The Silver Fern

@Dodge said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

can't say i think that is the best available XV, on reflection throughout the tests, i'm a bit disappointed by the shoe horning in of Irish players. Genge is better than Porter, not sure what Ryan's done to deserve a spot, think Conan is lucky.

Think the bench is mental, Farrell covers 10 and 12, Earl covers back row and 12 but there's a dramatic lack of cover for the other backline positions. Think Marcus should be on the bench instead of Farrell.

I agree with much of all that. Genge should have more minutes on the park than Porter simply because he is a better player both in the tight and in the loose. Ryan's selection I sort of get. McCarthy is out I guess and Beirne is playing at 6 so it comes down to Chessum, who really hasn't put his hand up, Ryan and Cummings. Ryan DID play well when he came on last week. The one who can feel aggrieved here is the surpise of the tour - Cummings. he has played well apart from the initial game. Does he deserve to be picked above Ryan this week? A close call given Ryan's impact last week. The grit in the oyster here though is Ryan's selection over Cummings last week seeing as how he'd been dogshit all tour and hadn't done much in the two years before that. Tuipolotu is either injured or has been shagging AF's missus. I cannot fathom any other reason for Aki being in the 23. Good to see Kinghorn in instead of Lowe - overdue IMO.

A 5.5/2.5 bench is a real risk I feel. We really have no back 3 cover. Jones at a push I suppose but every other option is either a 10 or 12. I've no issue with any of the bench selections individually but I do not see any balance there.

As I see it:

10 goes down = Farrell in.
12 goes down = Farrell or Earl in.
13 goes down = Aki to 13 - not ideal
11, 14 or 15 goes down = we're fucked.

Regardless - c'mon the Irish and British Lions.

@Billy-Webb

Ah. That has no relevance whatsoever. Try and keep it pertinent will you both please?

@Billy-Webb

It's possible that the Boks not being part of the warm up games may well have been down to covid restrictions. Different bubbles and what have you.

The Assassin. Keeley Hawes and Freddie Hightower. A story about a retired hit woman having to come out of retirement to protect her son.

Yes I know. That premise alone should have told me to avoid but...

First impression = KH does not age anywhere near as well as Liz Hurley. Second impression = FH is confirmed as a deeply annoying actor rather than an actor that simply plays deeply annoying characters.

It is an action series that has the leaning towards comedy based simply on some far fetched characters, a lot of swearing and some inane banter.. As such it fails to hit the comedy sweet spot and is a poor action series.

High spot is Gina Gershon veering between MILF hotness and slight over ripeness. No actual tits though.

1 annoying little fluffybunny out of 5 pathetic "action" sequences.

Avoid.

@Dan54

Eddie proving the stopped clock argument has merit.

@Dodge

Fuck Haskell and double fuck his "brand". He's a self promoting salesman and has been for years. Even when he was playing he was always wanking on about protecting "the brand". The brand being him. Full of corporate buzzwords, so much so that every conversation with him is like a game of Wankword Bingo.

<cato takes a moment and a sedative>

Anyway, back to the Lions. This tour has felt a little flat in parts, which I feel has been casued by the less than stellar opposition to begin with, on the back of all the media bet up about the Lions only having to turn up 'cos Aus are in such a shit place at the moment. We then have a couple of sterner mid week games and the tests, both of which were bloody hard fought wins and things are a bit more lively. Another thing that I think has affected things is the last tour under the covid shadow. There were so many restrictions around movement, participation, mixing etc that it was nigh on impossible to put on a true Lions tour. So for me SA get a pass.

I do wish that Aus had allowed more of the Wallabies to play in the midweek games, particularly the early ones though and in planning terms I think that will be looked on as a mistake in looking at the success of the tour.

As to having alternative opposition such as the PIs, the dual problem there is the "growing the game" v money. There is nowhere near enough money in Fiji, Samoa etc to support a professional Lions trip, even for one game and holding the game in Aus or NZ does fuck all for "growing the game", so I'm not sure that, in the professional environment, that works. Mind you, I don't think the warm up games, be they in Dublin, Hong Kong or wherever, are actually much use either.

@pakman

Difficult to see really whether that collapse was caused by hinging or the Aussie prop losing his footing.

An interesting aside, something someone posted prior to the last test was that this Italian ref likes to re-set and gives very few scrum penalties. If that is well known then of course ALL props are going to push things.

If it works out, well... why not?

@Mr-Fish

Thanks. The only things there though are that 1) it is simply referring to existing laws and 2) that it is not really specific enough:-

Can't jump on top of a ruck

and

Don't do anything reckless or dangerous.

