@Nepia said in Blues v Drua:

@TheMojoman said in Blues v Drua:

@gt12 said in Blues v Drua:

I love Rieko’s speed. I cant see any reason why he needs to be on the wing, he’s showing how he can use it on offense and defense.

The dude is lightning..reminds me of Rokocoko 2003-2005 period.

I understand why some are reluctant to see him at 13 given some of his brain farts - think dropped ball over try line vs Wallabies in 2020, but I think we need to accept that as part of him as a player. What he brings in attack/defence more than makes up for the odd brain fart.

Huh. He really doesn't have that many brain farts (and especially no more than Jordie) - one dropped ball, hell Cullen and Jonah both did the same thing in the same match.

I'm only reluctant because I think he's our best weapon on the left wing.

Brain farts was prob an exageration but I have noticed at times not giving to support players and going himself, defensive lapses which he covers well with his pace. Last week in 49th minute he drifted hard on the Drua fullback which allowed Drua winger to get outside RTS and place a dangerous kick downfield which Telea covered. Again, I'm probably nitpicking but just something I noticed.

@TheMojoman said in Rebels v Crusaders:

@ACT-Crusader said in Rebels v Crusaders:

@Bones said in Rebels v Crusaders:

@Old-Samurai-Jack said in Rebels v Crusaders:

Havili and Goodhue as the midfield FFS!

I will be mildly surprised if Razor selects that midfield after steadfastly sticking to today's one the last couple of years. Best coach can't be wrong!

Razor has played Havili and Goodhue together a couple of times. I think it will be an easier decision now that Jordan has cemented the fullback position.

I wonder if he will have a dabble and try
12-Goodhue
13-Fainga'anuku

Fainga'anuku played more like a centre on the weekend anyway.

I don't think he'll leave out either Goodhue or Havili. Probs Goodhue to 13? Not sure if Havili has ever played 13.

I expect 12. Havili, 13. Goodhue, too.
Havili has played at 13 before, next to Crotty, but I doubt he'll be moved again (other than to fullback, if needed).
No way Razor will leave him out of the starting XV.

lovely day in the sun, biggest gripe was how poor RA handled promoting it, sitting next to some brumbies fans, they had come down for it and were shocked at how small the crowd was, pointed out there had been next to no advertising

Wore my old Dunedin RFC jersey and Fakatava and Vahaakolo came over for a photo, both seem like really good blokes, Freedom was just chatting away about how disappointing the results was, letting the fans down, but how thankful he was to be getting a shot at that level, even more of a fan

@gt12 said in Chiefs v Waratahs:

How fucking good is Lord?

That line out take in the 23rd minute was sweeet.

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Q4 Rewatch.

First thing to say is that both teams played some very good footy in the period, but Blues were just a bit better when it counted.

Some specific points:

Blues kicking. After the game I was very critical of BB and by association Sullivan for poor kicking. But on analysis there was only one poor kick in period, BB's chip kick around 67 which went to Drummond on Chch 10m line, and he passed to Jordan who took advantage of the misaligned Blues 'D' (they hadn't expected chip). He made a good 30m, and this led quickly to Reece try, albeit via an earlier regather, having knocked ball 5 feet forward and with hint of Blues touch which would have made it a knock on.
Other big Chch gain off a kick was where they spread it wide to edge near their 22 and Lester chipped to Blues 10m line. That one was allowed to bounce (wickedly) and Chch regathered going deep into Blues 22. Then BB charge down with Jordan knock in goal which wasn't checked. But Blues kick itself was actually good!
All that said, it was the case that Ritchie was getting more distance on punts than BB.

Red card period ran through to 67. At 63 Blues awarded penalty and took the 3. At the time I thought that was feeble, and after rewatch I'm convinced. Blues still had the momentum, and with the extra man ought to have kicked to corner. Another try would have been match winner. They got the 3, but failure to press the advantage exposed their mental frailty, which wouldn't have gone unnoticed and offered ray of hope to oppo.
Once the Red card period finished Chch were reinvigorated, whereas Blues looked like they were in 'hold on' mode.

Last 8 minutes. It was 23-27 and all to play for. At 73.30 Christie knocked himself out and that definitely weakened Blues. At 74 Sullivan kicked 22 to 22, and close to touch (see above), but Chch with the lucky bounce off Lester chip went the length of the field back. From there they threw the proverbial kitchen sink at Blues, as one would expect. To their immense credit Blues D was indomitable and legal. The Ioane/Paps tackle got the raps, but the last 4 minutes were a case of they shall not pass: bravo!

So Blues better than I thought, but IMO key lesson was not to become too tentative when Chch were still man down. That said, BB is no closer. That chip was a totally unnecessary gamble and had he just nudged the ball into the corner I very much doubt we'd have seem the Chch fightback.

Kudos, though, to Chch. Outplayed for most of match, at the point when the oppo showed a lack of confidence, and gave them a chink of light, they stormed back like the champions they've been.

Can only hope for more such derbies from here...

right, got back from two weeks in NZ last night, missed the game live as was out getting pretty fucking blind on sat which i think is a fair enough excuse, watched the reply on Stan when i got in

dont have a lot to add that hasn't already been said but wanted to add, dickson red was fair enough, even if he's standing his ground and the player is dropping...he's tucked his arm so basically a shoulder charge, just a bit stupid

@stargazer said in Chiefs vs Moana Pasifika:

@bovidae I saw a photo of Stevenson after the game walking with crutches. Didn't look good, but could just be to ease the pain. Fingers crossed.

