate. He's not all that big - 189 and 103. Looking forward to seeing how he goes.

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Higgins" data-cid="609212" data-time="1472201013">
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<p>At last someone backing me up on this major defect in a prop! Interestingly enough I was speaking to someone that has had, and continues to have, a bit of involvement in Fidows development and from memory he did say something about changing Fidows bodyshape to something more attributable to the hooking position. He certainly looks leaner than he did last season but no difference yet noticed in his scrumming ability. Surely Fidow's inability to make the starting lineup as a prop in his club team must ring alarm bells  amongst the selectors of representative teams, so much so that it must say something about their suitability to retain those positions in future. It must be a real smack in the face to the propping staff at Oriental-Rongotai to be overlooked for higher positions in professional teams for someone way below them in ability to hold up a scum. One can guess their reaction should Earl Va'a come knocking on their doors if (when?) he finally decides to ditch Fidow.</p>
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<p>We have the same at Auckland with Isi Tu'ungafasi who doesn't even start for his club yet somehow manages to start in the Mitre 10 Cup all because he has come through the age group sides and the academy yet he can't scrum to save his life. Someone like Siua Halanukonuka who is a far better scrummager had to leave Auckland club rugby to get an opportunity because he didn't come through the grades and is flourishing as a result yet we're stuck with young guys (McHugh and Tu'ungafasi) who are well out of their depth all because they're the hotshots from out of school.</p>

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="African Monkey" data-cid="607743" data-time="1471754128">
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<p>Maybe it was just me, but I thought Southland gave away a lot of penalties by putting their hands in the ruck and trying to jackle. The scoreline was a fair reflection of the game I thought. Otago will definitely be pushing for promotion.</p>
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<p>Must say Southland lost the game in the second half. Their defence was good in the first and because Otago gave away all those penalties, Hawera made sure Southland were leading at HT. I didn't have the impression Southland gave away that many penalties; if they did, it didn't do any damage (not close enough to the sticks for Otago to score penalty goals).</p>