It's stuff like this that leaves so much ambiguity, which in turn leads to things coming down to interpretation.

Just say "cannot dive over a ruck". No ambiguity.

@Mr-Fish I wasn't aware of that! When did that happen? Good thing if so.

@NTA said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@pakman said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@Bovidae said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@Canes4life said in Wallabies v Lions II:

Lynagh is shite. He cost them that game in my view.

Also some dumb decisions by Wilson and Sua'ali'i at attacking rucks. Wilson sort of lost the plot in the 2nd half and wasn't making any ground carrying the ball. Unless they were cooked Schmidt's decision to replace Valetini at HT and Skelton early in the 2nd half was a mistake and proved costly.

Seems Bobby V and both props were gassed by halftime.

Valetini twinged his calf

Do we know if he'll be fit for the next test?

@MiketheSnow

Going back to the Sheehan try, I can quite see his view about it being dangerous but, and I know this is a little different, how many times to we see a ruck near the line and a player picking up the ball and diving over the ruck to score? As i say I can see that it is different, but the question is, how do you police this? A ruck still has defenders which are being dived over. In truth it might have been better for the Lions if he hadn't scored and Slipper penalised for being on the ground and interfering with play. That would have been the third or fourth penalty on the trot and maybe a team yellow. Assuming the officials even noticed the offence that is.

@Duluth

The re-directing email I got suggested that the old links would be re-instated. Will this still be the case?

@taniwharugby

Spot on.

Anyone should, whether they have skin in the game or not, accept that both instances, whilst contentious, were subject fine margins and interpretation and as such, liable to go either way. To a degree this is the essence of sport, but here it is not helped by the ambiguity of the laws leaving a much greater emphasis on that interpretation thing. We've all been subject to 50/50 decisions and been on the losing end of it.

Grow a pair of bollocks and move on to the next game.

@antipodean said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

@Mr-Fish I'd remove Lowe who is shithouse. JGP isn't playing as well as Mitchell has on the tour. Aki is a shadow of his former self and clearly second rate compared to Sione Tuipulotu. I think Porter and Conan are bang average.

Agree re Lowe and I'd like to see Kinghorn there. JGP was pretty damn good for 40 minutes in the first test and IMO has done enough to keep his starting spot. Aki - agree. The benching of Genge baffled me in the last test. Yes he is a good impact player but he is currently superior to Porter in most facets and you'd think you would want your best player having the most minutes in the game. Conan does the grunt work well without getting much of a highlights reel and he is the only genuine 8 in the squad, so I guess he stays and I'd be happy with that.

@MN5 said in Other Cricket:

@sparky said in Other Cricket:

Everyone knows why the Australians called Kevin Pietersen FIGJAM? And apparently the lads in his own dressing room had a seven letter nickname for him.

What a piston wristed gibbon!

Pietersen was one of the best batsmen I’ve ever seen when in form. Seriously classy player who perhaps underachieved. Nice of him to chuck some NZ names in there.

Definitely sounds like a cock, yes.

Well done Ben Stokes, hundred and five for in the same test is a terrific effort.

Finally well done Root, plays more tests than the others but still has to actually get the runs and stay in form. I wonder if he’ll have a crack at Tendulkars record ?

And yet he's played fewer tests than Dravid, Kallis and Ponting? He's also played 43.5 tests less than Tendulkar and at his current average of around 85 per test he will overtake Tendulkar in 29 tests.

@Bovidae

I was watching the game with a few mates and we were all a bit pissed off at getting pumped in the first half but I wondered aloud that the intensity and frequency of the carries by Skelton and Valetini would be hard to maintain. Towards the end of the first half, Skelton in particular, had lost a lot of impetus in his carrying. I assume the plan was always to use these two as much as possible and then replace them against a tiring Lions defence. Unfortunately the replacements are several rungs below those two.

@MiketheSnow said in Wallabies v Lions II:

I may be the lone voice, but I have no desire to see the BIL tour France

Absolutely. For the home teams it is already 12 years between tours. That's long enough. Make it 16 years and you lose those fantastic stories like Morne Steyn (the fluffybunny) kicking a last minute penalty to win the 2009 series and then doing the same thing in the 2021 series.

Also don't fuck over 100+ years of tradition in order to make even more money out of something that is already a giant money spinner.

Just fuck off and leave my game alone.

@MN5 The scenery was absolutely stunning though and yeah, made up a bit for the by the numbers backstories.

@MiketheSnow

Took me a second and then I laughed my bollocks off.

Dark AF