The Silver Fern

@jimmyb I know what you mean. I decided to do a session on the stationary bike at the beginning of last weeks game and my heart rate was already in Zone 2 when I began, hit Zone 3 and then 4 in pretty quick succession and I wasn't pedaling hard. Looked good for the stat's but probably not going to do that again when watching AB's high stakes games.

@reprobate Yes for his handling of the Wales v Fiji RWC game. There were allegations of bias, and that had also been raised in games involving SA

@allblackfan2 Oops-apologies, should have put it into a table

For what it's worth, here is an AI generated breakdown of tonight's ref's (Matt Carley) previous games involving AB's and separately, the Wallabies-

Metric All Blacks (7 games) Wallabies (5 games)
Total Penalties 50 56
Average Penalties/Match 7.1 11.2
Total Yellow Cards 7 4
Total Red Cards 1 0
Clean Matches (No Cards) 3 2
Most Penalized Game AB's 14 (vs South Africa, Oct 2021)
Most Penalized Game Wallabies 14 (vs South Africa, Jul 2023)

Key Takeaways:
Discipline Gap: The Wallabies average more penalties per match than the All Blacks under Carley, suggesting tighter scrutiny or more frequent infringements.

Card Trends: The All Blacks have received more yellow cards and the only red card, mostly in physical contests against South Africa.

Carley’s officiating style seems to demand high discipline in contact-heavy matches,

Tom Sansom  /  Oct 2

EXPLAINED: How the All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies can ALL win the Rugby Championship - Ruck

As the Rugby Championship heads into its decisive final round, the title race remains tantalisingly open. South Africa lead the pack, with New Zealand just a point behind the defending…

It’s definitely a long shot but how amazing if Argentina can topple or at least hobble the Boks and the AB’s dominate the Wallabies and manage to secure a bonus point in Perth.

Actually, I don’t care about winning the RC … I just want the AB’s to win well tomorrow.

Looks like the replay postmortems may have nicely provided the platform for stepping off into a Bledisloe 2 thread...?

This from the Sydney Morning Herald - from memory there was abit more to their loss than a ref's call...

I'm hoping Stan commentary switches to the NZ feed.

@booboo said in All Blacks vs Wallabies Bledisloe I:

@allblackfan2 said in All Blacks vs Wallabies Bledisloe I:

Firm breakdown policing

I read that as breakdancing. Might be in trouble.

We should be ok - Razors got better moves than Raygun

This from AI:
Andrea Piardi is known for:

Letting games flow when possible, especially in club-level URC matches.

Firm breakdown policing — he doesn’t shy away from penalizing slow or illegal ruck work.

Clear communication with players, which helps maintain tempo.

Compared to more whistle-heavy referees like Mathieu Raynal or Nic Berry, Piardi tends to strike a balance — not overly lenient, but not disruptive either. His style has been described as “assertive but not overbearing”, and he’s praised for consistency in decision-making.

@Snowy said in All Blacks vs Wallabies Bledisloe I:

@allblackfan2 New Zealand v Australia (in Auckland)

Referee: Andrea Piardi (Ita)
ARs: Matthew Carley (Eng) & Morne Ferreira (RSA)
TMO: Marius Jonker (SA)
FPRO: Andrew Jackson (Eng)

Henry Ollis-Brown  /  Jul 23

Who is Andrea Piardi – The controversial referee in charge of the second British and Irish Lions Test in Australia

🇮🇹 Andrea Piardi will be the first referee from Italy to take charge of a British and Irish Lions Test

Who are the officials? I did a quick scan of previous posts as well as a search via AI but no joy confirming.

Lukhan Salakaia-Loto has been given the job of Eden Park enforcer after being named to make his first start for the Wallabies this year against the All Blacks on Saturday.

The call-up for the big Queensland lock came as Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt also turned to a new starting partnership in the halves for the opening Bledisloe Cup clash, with Tate McDermott and James O’Connor trusted to run the show for Australia at the intimidating Auckland venue.

From the Sydney Morning Herald just now

@Virgil The episode that dropped this week mentions that i.e., residents selling up.

I'm going to have to pull the plug on a couple of platforms - maybe three as the recent price hikes are ridiculous. Will need to keep Stan for the rugby - and now it's showing the UCI but apart from that there's not much appealing. Thankfully SBS On Demand here (Oz) has all the grand tours and one-off races free to air. I'll keep AppleTV as I'm hooked on Slow Horses, Silo, Invasion and Foundation. Plus, Chief of War has been pretty good and I have a healthy movie library saved there. I re-subscribed to Disney+ a few weeks ago so I could watch Alien Earth and catch up on Only Murders in the Building ... but once those two are done I'm cancelling.

@antipodean or this guy!

I'm still disappointed with the nature of the loss. Losing in a tight tussle and going down to the wire I can live with, but the way we folded was disgusting. Never want to see that happen ever again. Anyhoo, gotta rinse it off and move on...unless the Wallabies thrash us and then I'll be joining the baying mob calling for the coaches and key players heads to roll. When does Schmidt come off contract?

antipodean replied to kev 3 minutes ag

This was his gameplan: Kick it to the team probably the best in the world at contested kicks. And he seemed surprised that we lost ball and put ourselves under pressure.

This response and the comment he made post our loss to the Pumas when he indicated the AB's were expecting to 'put on a show' is surely clear and consistent evidence he is out of his depth.

@Jet 'bait' as in baiting? Not at all, an honest opinion albeit one that doesnt align with some others.

Wow that was such an exciting game. That last 20 mins was edge of the seat stuff, and I let out a few yells that woke the dog. I was interested to see how Christie, Ioane, BB and Proctor went given the flak they tend to get on here...and they all played well. Most of Christie's passes were quick and straight and he both attacked and defended strongly. Pity about Narawa, I hope he's ok.