The Silver Fern

@Stargazer said in BOP 2022:

@Bovidae Geez. Okay, and obviously they have to play there because the turf in Rotorua is being/has just been replaced. I assume they have no other field with lights and with enough crowd capacity.

Only Bay Park and that isn't set up for rugby any more. At least with daylight saving this weekend, they can have the game as late as 4pm.

Leroy carter had awesome game too even though was on wing

@Hooroo said in Steamers 2020:

@Snowy said in Steamers 2020:

@Hooroo said in Steamers 2020:

Scott Curry - Midfield Back (Mount Maunganui)

Assume that is only due to sevens being covided?

Didn't know that was midfielder in 15s.

Wow, that's a peculiar fern quote!! I had no idea why that was asked of me.

I need to work on my quoting too, I guess

Because I was too lazy to go back to the original and just cut and pasted from your post.

@Godder said in NPC v Super Rugby:

@hydro11 said in NPC v Super Rugby:

@Godder said in NPC v Super Rugby:

@hydro11 said in NPC v Super Rugby:

@Godder said in NPC v Super Rugby:

The Championship is part of the professional NPC, so all unions should be included somehow for their financial sakes if nothing else, but it might just be as a first and second division for this year followed by a promotion-relegation match after the finals. Could run that comp in 10 weeks - 7 rounds, Semi-Finals, Finals, promotion-relegations. If it needs to be even shorter, run 3 divisions based on last year's standings (2 of 5 teams, 1 of 4). If it's that or nothing, I'm sure everyone will be on board for this year.

SA are clamping down even harder than NZ on Covid, so we might be able to run a tri-nations at EOY (noting that SA is rather warm...) and 3 country Super again next year, maybe just go back to 12 teams.

I'm not sure why it needs to be shorter though. Overseas travel is probably gone for 18 months. We only need 3 months to run Mitre Ten Cup as it is, 4 months to run a full round robin. Start the season in October and end it in December if you have to. At best you are looking at games versus Australia/Australian teams.

Presumably domestic cricket will also restart using some of the same grounds and sharing at least some of the audience, so it would be preferable not to overlap too much.

I don't think domestic cricket uses any of the same grounds. Eden Park maybe the only one? Besides, money talks. Mitre 10 Cup will win out over the Plunket Shield - The Super Smash will go hard though.

Plunket Shield is primarily played as a warm up for test cricket on whatever grounds are available, agree that it won't impact anything, but Super Smash and 50 over matches still have some spectator value so should be protected. We also have a series against Aussie to reschedule dependent on everyone's schedules - hopefully would be in 2021 to avoid issues, but who knows.

Also an issue with not clashing for Sky TV though, not just playing venues.

Domestic cricket isn't actually on Sky from next summer. McLean Park is probably the other ground which hosts both cricket and rugby.

I'm not expecting any test matches next season, perhaps there will be games versus Australia.

I get BOP press releases emailed to me, I will try and post them more.

@Snollygoster Okay, predictably no response !!

I've since found out that Campbell is out for the season and Chris Eves is playing for the Development team on Saturday at the Domain (as are 4 or 5 other contracted players)

Meh, it was only Waikato...

Yes, its strange to think that, but for a poor conversion and stupid pass to Ioane, we could possibly be unbeaten at this stage. In reality I really don't think that we deserve to be unbeaten however. We just can't seem to capitalize on the advantage and "put a team away".

And yes, that decision to continue scrumming rather than take a penalty kick was odd in retrospect. Some of the tactics in general were odd actually and ultimately unsuccessful. One thing that is noticeable this year is the chip (or grubber) kick beyond the defensive line out to a waiting player which seems to be working for some teams. I saw them practicing it in the warmup using Narawa but was never used during the game.

Despite my negativeness and cynicism there is plenty to be happy about this year. It would have to rate as the best year for a long time with many players excelling and a minimum of injuries (possibly).

Like Kiwipie said, the permutations for the finals are beginning to become apparent. I still think that on our day we can beat anyone but no win is guaranteed but this year we seem to be more consistent .

Squad named Tuesday hence they played under Wasps banner today. Team looked good today, B Team against Wellington was competitive, thought Collier played particularly well. Half against Counties & likely top team next week was Ross Harris Thwaites Wardlaw Carroll Blake Karpik Papalii Judd Hollinshead Fuatai Garland Webber Narawa Tiatia. 34-0 win, defence brilliant. Three tries through defensive pressure forcing silly passes on their own goal line for intercepts. Tiatia was exceptional, talk huge could always hear him barking & menacing on attack. Papalii definitely what we needed with his big abrasive style. Everybody played well in second half except Webber, dropped a few balls & looked rusty.

@Higgins Yep, that's it! Managed to finally find the "Global Rapid Rugby" thread.

If I can find more info on the Steamers' rapid rugby plans, I'll post it in that thread.

