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@NTA said in Wallabies vs Lions III:
@pooler-fan said in Wallabies vs Lions III:
Biggest question for me though is why do Australia wear orange instead of gold??
That's Australian Fucken Gold my friend and don't you forget it!
It's like watching the Netherlands play football
Selection questions should haunt Australia, why not select Tupou for the 23 in tests 1&2? Why wasn't Uru involved?
Farrell made some odd selections too, Aki, Freeman and Lowe were pretty poor throughout.
Tuipolutu if fit is a couple of levels above Aki these days.
Biggest question for me though is why do Australia wear orange instead of gold??
This whole series for me will be defined by poor selection.
If Skelton can stay on now with the lions having 2 lightweight locks it could be game over.
Ryan with an awful tackle technique there to get himself injured.
Nic White is a spiky little fella isn't he
Lions struggling to cope physically with the Aussies in these conditions.
Itoje and Freeman failing their HIA's make it Aus game to lose for me. Even though Freeman has been pretty poor over the 3 tests.
@pooler-fan said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 2:
@MiketheSnow said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 2:
Well we avoided the ignominy of a Paul Hardcastle backed montage of misery from S4C,
'All those who remember the war
They won't forget what they've seen
Destruction of men in their prime...I really wasn't sure what was going on
N-n-n-n-nineteen, nineteen'Just!!!
Going in to the last quarter we were well on our way to another angler's 'one that got away' lament, but great energy, purpose and skill from the bench saw us bring an end to our 'horribilis duos annos'.
A much improved forwards performance both in the set piece and loose gave us the platform we so desperately needed to dictate the tempo of the match.
Add in the missing, injured, and untried and we have a very good foundation from which to improve.
The backs - despite scoring all of the tries - I'm not so sure of.
Costelow's omission definitely improved things but both Hardy and Edwards come from the same long line of farmers' sons shoveling shit for the most of the match and putting ourselves under unnecessary pressure and giving Japan a sniff of victory.
Add in poor kicking from hand and kicking when we should have passed and vice versa and these two are not the future.
We can do better, we have better.
I'm very much in the minority but I think Ben Thomas is our most talented and assured back and with 18 defeats on the bounce I would have given him far more opportunity to impose that talent on the Welsh game plan from the 10 position.
'But he doesn't play 10 for his club' come the screams. So what!
Whenever he steps on the field he's always close to being the best back for both Cardiff and Wales.
Get him to 10, put a hard running inside centre in the Jamie Roberts mold trucking it up and fixing defences, and our outside backs will be scoring tries left, right & centre much like the current Scottish backline.
Morgan-Williams looked to the manor born and leapfrogs Hardy as Tomos Williams' understudy.
Employ a young, innovative coach and watch this team flourish.
Yes we'll get hammered by both South Africa and New Zealand in the Autumn but we should be able to give Argentina a good game and look to defeat Japan again.
Onwards and upwards the World Rugby rankings.
Don't disagree with that Mike but I wouldn't count out Edwards - he's a good young 10 who'd look infinitely better with Reuben at 9. Hardy is gash, a good support runner but that's about it, his service is erratic and box kicking laboured and slow.
Rees-Zammit will be back in a few months, Grady also available for the autumn. Eddie James is a good prospect at 12.
There are green shoots there that need to be nurtured.
Hopefully we get a young ISH coach with some ability to mould a young group to better things.
All most Welsh supporters want is a team that is competitive with the top sides, we don't have the player pool to aim much higher than that.
Bit sooner than I thought but glad he's back. 
Added bonus for new Welsh coach Steve Tandy having LRZ available again.
Nice to see him back in Rugby.
@MiketheSnow said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 2:
Well we avoided the ignominy of a Paul Hardcastle backed montage of misery from S4C,
'All those who remember the war
They won't forget what they've seen
Destruction of men in their prime...I really wasn't sure what was going on
N-n-n-n-nineteen, nineteen'Just!!!
Going in to the last quarter we were well on our way to another angler's 'one that got away' lament, but great energy, purpose and skill from the bench saw us bring an end to our 'horribilis duos annos'.
A much improved forwards performance both in the set piece and loose gave us the platform we so desperately needed to dictate the tempo of the match.
Add in the missing, injured, and untried and we have a very good foundation from which to improve.
The backs - despite scoring all of the tries - I'm not so sure of.
Costelow's omission definitely improved things but both Hardy and Edwards come from the same long line of farmers' sons shoveling shit for the most of the match and putting ourselves under unnecessary pressure and giving Japan a sniff of victory.
Add in poor kicking from hand and kicking when we should have passed and vice versa and these two are not the future.
We can do better, we have better.
I'm very much in the minority but I think Ben Thomas is our most talented and assured back and with 18 defeats on the bounce I would have given him far more opportunity to impose that talent on the Welsh game plan from the 10 position.
'But he doesn't play 10 for his club' come the screams. So what!
Whenever he steps on the field he's always close to being the best back for both Cardiff and Wales.
