Rugby - Tours Tours Everywhere!

[Andydog]

I thought the Aussie forward pack were very good on Saturday - high work rate, mostly solid lineout, dominant scrum. The problem is, Aussie often struggled to hold onto the ball. Note the ironies here: Australia beat England by accumulating points thanks to a dominant forward and set piece play, while England looked more dangerous in midfield with the ball in hand, but just couldn't score.

As for the All Black - Paddies, a win is a win I suppose, even if it took a lot of shoddy work to get there. Nonu awaits your apology finbar. What a match from the girly ribboned lug, setting up the McCaw penalty try with a nice kick through, after making a break, and then scoring his own try, again, after putting Rokocoko into the gap with a well timed pass. Sure, the test for him will be when he faces stronger sides than the Haggis Munchers or Potato Farmers, but for now the blinkers are off, he is all seeing and all knowing, and is wining test matches for the All Blacks.

[finbar]

Yes, the big lump of a girlie - minus the ribbons, I notice, they must have been in her other bag - did very well. I've said it before, I've seen her do it before. I'll apologise to her when I see her do it more than once against a team with solid defence. She struggles against the Wallabies.

I appreciated the Wallaby-England irony, too. Luke Burgess had a shocker. His mates obviously had absolutely no idea what he was going to do. How could they when he obviously didn't? Hence next to nil cohesion. Ryan Cross is a worry, too. Big and strong and fast enough, but another Tindall/Noon - the attack stops with him. Oh for Berrick Barnes.

[finbar]

J**** picks another Wasp. Presumably he wants some more bulk up against a muscular Bok back row. And some more muscular protection for Cipriani when the Bok monsters come looking for his head. I don't suppose J**** had much choice when it came to props. I thought the England scrum went backwards when Stevens appeared.

Nice to see Ben Alexander get a start in the front row against the French. Did well against Italy. We'll see whether it was a fluke.

[Havak]

Hard to disagree with either of you on anything.

Shocking discipline and a much improved Aussie scrum were critical - but much else is wrong.

Sheridan fascinated me. When he engages his left leg is already locked out. A consequence of his height perhaps but how can one scrummage with no extension left in the leg?

Haskell is a mistake whatever the reasoning - he simply isn't in any kind of form. Pleased to see Crane make the 22 though.

[finbar]

Much else is wrong? Like what else? Apart from Lee Mears being too small, Vickery too old, Cipriani not being up to it yet, Noon continuing to be a complete and utter waste of space and Flutey looking like a jack-of-all-trades out of his depth in such a key position?

Cracker of a tussle between Munster and All Blacks B last night. If Donald had kicked straight, ABs B would have won relatively comfortably, but the scoreboard would have flattered. Munster's spirit and pressure were extraordinary, ABs B's fallibility under said pressure was an eye-opener. Missed the opening 20 minutes so I didn't see the Munster ex-ABs' haka. Shame.

Upside for the ABs: outstanding game from Liam Messam at #8. Downsides: Stephen Donald sloppy and tactically clueless yet again, and the overall fallibility under pressure.

[LDiCesare]

Not expecting a lot of play from France on Saturday.
Quoting Chabal (my translation):

Australia (...) is very serious, disciplined and applied. She doesn't do much but does it well. She rarely leaves her defense and uses your errors. (...) We will have to have a similar game schema.

If the translation is too bad, it reads: We will play boring rugby based on strong defense, hoping for a counter and disciplines to avoid letting penalties.

And Lièvremont:

Stratégiquement, on peut s’attendre au même genre de match qu’à Marseille.

Same strategy as Marseilles: Kick badly your possession away .

[finbar]

Kicking away possession badly suits me just fine.

[kittenOFchaos]

Finbar, Scotland should have won and won reasonably comfortably against the South Africans who were poor.

For much of the game Scotland outplayed South Africa and but for our penalty kicking going awry, it'd have been a Scottish victory and a deserved one.

