The Silver Fern

In real time that's a penalty at best and then you slow it down to see Beirne's jowls wobbling on impact and everyone is clamouring for a card FFS.

These are easily the worst pens I have ever seen

@Mr-Fish said in All Blacks v France I:

@BerniesCorner said in All Blacks v France I:

@Mr-Fish said in All Blacks v France I:

Holland's received a lot of praise but I was a little bit underwhelmed.

He didn't really put a foot wrong but he also didn't do anything to suggest he's a better option that Lord or Tuipulotu at this stage. I'm absolutely not saying he shouldn't be in there, I'm as keen to see him given a go as anyone else and I'd love for him to be the new Brodie Retallick, but I've not yet (yet is key, obviously) seen anything from Holland to suggest he's anything more than a safe pair of hands in the second row.

Again, very happy to get him getting some minutes and would certainly keep giving him time in the saddle, but it's a bit unfair that we expect the loose forward to all be dynamic carriers of the ball or threats at the breakdown when the bar for Holland seems so low?

Topping the tackle charts with 17, topped the lineouts won with 7 and carried 13 times

When you're used as the main lineout jumper, it makes sense you win the most lineouts... That's sort of the bare minimum for a lock.

As for the rest? Well, as I say, loose forwards on here seem to get judged to a completely different standard. He made 1.38 metres per carry - 17th in the squad and 8th amongst the forwards. Ethan Blackadder would get raked over the coals for that.

As I say, I'm happy to persist with him because he's young, but I don't think he did anything particularly notable on Saturday.

The point is that he shouldn't be carrying, he should be cleaning. I made an earlier comment about Kirifi's first 4 touches being carries too. We have some enormous huas in our pack (starting and bench) but we too often carry with our midgets or least dynamic big men.

@mariner4life said in All Blacks v France I:

For the same reason as savea i reckon I'm close to done with DMac.

I can understand the allure, when it goes right it goes very right, but is it balanced out by the untold errors and created pressure?

DMac and BB are basically the same rugby player, except that DMac has a better, stronger punt and is quicker. On that basis, I say we keep him and finally turf BB.

@brodean said in All Blacks v France I:

@Mauss

Good post Mauss.

He has the tools but I don't think its in his nature. It's difficult to teach an old dog new tricks and I feel that at 31 that's his instinct.

The carry stats are wrong and where I think we struggled in the game. The highlighted should not be carrying that much considering their roles.

Top Carries

18 Ardie Savea
17 Damian Mckenzie
15 Will Jordan
14 Beauden Barrett
13 Fabian Holland

I am not going to check the stats to verify this, but it seemed to me that Kirifi’s first 4 involvements were all carries - why?

Why is it that we constantly have our smallest forwards doing our carrying?

@MajorRage said in Waratahs v British Lions:

Lions who put their hand up: jones, Mitchell
Lions who put their hands down: Finn smith

Rest. Meh.

Tahs: huge heart.

Mitchell looks like the most important person in my firm's finance department but he's probably only middle management.

@mariner4life said in All Blacks v France I:

Negatives?

Our spine are dumb and why we struggle. 9, 10, 15. No control at all, no feel for tempo. Flat out, always. Playing for them must be exhausting.

Proctor was average at 13, but he'll he saved by the fact his most likely replacement was worst on ground. Ioane is cooked, get rid.

What the fuck do you fo either Ardie Savea? With ball in hand few are better. But in a test team? He's do selfish. He will actively avoid attacking rucks, so he can get the next run. At 7 he made no dent in the French breakdown.

I think it's a worry that the main problems I see are guys you know will get selected every week

BB and DM are two of the most articulate guys in the team but that lead us to being fooled into thinking they are clever the same way we all think a bloke with a posh English accent is a MENSA-level genius despite being a complete retard.

@mariner4life said in All Blacks v France I:

Firstly, pretty fun game of football. Both teams came yo play open footy when ever possible, and we got a lot of ball movement because of it.

Good mature win in the end. Take the points, recognise your dominance, grind it out.

Cheers to the French, a lot of those kids can fucking play.

For us, my main takeaway is, guess what, fotm means something. The guys who did good did good in super too. Those who battled? Guess what.

Same main weaknesses. Can't kick, can't hurt their ruck. Lose the air.

Some of our shape was gorgeous
I loved when we played direct
Set piece good.

So many positives for week one.

The tram line ruck and box kick is now part of the set piece and basics of the game at test level. We need to train and select accordingly.

@mariner4life said in All Blacks v France I:

I'm watching delayed.

I'm at the 30 minute mark. We played excellent excellent attack. Proctor chucks a shocker. We lose a turnover, field a kick in our own end, try running it out, then kick a cross field kick to touch just outside our 22.