Yeah, I read that on Stuff. The options for the outside backs could be very thin. Narawa and Trask were already out, Lowe looks to be being held together with strapping, and ENS was troubled with a hamstring in the 2nd half before being replaced.

Game was ok but QLD dropped away too much ball.

Was very light on the physicality after watching Crusaders Blues.

@hydro11 said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@gt12 said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@antipodean said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@hydro11 said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@antipodean said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@hydro11 said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@antipodean said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@hydro11 said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@antipodean said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@hydro11 said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@antipodean said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@hydro11 said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@antipodean said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@bones said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

@cgrant said in Crusaders v Hurricanes:

It was a very kickable penalty. How many chances to get the 3 points : more than 70% IMO. How many chances to score a try via the lineout ? 20% maybe ?

I'm struggling to understand this concept that it's impossible for the canes to win in normal time, yet so much more acceptable they'd win in extra time. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Trying to score from something they're bad at (lineout - maul) against a team excellent at defending a maul. Extra time provides unstructured opportunities which is something the Canes are reasonable at.

It's not just a maul though. Even if you don't score from the maul, you should be able to recycle and get an unstructured opportunity 5 metres out.

Did they..?

Going for the lineout has less than a 50% chance of success, so can't use the fact it failed to prove your point. It has to be based on the likeliness at the time.

Let me get this logic right: A Canes lineout has more chance of losing possession that winning it, so it's better to attempt that to its inevitable conclusion (as we saw), than to force other opportunities?

No. The lineout has less than 50% chance of leading to a try. Obviously, we have more than 50% chance of winning the ball back.

Ok. A Canes lineout has more chance of not leading to a try than scoring one, so it's better to attempt that to its inevitable conclusion (as we saw), than to force other opportunities?

Yes. Going to golden point also has more chance of losing than winning.

There's only two teams competing in golden point...

Yes, but the Crusaders are a far better team, thus giving them a greater than 50% chance of winning in golden point. I don't believe you think the Hurricanes are as good as the Crusaders, or would be as likely to win from that point.

Even if you think golden point is a 50/50, Jordie still has to kick the goal to take us there. Unless you give him a 100% chance of doing so, there was a sub 50% the Hurricanes won from that position.

I understand now. You weren't going to win so why delay the inevitable, get it over in normal time!

That’s exactly what I’m reading too.

We’ll only get one chance as we aren’t good enough. Fair enough.

What I find hilarious is that the Canes were 6/10 against the Saders for line outs won.

But the kick is the risky option.

Our lineout is much better than that normally though.

Ahhh that poor display must have contributed to J. Blackwell's dropping from the side that fronted against Moana Pasifika.

Canes desperately needed those 5 points to stay in the mix, other than that we didn't get that much benefit out of the match... MPs lack of depth is really hurting them, they were very poor at the breakdown & awful at defending the rolling maul, at times they were ok at scrummaging.

When Canes get back to playing one match a week we should be looking to field our best team each week, play all our best combinations together, which will give us far better flow in our game, making the Canes much more of a threat.

I'd rather see him in a black jersey than G. Bridge. The latter is known to be safe (that 2022 SA game aside) but is not of international calibre in terms of danger for the opposition.
It would be interesting to see his stats (defenders beaten, meters gained, aso).

That last play was about as good as it got , in between i was yawning on many occasions

@bones I really hope you are right!

Can not believe that the Force elected to kick the penalty, and then keep kicking the ball away when they're behind on the scoreboard.

@nogusta In all fairness to Plummer though, he's only started about 10-15 matches in that time and a lot of those were at 12 where he had to learn the position on the job. He's been chucked around a fair bit too in all honesty where he's barely played 2 games in a row in the same position.

The only reason why he played so many games consecutively was because he could cover both 10 and 12 and a fair few of those games would have been 10-15 minute cameos.

@machpants

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@frank said in Crusaders v Highlanders:

@chris said in Crusaders v Highlanders:

@crazy-horse said in Crusaders v Highlanders:

Some random thoughts from a Crusader point of view after finally watching this game

Zach Gallagher is a mean looking kid. Maybe it's his thick neck, he looks like a fighter to me.

Loose forward has become a strength after being a weakness the last few years. Grace, Blackadder and Christie are pretty bloody handy at this level.

I was disappointed to see Ennor go straight to centre and LF move to the wing. I think there is more potential the other way around.

It will be interesting to see how the backline looks once Goodhue is back and hopefully firing. I think (hope) Bridge will be left out.

I rate Gallagher highly tough young bugger only 20.
Very physical player good size at 117kg and 197 c/m
He can also play 6.

Crusades website says 117 kg, Wikipedia and All Blacks .com say 102kg.
I assume the Crusaders website is more up to date but that's some weight gain!!

That was the first time I had laid eyes on him and to have the confidence to get up and take a line out one minute into being on the field was really good to see. Hope he has a great future.

Tim Horan on deliberate knock on: 'If he had caught that, it wouldn't be a yellow card.'

https://c.tenor.com/NoMYOlfRk7MAAAAC/christmas-vacation-no-shit.gif

@taniwharugby said in Drua v Waratahs:

@nta and he copped a bit of a shot on the deck after scoring.

What is it with players in situations like that?

TBF they both dived at the same time. A bit lazy