Yes, “Bring on Ireland” came back to earth with a thud when it was revealed all the powder was used up on Ireland.

@MajorRage said in RWC: 3rd/4th game All Blacks vs Wales:

@pukunui said in RWC: 3rd/4th game All Blacks vs Wales:

Agree with all of that. Especially the myth of Ben Smiths poor form that even Hansen had convinced himself of.
But adding the Ben Smith non selection to the Barrett over Cane selection, bringing in green props on the eve of the RWC, the poor management of Rieko, the muddled selections in midfield, the complete fuck up that was made of finding a replacement for Kaino and the general push towards a helter skelter style of play (aka non RWC winning) to fit BB and DMac into the side and it’s clear Hansen has lost the plot a bit over the last 2 years.

Time for some fresh ideas.

If only Hansen had that perfect 20/20 vision that you had (without the ever so slight advantage of hindsight).

I think you're wrong. I think Hansen knew full well that we simply didn't have the cattle to take on England, SA upfront. At the end of 2018 we beat both England and SA away by bugger all both games and then got comprehensively munched by Ireland. In each of those three games we got completely taken to upfront.

I think Hansen saw both SA & England were seriously building, perhaps that Ireland had peaked and looked at our cattle and wondered if we had what it took to take them on. He then concluded that we probably didn't and realised that our backline was our only real shot. Then came the Bledisloe 1 and he realised that he really had to roll the dice. So he did.

It worked for a bit - we munched Aus in Bled 2 and then due to 15 mins of brilliance got past SA in the opening WC fixture. But I suspect both Eddie & Rassie watched that match and realised we still were extremely beatable up front. And so it proved.

Time for fresh ideas? Maybe. But I think as long as rugby is a pure 23 man game with 6 extra forwards on the bench, we are going to struggle to compete in the forwards battle.

Lack of cattle? Are you serious? What a cop out of an excuse. We have plenty of world class cattle in the forwards. The pack that smashed through the Lions in that first test was largely still there and has been dealing with the Boks just fine. What about the pack that played so well against Ireland a week earlier? Hansen got cute with tactics and selections and it bit him on the arse.

And it’s got nothing to do with hindsight. Plenty of people saw these issues over the last 2-3 years but there was always the cover of Hansen knows what he is doing, they are holding the tactics back, powder dry etc. There was no powder kept dry. It got snorted by Hansen shortly before he decided we don’t need experience to win RWC knockout games, just super rugby flash.

@reprobate said in RWC: 3rd/4th game All Blacks vs Wales:

All the talk of Ben Smith being old and slow was always bullshit I think. He's never been particularly fast, his acceleration and footwork in traffic have always been his strength, along with low error-rate, good option-taking and strength in the air.
He was good all super season at 15, then the ABs drop him from his preferred position and give him really limited shots to get used to wing again in poor team performances and all of a sudden he's out of the 23 for jordie barrett, who - at this stage of his career - is always on for a fucking howler of a mistake, and didn't really deserve a place in the squad in the first place. I was/am okay with the mounga/barrett combo, but smith probably should have started on the wing, and absolutely bloody definitely should have made the bench.

As for Barrett over Cane. Sure you can see the theory, attack the lineout, but you don't drop sam cane to play scott barrett out of position and expect your defence to be okay. the cane/frizzell combo was actually really good in this game, gave the early defensive platform that everything else flowed from.

as for those thinking SBW would have made a difference, yeah, nah. when has he ever? alb has been great all year, and goodhue too - and he was our best in the loss. crotty should have been on the bench instead of sbw for composure and mistake-free footy.

we've got to stop thinking of the bench as being full of ball-runners who are going to stick an extra 20 points on an already-beaten opposition, and pretending that is 'impact'. Rassie showed us this WC what real bench impact looks like: a full tight 5 of big hard fluffybunnies, not a flash-harry amongst them - and they're subbing all the guys who physically are least suited to endurance. that's actually a situation where i could support jordie being picked - if it was just him and a halfback who both barely play barring injury or the result being beyond doubt, to allow a bench stacked with forwards.

Agree with all of that. Especially the myth of Ben Smiths poor form that even Hansen had convinced himself of.
But adding the Ben Smith non selection to the Barrett over Cane selection, bringing in green props on the eve of the RWC, the poor management of Rieko, the muddled selections in midfield, the complete fuck up that was made of finding a replacement for Kaino and the general push towards a helter skelter style of play (aka non RWC winning) to fit BB and DMac into the side and it’s clear Hansen has lost the plot a bit over the last 2 years.

Time for some fresh ideas.

