The Silver Fern

@MiketheSnow That’s not what you wrote.

Anyway, not worth the argument, let’s see how he goes. Next up, boks away

Complete stuffing! Lions look exactly like what they are. Last game of tour at end of long season. That’s on Farrell.

Huge game from the Wobs, best I’ve seen them play in years.

@MiketheSnow said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

@MajorRage said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

@MiketheSnow said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

@KiwiMurph said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

Jorgensen is the first proper world XV level back the Wallabies have had in a long time.

If Lynagh can get a run of good health and a Championship and NH tour under his belt then he'll join him

Really? I don’t think he’s done much at all.

I’d probably put him the worst of the Oz backs this series.

Thrown in to the Lions Den - literally - at a very early stage in his career and handled the pressure with calm and confidence

He's a keeper and worth developing the back line around him

He's a very clever distributor, not flashy, and not greedy

That’s not Worid XV. That’s worth perservering with.

Just not seen a single thing to suggest he’s a world xv player.

Watch him tear us a new one now to make me eat my words ….

@MiketheSnow said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

@KiwiMurph said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

Jorgensen is the first proper world XV level back the Wallabies have had in a long time.

If Lynagh can get a run of good health and a Championship and NH tour under his belt then he'll join him

Really? I don’t think he’s done much at all.

I’d probably put him the worst of the Oz backs this series.

Lions heads are on the plane. Farrell needed more changes to give others a shot to prove themself.

Pollock, Marcus Smith, JVDM etc.

Can’t see how this can really restart with intensity ….

JOC new nice guy persona on display in an interview. Won me over, comes across so well.

Nick White playing the game of his life so far.

Oz seem much better suited to the conditions.

Not something I thought I’d ever say!

Massive credit to him for giving his dream a go. Shame it didn't work out but your always going to be up against it when trying to enter a mammoth talent pool at the mid career point.

One for you @NTA https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/articles/cy0qg92de8vo

"In my experience, from what I see day to day, Australian rugby union is in fantastic health, when you are on the ground here and you experience the true reality of the [size of the] AFL and rugby league," he tells Rugby Union Weekly.

"The club game here is in rude health. You just have these two other sports that are thicker in the blood [of the Australian sporting public].

This reminds me of the old days of the Black Caps. Top order is crap, but the tail gets us up to something respectable.

Surely our aim vs Zimbabwe is to only bat once. Certainly possible still, but we were 92 without, thus, it's a fairly ordinary day so far.

@NTA said in Grumpy Old Man:

I missed the Tech Grumping back in May, but I'm here to tell you: fuck the whole concept of "AI" being sold to Management Numpties at the moment.

Talk about Fool's Gold. We're on Google and so it is being hammered through everything at the moment and it is a real Emperor-Has-No-Clothes situation.

For the last few years I've been working on data feeds to produce reports for our teams managing field staff. This is real never-seen-before stuff in this area of the business, and they couldn't praise us enough at the time.

About 8 months ago, suddenly the dashboards that saved them literal hours per day weren't quick enough any more.

They wanted "insights" which was a conversation that usually went like this:

They: "So this is great how you've brought together dozens of data points, from multiple platforms, to look at the info in a way we never had in timeframes we could never achieve in our own."
Us: "Yeah cool we're pretty happy with wh-"
They: "But we need you to deliver some insights on this"
Us: "... right... insights on what?"
They: "You know... The data... ?"
Us: "Yes but what is it you need to know? What is the problem you're trying to solve?"
They: "Running the business better and more efficiently and meeting budgets. We need insights for that"
Us: " "
They: "... insights?"
Us: " "
They: "Can we just feed it into AI and get the answers we need?"
Me (internally screaming) : So you don't want to do your fucking job or don't know how?

Out of interest, why did you not say the last sentence (in a more polite manner)? It's a perfectly reasonable conclusion. We have a massive tech team supporting our main business and they never say anything outside their tech world. It winds me up. We have literal geniuses working for us who never apply their brains outside their direct scope. I'd be really interested in a debate on their thoughts on things, but it never happens.

Other thing to consider Nick, is if the data is telling them what they think already, or something else. I say that as I did something simliar a few years ago when Big Data was all the rave. It turned out that the big boss wanted the data to prove to him what he already knew. When that wasn't the case, well you can figure out what happened.

I said above that if Pollock wasn't given a run then he shouldn't have been selected.