We've looked so good, but we compound errors with trying something shit to remedy the error. Shit pass? Throw a 2nd risky pass to try and get out of it. Just be pragmatic FFS.

Contrast Fikou picking up a shit pass and then just trucking it back to his forwards for a reset.

It's the whole team as well, our first score was struck off because we tried yo turn a shit pass into a miracle

This is like my golf game: Hit a bad shot? Why not try the miracle shot to make up for it?

Result: End up in an even worse situation and the best I can do is a triple bogie and a lost ball.

@Piranha said in All Blacks v France I:

Super Rugby is no longer the premier competition without the Saffas it's becoming harder and harder for the ABs to build enough depth to field a dominant test side when they're only playing against themselves and the Aussies, the deck is stacked against it.

All of the top 14 basically has 2 teams, the likes of Toulouse and Bordeaux go away from home in a top 14 game and make 16-17-18 changes to the 23, they have about 70 players who can play at test level.

This is such a bad take - the Jaapies contributed bugger all to Super Rugby after 1996. What has fucked Super Rugby is the Aussies becoming completely dogshit, and all their best athletes going off to play league and AFL.

@Bones said in All Blacks v France I:

@voodoo said in All Blacks v France I:

@Bones said in All Blacks v France I:

@voodoo said in All Blacks v France I:

@Bones said in All Blacks v France I:

@voodoo said in All Blacks v France I:

There was no contact

You might want to double check who's talking nonsense.

Have checked

It’s not me

But thanks for asking

I checked out of reading the rest as you started with a blatant lie. Are you really saying Tosi didn't make contact? It makes anything else you try to say, redundant.

@Bones said in All Blacks v France I:

@voodoo said in All Blacks v France I:

@Bones said in All Blacks v France I:

@voodoo said in All Blacks v France I:

There was no contact

You might want to double check who's talking nonsense.

Have checked

It’s not me

But thanks for asking

I checked out of reading the rest as you started with a blatant lie. Are you really saying Tosi didn't make contact? It makes anything else you try to say, redundant.

I said innocuous originally. No material contact. Nothing that impeded him sufficiently to change the play. As Antipodean said, it didn’t even change their coverage

But I’ve been on this forum long enough to know the futility of arguing with you so I’ll leave it at that

Well that's one way to concede, glad we agree there was contact.

Yes, there was contact but rugby referees apply the materiality* principle in so many other aspects of the game, why couldn't they apply it here? Why do the TMOs never apply the materiality* principle?

*For those who are hard of thinking, the materiality principle holds that only those infringements that have a material impact on the game should be penalised - see each and every ruck for how this principle is and generally should be applied.

@Duluth said in All Blacks v France I:

If BB was over ruling the coaches he wouldn’t be starting so often. As @reprobate said it seems clear it’s the ABs game plan. If you don’t like the tactics blame Robertson

Which is a great concern not just because it is a shit tactic, but also because the previous two coaching regimes tried the same tactic with the same player and it proved to be an utter failure.

@Darth-Sader said in Final - Crusaders v Chiefs:

He’s the tackler, same motion

There is an offside line at the tackle dipshit

Ball in the wrong arm - schoolboy error

@sparky said in ICC Champions Trophy 2025:

India are a steely, ruthless 50-over side to be fair.

Except all the times that they’re not.

@sparky said in ICC Champions Trophy 2025:

21 need from 24 balls. I think India are going to do this with an over or two to spare.

Like the last time we played a final in Dubai

@ACT-Crusader said in ICC Champions Trophy 2025:

That’s the ICC championship gone with that Jamison drop

Trent Boult at Lords moment right there

@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2024:

exactly. he is an expert, and we are deluded, know nothing amateurs.

The second part is definitely true.

@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2024:

you may be right but it feels a bit harsh.

The set piece has been really good, the scrum strong despite newbie front rowers, ad the lineout better than it has any real right to be.
Around the track they've been saved by Sititi I think, and then the running game of Patty T off the bench.

They were well beaten by the French pack in the 2nd half a week ago.

My opinion is the use and timing of substitutions has really hurt us. Guys are playing far too many minutes, quality of those minutes be damned. I feel like any sub in the last 10 is a complete waste of a player unless the guy on the field is totally cooked (in which case you have fucked up by not making the switch 10 minutes earlier).

Razor obviously feels that some players need to be on the field no matter what, which is why guys like Taylor, Savea, Cane, ScoBa play big minutes. This totally flies in the face of what appears to be working elsewhere, where fresh forwards are given 30-35 minutes to make a real difference in the game. We stubbornly stick to old school thinking.

The above says to me that Razor doesn't know how to coach to the talent he has available. If he did, not only would we be getting more change points-wise out of the relative strength of our set piece, but we also wouldn't have sacred cows in the pack who can't be subbed.