The Silver Fern

@Chris said in All Blacks 2025:

@booboo said in All Blacks 2025:

@Chris said in All Blacks 2025:

@brodean said in All Blacks 2025:

Agree with all of this except Finau. Finau should be persevered with. He's been no where near as bad as you make out, he's still young, and he's the best loose forward athlete in NZ under 30.

He is too passive for me unless he is hitting First fives,I think he has been given enough chances.

And you replace him with ... ?

Parker when fit
Dalton Papali'i Try him at 6 he has the size
Ah Kuoi he is big enough
Howden looks promising
All have more grunt imo.

On the subject of Dalton, I've gone on record to say if he wants to press his claims for the ABs next season, he should switch to 6 for the Blues. He's a bit slow to be a great 7 but he's a strong guy and could rededicate himself to doing all the physical work from the blindside

@MN5 said in All Blacks v France II:

@Dan54 said in All Blacks v France II:

@MN5 said in All Blacks v France II:

@brodean said in All Blacks v France 2:

@voodoo said in All Blacks v France 2:

@brodean said in All Blacks v France 2:

@voodoo

Robertson's plan was to give everyone a run according to him.

Proctor has very much been a mixed bag.

Kirifi was picked on his ability to win turnovers and his good discipline. He hasn't won a single turnover so far and gave away 3 penalties in 20 minutes yesterday.

Yep, I heard the statement from coach, just saying I hate it.

I’d personally agree on Proctor, but I’d add that the consensus seems to be a decent T2 improvement on a fairly forgettable T1 - so why not give him another go to see if he can build on it? We know what ALB and Rieko offer there, let’s carry on with creating depth.

> Kirifi looked so frustrated today arguing with the ref didn’t he?

I'm pretty neutral on what happens with Proctor at the moment but it would seem that Proctor was a big part of their plan. The backline hasn't been great though and we got out to an early lead yesterday by keeping it tight.

I've always suspected that Kirifi would not go well with refs who are not Kiwis or Aussies. I doubt the coaches will appreciate the ongoing dialogue he was having with the ref

Interesting seeing a lot of these guys up close in my first AB test since 2011.

The thought of injuries striking and a loose trio of Savea, Lio Willie and Kirifi on the field at the same time is too ridiculous for words. We know what Ardie brings but the other two will just get rag dolled by bigger teams. They honestly looked like halfbacks out there. Savea is still such an X factor player though. The run to set up Vaai was amazing to see.

Reiko Ioane is bigger than I thought he’d be. Would have been good to see him have a crack on the outside. Possibly not as sharp as he used to be.

TNT a pocket battleship, worth persevering with.

Proctor a bit rocks and diamonds.

Jordie effective and did well to bounce back from that tip tackle.

Tuipulotu toiled hard, seems rough he’ll probably be jettisoned when Barrett comes back because they’ll certainly keep Holland on the park as much as possible.

Vaai going from strength to strength. This could be his long term position. Not good news for Finau who did nothing.

Food excellent if over priced ( I had two separate feeds as I was starving ). Beer tolerable.

Was at game too MN5, thoroughly enjoyed it (not unusual usually do go and enjoy tests). Wouldn't really argue with any of your points. The couple of takeaways I got was Holland was f***en good again, Vaa'i just looks the part of a good big 6, and I not convinced about Lio-Willie. Thought Proctor was not bad at all, can't remember Reiko doing a better job at 13 for a good while. Was overly pretty pleased, though it got messy at end when game was wrapped up.

What does this guys actually bring to the table ?

Not taking the piss, genuine question if anyone wants to answer

I don’t think he’s been bad but it’s a little bit of last man standing with him. They could’ve selected Sotutu in the original squad but other than that, looking at the current squad and the list of injured players, I think Lio-Willie is a guy we won’t see much of when other players get fit. There are a few players in the squad right now who I feel are only there because there’s not much else around right now.

Ferner you'd most like to have $48 whiskeys with: @mariner4life .

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.

@Canes4life the old one they used to do (c 2000 - 2010, player values fluctuated, you had like 3 trades a round I think (which wasnt ideal, especially with so many byes in current format, so what they could do is allow unlimited trades on players in bye week or listed as injured, subject to your salary obviously)

This may have been said before, but I've just been watching highlights of a bunch of international matches and it's fucking annoying seeing teams in away jerseys when their actual ones don't clash at all. England in black, Italy in white.

WR hates rugby.

@MajorRage said in My Turn ... Running Down A Dream:

I was going to get pissy and say start your on thread, but every notification gives me a reason to re read this thread and bring back the good times.

I injured my ankle so had 6 month out. Back in now, Althoigh I’ve got an extremely tight hammy so currently just on the rower. Joys of being old.

Awesome work @African-Monkey. You should be very proud of yourself.

Yeah I do apologize as you did start the thread. I was going to start a while back, but saw you had the same interest and thought I'll come in and be a dick and blend in and join you.

I do hope you make a full recovery and hope you can make it back on the roads again. You were making some really good progress with your times.

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

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

done