@shark said in 2020 All Blacks Squad:

An area we're sorely lacking in as things stand is grunt from the loose forward group. We have a proliferation of world-class openside flankers we seem to want to shoe-horn in ala Pooper and Smith/Waugh as we lack depth at 6, and as of 2020 we have a dire hole at 8 as well. (Still not dire enough to try Ioane though). Savea is an openside flanker, as of course is Cane. We need a couple of chunky lads in 6 and 8. Maybe Squire comes back and that helps, but we need a Fifita or Frizzell to stake a legit claim and/or a Blackadder to break through in SR. It's noticeable that throughout our game, loose forwards and locks are 'shrinking'. We first see our midget packs get beaten up by SA and England in the U20s and this has started to translate into the senior ranks. We have far too many blindside flankers playing as under sized locks in Super Rugby and even moreso in the NPC, and too few 8s and 6s regularly playing in those positions who have genuine size (around 1.92m+) and bulk. We also have stuff all 2m+ locks coming through (compared to around 10 - 15 years ago when we were flush in that department) and our openside flankers are on average getting smaller I reckon. Look at the emerging talent like Harmon and Kirifi. Harmon replaces another midget in Todd. Dillon Hunt isn't big either.

10-15 years our locks were rubbish, we had Ali and Jack and fuck all else. It wasn’t until Brad Thorn came back and Whitelock came onto the scene that we actually got decent there. Luckily BBBR followed BBBT so there was no drop off.

As far as i know Squire is off overseas too. Which is good because he definitely isn’t the answer to any questions we should be asking.

@jegga said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@antipodean said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@Machpants said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

An interesting point, na throw away line in the Torygraph, was that 'preparations to move the England France game were well underway' when it was realised it was going to have to be two, possibly three, games moved. That was impossible. So to make it consistent they canned them both, and have no contingency for the third. So I guess the much vaunted contingency plans talked about pre cup, if this article is correct, only really covered one game getting into trouble.

Which makes sense because I challenge anyone to develop a scenario to fix this weekend's problems.

Play the next day? Change venue a couple of days in advance? Extend the group stages by a week to allow for reserve days (before it starts obviously)?
There are plenty of options. They chose to just cancel games instead.

Now we are hearing about some sort of contingency plans despite it being written in the rules that they can’t play on a different day.

Mate I’ve tried to post a reply without being too obnoxious and the best I can come up with is to plead with you to forward your cv to wr . Obviously for a man of your talents rebooking tv slots , organising transport in a hurricane when flights are grounded , accommodation for teams , officials and fans speaking different languages in a foreign country and being able to predict weather patterns four years out is a bloody breeze .
Unless it isn’t and this is actually the best they can come up with and the “ what if the abs were affected? “scenarios don’t really change my mind about that .

I think I failed on the obnoxious part but you probably get my drift .

Equally i think some of you guys would fit right in at WR. The “solution” of giving lots of red cards for poorly executed tackles and the “solution” of just canceling games probably came from the same meeting.

@antipodean said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@antipodean said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@Machpants said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

An interesting point, na throw away line in the Torygraph, was that 'preparations to move the England France game were well underway' when it was realised it was going to have to be two, possibly three, games moved. That was impossible. So to make it consistent they canned them both, and have no contingency for the third. So I guess the much vaunted contingency plans talked about pre cup, if this article is correct, only really covered one game getting into trouble.

Which makes sense because I challenge anyone to develop a scenario to fix this weekend's problems.

Play the next day? Change venue a couple of days in advance? Extend the group stages by a week to allow for reserve days (before it starts obviously)?
There are plenty of options. They chose to just cancel games instead.

Play the next day where? Change the venues to where? How in the living fuck do you think it's possible to simply extend the RWC by a week?

They're options in your mind because you've no concept of the logistical difficulties in hosting such a tournament.

I don't want to be a dick about this, but your solutions work because they assume far too much and are oblivious to the realities. The stadia were provisionally booked for those dates when the bid was made and upon receiving the hosting, they were booked for those dates. They aren't all held open for the duration of the RWC.

Every participating nation booked accommodation and got access to training facilities years ago. Hotels are booked. Transport now is becoming congested and booked solid as people make plans to deal with the typhoon. Tomorrow most flights won't happen and the trains won't run. How are you going to get to this "other place"?

The compounding factor in all of this is it might have been possible if it was just one game. But there are too many pieces on the board to move at once.

It's like people don't think they haven't been in a war room losing sleep trying to make it work.

Calm down. I simply don’t agree with you that there was no other options in the known universe. That is just bullshit. They cancelled the game 3 days out. That is plenty of time to shift people around a relatively small country on transport systems that are still operating well BEFORE the storm hits.

