Auckland Rugby 2024
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@Duluth Can't say I rate either Annandale or Curry. Out of the two, I'd take Curry but not with a lot of confidence.
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I've never watched Curry closely so don't have an opinion on him
Hopefully Annandale has improved after being on the fringes of the Blues squad. He's definitely large enough but seemed a bit tentative in contact last year.
@Duluth Admittedly I've seen Curry at SR level which is a higher level than this, but he was part of a very dysfunctional line-out at Moana to the point where they had to bring in Tom Savage, an English journeyman just so they could win a line-out or 2, and his discipline was also poor in general play.
I hope he has improved, but those were some of the reasons I would say as to why he wasn't resigned by Moana.
Annandale looked soft last year. Again, I hope he has improved, but he didn't look up to standard for me.
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@Duluth Admittedly I've seen Curry at SR level which is a higher level than this, but he was part of a very dysfunctional line-out at Moana to the point where they had to bring in Tom Savage, an English journeyman just so they could win a line-out or 2, and his discipline was also poor in general play.
I hope he has improved, but those were some of the reasons I would say as to why he wasn't resigned by Moana.
Annandale looked soft last year. Again, I hope he has improved, but he didn't look up to standard for me.
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You followed Moana Pasifika closely.. any opinion on Ola Tauelangi?
@Duluth Not really in honesty. He'd come on very late in games as Savage and Allan Craig would be left out there for the majority of games. He'd be lucky to get 5-10 minutes I'm most games he played.
Think he may have started the Chiefs game in Hamilton where they put out barely a B team? Hard to really get an opinion on any of them that night as they were so ridiculously overmatched. It was the game where Wallace Sititi announced himself.
The one from the Moana pack out of the youngsters who showed promised was Irie Papuni. Strong carrier and decent at set piece, similar to Lukhan Salakaia-Loto (all irrelevant for this conversation of course).
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@Duluth Not really in honesty. He'd come on very late in games as Savage and Allan Craig would be left out there for the majority of games. He'd be lucky to get 5-10 minutes I'm most games he played.
Think he may have started the Chiefs game in Hamilton where they put out barely a B team? Hard to really get an opinion on any of them that night as they were so ridiculously overmatched. It was the game where Wallace Sititi announced himself.
The one from the Moana pack out of the youngsters who showed promised was Irie Papuni. Strong carrier and decent at set piece, similar to Lukhan Salakaia-Loto (all irrelevant for this conversation of course).
@African-Monkey Its interesting that Ola played Lock in all his 11 games for MP, all but the one in 19 jersey, yet Auckland named him among the Loosies. He is unlikely to get time in the Loose Forwards with our depth there so I think he is more likely to be a backup lock/6. He is not tall at 1.94m but is solid at 115kgs. He seemed to be trusted with longer minutes as the season progressed with MP.
https://all.rugby/player/ola-tauelangi -
@African-Monkey Its interesting that Ola played Lock in all his 11 games for MP, all but the one in 19 jersey, yet Auckland named him among the Loosies. He is unlikely to get time in the Loose Forwards with our depth there so I think he is more likely to be a backup lock/6. He is not tall at 1.94m but is solid at 115kgs. He seemed to be trusted with longer minutes as the season progressed with MP.
https://all.rugby/player/ola-tauelangi@Daffy-Jaffy Yeah usually when the games were never in doubt, he'd see more minutes. He came on against the Tahs and along with the rest of the Moana bench that day, didn't really impress. Moana were cruising that day and then the bench along with him came on and did their best to throw it away. Probably one of the only games where he got a decent outing.
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Auckland changing it's club competition structure:
https://www.aucklandrugby.co.nz/newsarticle/143740?newsfeedId=1923063@Duluth Good to see all teams but one support the new structure. I particularly like 'a knock-out series involving all 36 teams will be integrated into the season'.
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https://www.instagram.com/aucklandrugby/p/C_uDsG1vyai/
Some talk about the injured players at the end of the video. Seems like a few are coming back soon