I might have to soften that stance a bit, as he's unfortunately been behind Curry (who has smashed the tests to pieces) and Morgan, who hasn't done anything worthy of being dropped. Tough call on Pollock, but I can make peace with it.

Otherwise, agree with everything that Dodge says (first time for everything).

I watched the first test and some of the second in a pub in Portugal that was full of Irish rugby supporters. Honestly speaking, there isn't a lot to like about them. Couple of the brits I was with were rather pissed off as well. Basically it went something like this

Ireland player does something good: "Awesome, he's been doing that for years, pure class"
Non Irish player does something good: ""
Irish player does something shit: "Your better than that, come on pick yourself up and go again"
Non Irish player doe something shit: "Fookin useless coont, fucking Farrell only select on the fooking paymasters, fooking hell, no way should have been ahead of <insert Irish players name here>"

Not generally a an of the Irish rugby supporters, but to add balance, I rarely hear anything bad from those who go to Dublin to watch consistently.

@bayimports said in Movie review thread...:

Happy Gilmore 2.
Stupid plot, low brow humour, lots of references to the original and a cast of all star golf talent. It is what it is and I actually enjoyed it. Would have preferred to see more of Paige though.

3 chubbs Petersons out of 5 shooter McGavins

Downvote. It’s fucking awesome.

5 out of 5. Laughed my arse off and so cleverly done. So many cameos.

Rory can’t act at all, part of the charm of it.

If Pollock isn’t in the 23 then he shouldn’t have been on the tour.

Lads made every appearance a winner

Wonderful evening in the Rage house.

11 yo daughter over the moon. She supports the All Blacks too, but I think it’s mainly for me. This is all her.

I love this team. They have fantastic qualities and aim to inspire, lead and win. And it’s exactly what they do.

And they do it with grace, respect for the opposition and in a rare quality up here at the moment, immense pride for England.

Just brilliant.

@antipodean said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@No-Quarter said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@MajorRage I'm not sure, I'd have to go back and watch it, but I think that's stretching it. He's well into his dive in the still you posted, so it probably depends if there are any head on Aus defenders in front of him when he starts the dive. I think there is at least one, one possibly two or three. It's a dangerous thing to do running into a set defense which again is why it's outlawed.

I think it displays tremendous split second timing and analysis by Sheehan to determine within 0.01 of a second that the defenders were now out of the game and hence he could leap over them without consequence.

I’m not saying he made that decison.

He was always going to dive, clearly. It’s whether by the laws it was legal given the tackler was on his knees.

Should be spicy!

Lions going for the sweep, Aussies going for “high road” series victory ….

Think result depends on Carlton Draught consumption this week by the tourists.

@No-Quarter he was on his knee before the dive.

Actually got no idea what he was trying to achieve.

If the rules as I say above are correct then I think that still shows it was fine.

Must be a ref on here who can clarify the “out of the game” assumption? @nta @antipodean

@booboo said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@MajorRage said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@sparky said in Wallabies v Lions II:

Gee, Aussie sports fans like a big old whinge these days.

Can't they see the Lions won that fair and square? Whatever happened to accepting the official's decision and moving on?

Yeah we never do that on here …

We're not hosting the broadcast to millions.

Yet ….

@No-Quarter said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@KiwiMurph said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@booboo said in Wallabies v Lions II:

@antipodean said in Wallabies v Lions II:

The most egregious refereeing was allowing Sheehan to dive over tacklers to score a try.

Strangely the Aus comms were ok with that one. Said diving for a try was OK.

...???

As always in rugby it's not black and white.

Here is what World Rugby clarified a couple of years ago

In principle, in a try scoring situation, if the action is deemed to be a dive forward for a try, then it should be permitted. If a player is deemed to have left the ground to avoid a tackle; or to jump, or hurdle a potential tackler, then this is dangerous play and should be sanctioned accordingly.

I don't think the refs got that one right. In that context - a quick tap with a wall of defenders in front of you - diving like that to "score a try" is not really a reasonable action despite being close to the line. The intention of it was first and foremost to jump/hurdle multiple potential head on tacklers which is outlawed for safety reasons.

Just looking at this, when he dives, the main Oz tackler he dives over has knees on the ground and thus is therefore “out of the game”.

He didn’t try and dive over anybody still in the game.

Am I wrong? Not a law expert (no shit …) but given the above I see no issue at all.