Cantebury vs Auckland
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@chester-draws Robertson wasn't there last year either, but they still won.
http://www.canterburyrugby.co.nz/newsarticle/53690
Lots of names and experience missing from that starting XV for the final.
Funnell, Bird, Harmon, Whitelock, Mo'unga, Thompson, Bateman.
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@chris-b said in Cantebury vs Auckland:
@chester-draws Robertson wasn't there last year either, but they still won.
http://www.canterburyrugby.co.nz/newsarticle/53690
Lots of names and experience missing from that starting XV for the final.
Funnell, Bird, Harmon, Whitelock, Mo'unga, Thompson, Bateman.
Auckland: Tuipolotu, Tuungafasi, Ioane (R) -- would make a massive difference
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@sammyc Larry the lamb decided to come over and sign my hat haha. But great win, great to finally go to a game down here where we've won, it's usually miserable going to an Auckland/Blues game down here.
Thought Lemalu was huge again stopping their rolling maul. He really has made a huge difference for us there and the Cantabs barely tried to take us on there after that. We outmuscled them for once across the field and didn't get dominated at set piece which also goes a long way. Tumua Manu surely has to be signed by the Blues next year. He shut down their outside backs brilliantly and was a constant threat on attack along with TJ Faiane. Ruru was also fantastic behind the scrum I thought. Annoying to concede 2 late tries but can't be to fussy as we never win down here to begin with so we'll take that.
Hats off to Luke Romano for Canterbury as he was virtually a one man band today.
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@nzzp said in Cantebury vs Auckland:
Blow me down with a feather, we just defended two mauls effectively. How the hell can the Auck do this, but the Blues can't?
is this because it is Cantebury, and they aren't the same without the R?
It's all Fa'atiga Lemalu tbh.
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@african-monkey I'll be absolutely furious if they miss out on Manu. Real quality on defence, and solid all round. Just what the Blues need.
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Ieremia, and assistants Sir Graham Henry and Filo Tiatia, have certainly got their mob ticking after more than a decade of disappointment.
I rated Ieremia until his stint with the Canes. But was never too sure whether it was him or Hammett to blame
But Filo was impressive with the Sunwolves. He was hard done by to get the boot after improving them out of sight after a poor start
And Henry as well. An impressive coaching set up
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@winger said in Cantebury vs Auckland:
Ieremia, and assistants Sir Graham Henry and Filo Tiatia, have certainly got their mob ticking after more than a decade of disappointment.
I rated Ieremia until his stint with the Canes. But was never too sure whether it was him or Hammett to blame
But Filo was impressive with the Sunwolves. He was hard done by to get the boot after improving them out of sight after a poor start
And Henry as well. An impressive coaching set up
Of course it was Hammett. What planet are you living on?
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@chris-b said in Cantebury vs Auckland:
@chester-draws Robertson wasn't there last year either, but they still won.
http://www.canterburyrugby.co.nz/newsarticle/53690
Lots of names and experience missing from that starting XV for the final.
Funnell, Bird, Harmon, Whitelock, Mo'unga, Thompson, Bateman.
Good teams tick over for a while when well set up.
At the start of the season who thought Canterbury had lost too much experience? (It's sounds like a good excuse afterwards though.)
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@nepia said in Cantebury vs Auckland:
Of course it was Hammett. What planet are you living on?
What I mean (just to make it clear) is whether Ieremia was in fact a good coach as I believed but his partnership with Hammett dragged him down. Or just didn't work. Or whether he was in fact not that good and I was incorrect
Based on Auckland so far he's produced the goods. But my view is coaching these days is a team effort. This team works so far.
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@nepia said in Cantebury vs Auckland:
Of course it was Hammett. What planet are you living on?
It's a fair call- of course Hammett was a problem, but was Ieremia also a problem, or just a young coach dragged into the Vortex of Disaster along with the team. This is a great result for his coaching career, and reasonably unexpected for me.
Frankly, the most satisfying thing is the team seem to be playing for each other. I have not seen this for a few years. Ironically it took outsiders to do this, but it bloody well seems to be working.
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@chester-draws No doubt Robertson is a very good coach and losing him would have an impact. But a lot of that would have been felt last year.
Losing half your team including most of the best players (and especially Mo'unga who was waaay better than anyone else's first five last year) is also going to have quite an impact!
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@chester-draws The team that I think is suffering the most this year from losing its coach is Taranaki.
Cooper's done better at the Chiefs than I expected and Taranaki is doing a lot worse than I expected.
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@chris-b that’s a fair balance, on paper the Canterbury team is nowhere near the sides of even last year,they have always had Matt Todd or Richie Mo’unga and Rob Thompson around their squad..
On saying that well done to Auckland yesterday,there seemed to be
purpose to what they were trying to achieve..Just heard through a contact that Jack Whetton is negotiating with both the Highlanders and the Hurricanes
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@steven-harris Yeah - I'm not really reflecting on this game at all.
Auckland is now the team to beat, IMO. They're a big physical team and they're looking well drilled. Definitely beatable, but they've put probably their two closest rivals away pretty comfortably.
Judging by some of the rumours of recent years, suggesting various players couldn't really be arsed with Mitre10 Cup, I'd say having Sir Ted and his mana in the mix is pretty huge. You'd have to be a moron not to listen to what he has to say - and he wouldn't stand for any shenanigans.
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@steven-harris I'd bank on the Canes getting him. They have a starting lock spot open with Fatialofa gone and Fifita likely to move to 6.
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@dice Geoff Cridge is my pick to take over Fatialofa. Yes he has been injured for a while, however he has been rehabing with the Canes so I'm picking the Locks for the Canes next year are Lousi, Walker-Leawere, Cridge and Mitchell with Fifita covering.