My point is, if you are happy to give the hosting rights to a country where there is a high probability of this happening, and it was a high probability. This isn’t unforeseen. Then you have to come up with a better plan than “just cancel the game”.
At the start of planning they should have allowed extra days and had alternate locations sorted.
10 fucking years this has been in the planning.
10 years!

If they can’t work out how to overcome these issues in 10 years they should never have been given the hosting rights.

@antipodean said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@Machpants said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

An interesting point, na throw away line in the Torygraph, was that 'preparations to move the England France game were well underway' when it was realised it was going to have to be two, possibly three, games moved. That was impossible. So to make it consistent they canned them both, and have no contingency for the third. So I guess the much vaunted contingency plans talked about pre cup, if this article is correct, only really covered one game getting into trouble.

Which makes sense because I challenge anyone to develop a scenario to fix this weekend's problems.

Play the next day? Change venue a couple of days in advance? Extend the group stages by a week to allow for reserve days (before it starts obviously)?
There are plenty of options. They chose to just cancel games instead.

Now we are hearing about some sort of contingency plans despite it being written in the rules that they can’t play on a different day.

@ACT-Crusader said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@jegga said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@jegga said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

I wonder if people would be as ok with this situation if it was the ABs being knocked out because they didn’t get to play the last game.

Eg. We lose the first game against boks by 8.
Italy then beats Boks. Assuming everyone picks up BP wins over Canada and Namibia. Then what should have been a pretty bankable BP win against Italy to get into the Quarters is declared a draw instead.
Bye bye Two time defending champs.
This place would go into meltdown.

That scenario isn’t out of the rhelms of possibly. Not like, you know, a typhoon during typhoon season. That would never happen.

Realms

Also if we were that shit I’d be stoked that our rwc ended early .

“That shit” as in we lost a pool game to the Boks? Doesn’t take much of a slide to have that happen. Plenty were predicting it.

Who was predicting it?

The whole Northern hemisphere rugby media for one. Our last game against them was a draw.
Some very short memories on this thread.

Don’t think the memories are short, just questioning your theory/predictions.

Ok, one last time.

• Boks beating us in the first game. Not unthinkable. We drew this year, they also beat us last year.

• Boks then losing to Italy. Also not unthinkable but less likely. Boks lost to Japan at the last RWC, they then ran us to within a penalty in the Semi. They also lost to Italy in 2016.

• ABs vs Italy being canned for weather. Instead of being any easy BP win for ABs. Look at the stats i posted. The less likely outcome would be if the ABs missed out on a BP given their record over last 20 years.

Im not making these points to give sympathy to italy.
Im saying there would be MUCH more outrage if we were put in the position Scotland could find themselves in. It is hypocritical to say meh just because someone else is getting fucked THIS TIME.

@jegga said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@jegga said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@jegga said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

I wonder if people would be as ok with this situation if it was the ABs being knocked out because they didn’t get to play the last game.

Eg. We lose the first game against boks by 8.
Italy then beats Boks. Assuming everyone picks up BP wins over Canada and Namibia. Then what should have been a pretty bankable BP win against Italy to get into the Quarters is declared a draw instead.
Bye bye Two time defending champs.
This place would go into meltdown.

That scenario isn’t out of the rhelms of possibly. Not like, you know, a typhoon during typhoon season. That would never happen.

Realms

Also if we were that shit I’d be stoked that our rwc ended early .

“That shit” as in we lost a pool game to the Boks? Doesn’t take much of a slide to have that happen. Plenty were predicting it.

Who was predicting it?

The whole Northern hemisphere rugby media for one. Our last game against them was a draw.
Some very short memories on this thread.

Ah. For a minute there I thought you meant people who’s opinions were actually worth something.

Maybe predicting wasn’t the right word for them. “Hoping like hell” would probably be more appropriate.

@jegga said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@jegga said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

@pukunui said in 2019 Rugby World Cup:

I wonder if people would be as ok with this situation if it was the ABs being knocked out because they didn’t get to play the last game.

Eg. We lose the first game against boks by 8.
Italy then beats Boks. Assuming everyone picks up BP wins over Canada and Namibia. Then what should have been a pretty bankable BP win against Italy to get into the Quarters is declared a draw instead.
Bye bye Two time defending champs.
This place would go into meltdown.

That scenario isn’t out of the rhelms of possibly. Not like, you know, a typhoon during typhoon season. That would never happen.

Realms

Also if we were that shit I’d be stoked that our rwc ended early .

“That shit” as in we lost a pool game to the Boks? Doesn’t take much of a slide to have that happen. Plenty were predicting it.

Who was predicting it?

The whole Northern hemisphere rugby media for one. Our last game against them was a draw.
Some very short memories on this thread.