@bopred Yes, as they stated..."it wasn't pretty" and there is a lot to work on.

"Counties–Manukau ran more metres, completed more passes and carried the ball more times than Bay of Plenty on Thursday night.

The opposition made more tackles and missed fewer. They won more lineouts and didn't lose as many as the Bay on their own throw-in.

The Steamers conceded more penalties, didn't win as many rucks and mauls and made fewer clean breaks."

But the fact that we won after such a performance speaks volumes of how they "hung in there". You can't deny its a good start to the season however.

@bopred I was at the game and there crowd was fairly sparse as it usually is in Rotovegas. Its usually hard to get people to go out on a cold winters night in Rotorua and having the test on the same night cannot have helped.

Oh what could have been. If we played with the acuracy we showed today, we'd be in the semis. Though another game where we leaked points in the last 20. Fitness needs to be looked at next year. Narawa looked great on the wing. Plenty of positives from the pack. We needed a better centre (shame Foketi was injured all season) this year. A new backs coach too. We were too predictable. Shame we didn't have Monty Ioane this year. He was electric. I'm still dumbfounded how he missed out on a super contract.

Yep, there's been a clean out of our locking stocks which is a worry as our lineout work and general play from them last year was second to none.

However there are a few replacements still on the scene. I'm pretty sure Lars Morris from Te Puke Sports is contracted but missed last season with injury. Ardron (The Canadian) is playing creditably for the Cheifs apparently. The hard working Wardlaw from Rotoiti has been called in for injury replacement for the Cheifs also. I see also that Tim Bond (who played for us a few seasons back and played for Northland last year) is turning out for Te Puke Sports.

What a great contest - the Bay didn't lie down and we showed we had some game breakers as well. Pack was solid in the darkest times but now we have a really good back 5 behind a general in 10. Webber has been great all season, Tiatia really came on late in the season and his offloading has been spectacular.

We just couldn't defend aggressively enough to stop their offloads and once they start rolling, they are hard to stop.

Ardron - baffled too other than he looks like he should be a beast at 8. He's tall and broad etc. But he just doesn't seem to bend the line like Parete. Chiefs haven't made many bad signings in recent years though.

I fear that backline will be broken up before next season. Really hard to crack super rugby unless you get contracted young so we could lose a few of them overseas - especially after showing what they can do on a bigger stage.

Yep - good win. Particularly without Retallick and Franklin. I thought Callander was good. Blake and Karpik outstanding - be interesting to see what the loose trio will be for Wellington. Backline superb. Bring on the final.

God, its hard to guess what is wrong with this team. The fact that we will probably not even make the play offs, let alone get promoted, means its a worse season than last year.

At the start of the year the coach publicly stated that "there was no excuses...the team had been settled for a year or two and they had the personal to get promoted." So what happened ?

Most people agreed that there were several issues from last year :- 1) Problems in the backline. 2) Inconsistent performances. 3) Failure to close out close games. 4) Better kicking.

Its probably fair to say that all those issues have been improved on but not eradicated. Statisticly we have improved in most areas but I'm wondering what can be read into statistics.....Manawatu for instance are dead last across both divisions for the number of carries, metres run and defenders beaten and are second to last in tackle success rate but are above us on the table.

What irks me most this year is how we have been unable to capitalize on advantage. Take the Auckland game where we had a 68% advantage in possession and a 72% advantage in territory yet got soundly beaten. The second thing is mistakes. Much of the Auckland trys came from simple mistakes by the Bay. And lastly is the failure of certain players to perform. Much has been talked about with regard Tiatia who was dangerous a couple of years ago but has been almost invisible this year. A handful of players have shone but many haven't...

Sadly a season that started with high expectations will stutter to an end soon. I wonder what excuses will be made by the admin and what changes will come next year.

@snollygoster ha I did expect Southland to get to maybe 15, as I think I had you guys with a 35 point margin

I agree on the rotation - what really gets me is that in some positions, there never seems to be a first choice developed. What I want to see is the first choice 23 that plays most of the games and then rotation in and out of that when there are injuries or to nurse a player through the busy period.

I do get that if we want to finish top 4, then playing the best team on Wednesday is critical as we never win at Taranaki and we have to beat Southland. But still, there are 4 locks in the squad and in my view there's one of them who should never start unless injuries demand it. And Delany must always start if fit.

@Donsteppa said in Steamers v Manawatu:

@Gunner said in Steamers v Manawatu:

This really has been a dull game.

Southland might give these teams a run for their money on current evidence.

Southland? Have they found backs who can tackle in the last hour? 🙂

Sadly backs in Southland rugby don't get much tackle practice. Too much 10 man rugby gets played down there. If you get the ball kicked to you, you are expected to either kick it back or run straight back to your forwards so normal mud cuddles can resume.
No wonder DMac got out of there before getting ruined.