Scotland should have achieved so much more in the last two years, we have an excellent goal kicker, a competitive set of forwards, an excellent scrum half but our backline are incapable of scoring tries and it is tragic. It must be horrible being a Scottish forward atm, all your good work being put to waste as soon as it leaves the scrum half.

Put simply we are missing centers of any quality and have done so since Townsend and Tait left the game.

Scotland are a decent rugby team if you can ignore their inability to score tries.

[finbar]

In all honesty, that's my fundamental problem with them, kOc. They should be better than they are. They can often promise so much and end up delivering nothing. Add the absence of a quality #10 to the list of problems. The perseverance with Dan Parks - even on the bench - is ridiculous. I remember him from Australia. He was limited then and remains so. I also don't think Frank Hadden is up to it.

Still, as an Italy supporter, I'm as familiar with despair as any Scotland supporter. At least Scotland has a quality #9. Italy lacks quality from #s9-15.

[Havak]

If you think either of you have problems you could try being an England fan.

I do not understand why Jonno is not throwing more of the young blood in. Hartley or Paice instead of Mears, any props instead of Vickery and the mountain, good young locks like Skivington, Blaze and so on, a number 8 in form such as Crane (and yes I do have a certain bias there - but ffs how can Easter and Narraway both be ahead in the pecking order this season). He isn't perfect but I'd have Flood at 12 over Flutey as he is in in better form. I think Allen and Geraghty are both injured - I'd take either at 12 over Flutey right now.

And why Noon? Full stop. He offers nothing but a solid tackling presence. How long can Rob Andrew keep his protege in the mix - I thought Jonno was stronger than that.

And I do wonder why Sackey when we have that Lomu-esque monster banahan available.

Still apart form that everything is rosy.

[finbar]

Payne for Sheridan. What happened to the seemingly endless conveyer belt of good English props?

J****'s selection policy is just as conservative as his predecessors'. His public support of Borthwick in the captaincy role says it all. Borthwick is there, apparently, because he's a good thinker about the game and a good people person. Overlooking the fact that he's a fine club player but pedestrian in international terms. Comfort in safety. Jamie Noon, too.

[flipside]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos


Scotland are a decent rugby team if you can ignore their inability to score tries.

Meh, substituite points for tries and I'm there.

*flipside says hey*

[flipside]

Hope you are all cool. I just lurked here for a sec. I'm off to play WoW and bore the t*ts off my WoW widow. ^-~

[LDiCesare]

Hey, finbar, didn't I promise you some bad French kicking?
Spot on

[finbar]

I was wondering whether you had any hair left.

Obviously France would have won relatively comfortably if Skrela had kicked straight but I don't think they'd have deserved to. Neither team covered themselves in glory. If the Wallabies hadn't given away so many stupid penalties, Skrela wouldn't have had kicks to miss. I've never seen George Smith so far off side and so often. And, the penalty try aside, France never seriously threatened the try line. I thought the difference between the sides was Matt Giteau. Like last week, he was the consumate pro, even if some of his field kicking wasn't as astute. I also swear that I've never seen a worse refereeing performance. Jonker is a complete tosser.

Wales were grand, in the first half anyway. They had the ABs under serious pressure. But the ABs cranked it up in the second half and that was that, aided by some very strange Welsh decisions to kick the ball straight back to the ABs. For that matter, some of their decision-making in the first half was curious, too. It's a bit of a Welsh problem. This isn't a great ABs team but it will do until a better one comes along.

Not sure where J**** goes from here. Publicly, he's talking about tests of character, missed opportunities, etc, reminiscent of his predecessors. And that it's a young team. Fact is, there is a sprinkling of youth, with the real problem being that a lot of the experienced core of the team isn't up to it. On top of which, at the basis, they're playing limited, one-dimensional rugby. This wasn't a Bok team at the top of its game. They just defended furiously when they needed to - aided by England's one-dimensional hit-it-up approach - and cut loose when they could, exposing some terribly soft England defence. How many English players did Rossouw carry on his back over the line? I think J**** has selection problems to sort out, and, equally importantly, coaching problems.