Get him to 10, put a hard running inside centre in the Jamie Roberts mold trucking it up and fixing defences, and our outside backs will be scoring tries left, right & centre much like the current Scottish backline.
Morgan-Williams looked to the manor born and leapfrogs Hardy as Tomos Williams' understudy.
Employ a young, innovative coach and watch this team flourish.
Yes we'll get hammered by both South Africa and New Zealand in the Autumn but we should be able to give Argentina a good game and look to defeat Japan again.
Onwards and upwards the World Rugby rankings.
Don't disagree with that Mike but I wouldn't count out Edwards - he's a good young 10 who'd look infinitely better with Reuben at 9. Hardy is gash, a good support runner but that's about it, his service is erratic and box kicking laboured and slow.
Rees-Zammit will be back in a few months, Grady also available for the autumn. Eddie James is a good prospect at 12.
There are green shoots there that need to be nurtured.
Hopefully we get a young ISH coach with some ability to mould a young group to better things.
All most Welsh supporters want is a team that is competitive with the top sides, we don't have the player pool to aim much higher than that.
Got to say how impressed I was again with Michael Leitch - what a warrior that guy is, to continue to perform at test level at 36 & in that heat and humidity.
The guy is a colossal figure, hugely impressive.
Phew,
At least a new coaching team can come in with a clean slate without that bloomin' horrendous loss record hanging over them like a dark cloud.
We don't have the players we once had but there are some nuggets that can develop given time.
We can only work with what we have, onwards and upwards 
@MN5 said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 1:
@pooler-fan said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 1:
@MiketheSnow said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 1:
We have to look at the coaching
Agreed it all seems muddled with regards coaching and selection. You select a ball playing 12 but don't spread the ball, a 12 at 13 who was slow to react a few times today in defence.
Both halfbacks kicked terribly throughout the game.But the cupboard is pretty bare, we have no players who can give us front foot ball.
We need to hope that Eddie James and Grady come through strongly in midfield as a focal point.Our locks are back-rowers size wise, the Kiwi lock for Japan was towering over the Welsh locks.
> We just don't produce many big, athletic players throughout our game.Not long ago you had huge physical backs like North, Cuthbert, Roberts, Davies and Phillips. What happened ?
Think that was just an anomaly that we had a generation like that who happened to come through around the same time.
We might get another set in a decade if we're lucky but I'm not confident on that. How many kids with potential will be turning away from rugby given how bloody awful we've become?
@MiketheSnow said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 1:
We have to look at the coaching
Agreed it all seems muddled with regards coaching and selection. You select a ball playing 12 but don't spread the ball, a 12 at 13 who was slow to react a few times today in defence.
Both halfbacks kicked terribly throughout the game.
But the cupboard is pretty bare, we have no players who can give us front foot ball.
We need to hope that Eddie James and Grady come through strongly in midfield as a focal point.
Our locks are back-rowers size wise, the Kiwi lock for Japan was towering over the Welsh locks.
We just don't produce many big, athletic players throughout our game.
Can we nick the Higgins brothers and Tahlor Cahill off you guys to up our squad quality a bit 
Maybe we need to go down the Scots route and try to bring in more qualified players.
We thought our latest U20's batch are the strongest we've had in a while but they're 0 from 2 so far in the JRWC.
I'm 55 & don't think I've ever missed a Wales game live. I honestly don't think I'll bother watching the 2nd test next week.
There's just no enjoyment in watching this rubbish every time, it's like watching a car crash in slow motion.
Fabulous stuff from Argentina
This TMO is pretty desperate to get in on the action isn't he?
@Catogrande there are systematic problems with the Welsh game from the top down which can't be fixed overnight. We have too many sides for the current finances to stretch to, we were offered 3 sides in an Anglo Welsh league a while ago and turned the offer down. Whether England wanted or needed the Welsh sides is another matter but for sponsorship, TV rights and supporters it would've been a huge boost.
But anything like this would mean the WRU losing any semblance of control which they can't/won't do. They first turned down 5 clubs into the then Allied Dunbar League in 1995 and we've been playing catch-up ever since.
Narrow minded navel gazing by idiots in blazers who couldn't run a bath never mind a £100 million business.
All this is still no excuse for the inept display yesterday. I don't know if the occasion got to the players more than it had before.
Even players like Jac Morgan who had been pretty imperious in every game even in defeat was off colour - I don't think I've ever seen him falling off tackles like yesterday. He's played against these players before & arguably better ones and not looked like that.
I was going to watch the game back today but I've not got enough wine left in the house to drown my sorrows again. 
@Catogrande think Martin Johnson mentioned that after the game that England wouldn't have learned anything about themselves.
It was pathetically easy for the men in white.
I can take getting stuffed against a top class NZ or Bok side but England hadn't shown anything during the tournament to think Wales would get blown away so easily. For them to just roll over seemingly without any fight was an awful watch.
It seemed like a home match for them given the rousing renditions of Swing Low, that shows the apathy and financial restraints many Welsh supporters find themselves in these days I guess.
The WRU will be happy that it sold out and they made a few million I guess.