The Silver Fern

@taniwharugby said in Missing Persons:

Sent to Steven Harris, Gunner, Kev and Snowy

Cheers.

@booboo said in All Blacks MOTM v France II:

@Windows97 said in All Blacks MOTM v France II:

Patty T, Vaa'i and Holland. Patty for an outstanding game filling in for injury, Vaa'i for stepping up at 6 and Holland who so far seems to be stepping into test match rugby seamlessly.

Astute selections

Given that you chose 3 locks (sort of), and are commending the selection of 3 locks by others, I’m going to hazard a guess that you were a lock at some point?

@Duluth said in TSF Update - Politics forum gone, New server soon:

Server a bit slow right now.. I’ll restart a few things.

You could run a “test” thread and ask everyone to ignore it?

@taniwharugby said in Springboks v Italy II:

@Snowy I assume they were.absolutely dealing to thier scrum, otherwise I can't see why.

Maybe Rassie thinks it is a.dumb rule and thought let's highlight it so WR change it now we used it....

No doubt they believed their own press, but they clearly don’t watch enough rugby to know that even a dominant scrum is no guarantee of possession.

@African-Monkey said in Springboks v Italy II:

@sparky said in Springboks v Italy II:

@Bones said in Springboks v Italy II:

The fuck? Surely intentionally doing that is a penalty?

SA purposefully ran in front of the kicker at kick off and only kicked it like 2m straight to the guy in front, to force a scrum.

Here's video of the incident:

Seriously, what the fuck was the point or that anyway? Clowns.

What they actually achieved was giving up a free kick from the scrum and thus conceding both territory and possession compared to contesting in the Italian half. It’s brilliant stuff….

@BerniesCorner said in All Blacks 2025:

I'm more confident now with the ABs than anytime in the last 5 years
Anyone else agree.

Yeah but it’s a low bar. I had no confidence that they would improve at all under Foster.

@Mauss said in All Blacks v France III:

@voodoo said in All Blacks v France 2:

Seems odd that a visiting team would target the dead rubber Game 3 of a series as “the big one” that they want to win, but who the hell understands the French eh?

The logic seems to be that they'll target the third game because that's the game where the ABs were always expected to rotate their squad.

This makes a very big assumption by the French that not playing our incumbents would weaken our team.

The last few years have weakened my belief that this would be the case.

I gave Ardie a vote because he has acknowledged that the actual word for “learnings” is lessons.

He should probably retain the captaincy for this alone, or at least be given all post match interviews.

A lot of the TMO interference would be solved if guys like Murphy stuck to “clear and obvious”. To me that means watching a replay at normal speed, can you see something worthy of reversing on field call? If you have to slow it down and watch it 5 times, it is neither clear nor obvious! Therefore the decision on field stands.

A bit of discussion earlier in the thread about the ref, but it really should be about who the TMO is. He makes the actual big calls after all.

As an aside Ridley was the ref when our U20s were beaten by Wales in 2019. Some of the newer ABs will remember him fondly I’m sure. The TMO is Cronan, and the FPRO is our mate Damon. It was bad when Jonkers was “watching”* but it seems that things won’t improve.

*read “interfering”

@Crazy-Horse said in Rugby or NFL:

@taniwharugby said in Rugby or NFL:

@Crazy-Horse
I feel the same as the poster who said they have fallen out of love with rugby and only watch on muscle memory. I watch because it's NZ rugby, because I always have, but I am watching a little less each year. Cards have ruined it for me. But I think that horse has bolted along with the TMO.

Dunno if that was me but I’m certainly in the same club. I don’t even flinch when we score, let alone get excited, because it doesn’t count until Murphy has said so. That on Saturday was a 57% chance if we crossed the line, not exactly compelling odds.

Murphy certainly lived up to his law, if slightly altered “if something could possibly be wrong, I’ll find it”.

@Chris said in Final - Crusaders v Chiefs:

Probably will put Newell out of the French series.

Which would make playing 80 minutes yesterday a stupid decision. Or, priorities are very different from what mine would be. A shame that he might miss out.

Then again maybe he felt that he had to play to get into the AB team?

WTF do I know, I'm just posting to let people know that I'm still alive.

I read this thread because I am trying to avoid studying for an exam, but I have to say that as a debate I thought that it ended here:

@SouthernMann said in Did the new Dunedin stadium make the Highlanders/Otago soft?:

No.

@booboo

A veritable "who's that? "of world golf, until you get to 15th...

A bit harsh on former world number one Luke Donald. Also top money winner on PGA tour and European tour in same year apparently.

I guess you’re always a nobody unless you win a major. Kind of fair.

@Catogrande said in RIP 2025:

@Billy-Tell said in RIP 2025:

@booboo said in RIP 2025:

Strange or not is very sad news

The guy who got to 95, his younger wife or the poor little dog?

I hate to be a bigot, but it really does depend on which breed the dog is.

You’re English and the dog was German, so a little bigotry could be expected given your history.

@dogmeat said in Memes/Tweets (No politics):

@MN5 What's funny / sad is you know how many upvotes your post collected....

I haven't seen anyone living on past glory as much as @mn5, since @jegga had breakfast with 4 All Blacks either.

@No-Quarter said in All Blacks 2025:

And of course I'm not letting this go, nobody else has, and it's Friday, my motivation to work is low, so starting meaningless fights on the Fern is the best way to pass the time

Not sure if this has been mentioned but a 6 nations grand slam includes winning games at home. Just saying.

@Bones said in NZ Sevens 2024-25:

Fuck fuck fucking Ware!

Think I might join @Machpants

It could get very crowded, they’re a bloody tough watch.

@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:

IIRC the field isn't even regulation width...

It's not, which made our lock selection even more bloody ludicrous. Pat Tuipuloto and Kaino FFS. I know we were short of quality at the time, but lineout specialists should have been obvious, along with our best blindside playing at, well, blindside.

Lineouts are important enough, but with more of them and no chance to even take a quick throw because the ball is in the stands every time was just plain dumb.

@Machpants said in RWC 2027 in Australia:

@mariner4life said in RWC 2027 in Australia:

lol you think they give a flying fuck about Australia? The ARU get $100m whether this thing makes a dollar or 6 trillion. The ONLY thing that matters is northern broadcasting,

WR will be leaning on the refs for all NH semis

Yep. They've done it to influence results before, by some accounts anyway.