Stormers v Blues
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Normal Service Resumes in South Africa
South African rugby breathed a huge sigh of relief, as normal service resumed in the republic today. Despite the stormers dominating the game, officials were in no mood to repeat last weeks controversial antics. With the stormers 19 points behind, the Blues had scored a well worked try and the possibility of back to back last minute victories was there. However, in the first breakdown after this score right after the kick-off, the TMO managed to bring focus to a marginal brush of shoulders to reinstate the 3-score lead. With the first 399 similar challenges being ok, the TMO had finally had enough, and the 400th was justly penalised.
Post game stormers coach Robbie Fleck was delighted. "I sensed this was coming today, after the last few weeks" said the Bok legends, "Nobody likes too much controversy, so to see the TMO doing their job properly again brings a certain amount of relief".
Normal service resumed for the Blues as well, as after an amazing win last week, they really needed to bounce back to ensure they kept their record of being utter shit alive. Coach Umaga commented "WE'd had a lot of messages over the last week from Blues fans about turning corners, and landmark victories - we needed to kick the shit out of that optimism, nobody likes being the favourite".
SA head of referees, Rasta Ratshitref was asked for comment, but declined as he was too busy studying for his U5 girls rugby referee qualification.
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Man that first 40 was disgraceful. We lost the contact battle badly, Nock and Gatland barely look Mitre 10 Cup standard, and they seemed to play the game at a far quicker pace than us. We looked like we had just rolled out of bed and their first try really did set the tone for the match.
We got out of jail last week, but nothing looks like changing from previous seasons.
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@gt12 said in Stormers v Blues:
That intercept try looks like it’s going to be the killer. They might have been able to come back without it.
Yeah, if that had gone to hand I think the Blues probably would have come back.
Nanai was awesome chasing down the Stormers wing, pity it couldn't prevent the try.I thought the Blues were a bit hard done by in the 50/50 calls (aside from the deserved ones) in the back end of the match which compounded their overall shitness in the first half.
Nock and Ruru were both average.
I think that in the readiness to put the boot into the Blues that the performance of the Stormers is being overlooked, they played some cracking rugby.
That TMO shot that MR mentions was comical. They looked at so much footage with infractions before settling on the Tupou clean out, yet Parsons mentioned a knee (which I didn't notice) and at a previous ruck Kaino was flat taken out to the side of the ruck.
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some pretty average defence on display out there.
While Pulu has his faults, there is Pulu, daylight, Ruru, Nock...
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Yep, but I also think that the Blues have to be prepared to give up those tries, then come back. It's the easy start they had already given the Stormers that actually killed them. It's really time to just go all out attack. I'd consider starting Ruru with Pulu off the bench (where he was often awesome for us), but in reality it will (or hopefully will) be the other way around, with Nock having a sit down and 9. Pulu 21. Ruru
Outside that, either start Perofeta at 10 or sell him next year. We'll happily have here and I'll bet the Landers would feel the same.
Who'd have thought that Nanai would flourish on the wing, apart from 99% of the fern? Fuck me Tana, at least you've got him there now.
Rieko at 13 is going to take some time, he was 7 shades of shit at times last night (I didn't actually watch the whole game, so he may have done better after going to the wing). Collns was as good as I've seen him play, but I still think they should figure out how to get Clarke involved. I'm not sure how to do that with Moala also available, who is much better cover off the bench, unless Collins can cover 10.
Apart from that, injuries are fucking them in a few places, so I have to give Tana some rope here - Kirikiri is woefully not up to it. Add some help in the loose and some better help with one more lock and I think they can do much better.
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I just don't understand Tana's logic. We are trailing by more than two converted tries and need as much X factor as possible to even have a hope of coming back, and he substitutes Nanai while leaving Collins on the field. He's had enough time to prove himself and has been found wanting. Time for him to go.
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Blues are back huh?
Last week they looked the goods, positive and organised.
This week they shuffled sideways, stood flat footed, dropped passes and did dumb shit at breakdowns.
Am usually a fan of SBW (often feel he gets unfairly criticised because SBW) but that was as bad as I've seen him play.
Perofeeter wasn't the Messiah or even demonstrably better than Gatland. Who wasn't much chop. Doesn't help a 10 if your team is on the back foot though.
Shame. Really want the Blues to stand up.
My 2c before I read the thread.
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@akan004 said in Stormers v Blues:
I just don't understand Tana's logic. We are trailing by more than two converted tries and need as much X factor as possible to even have a hope of coming back, and he substitutes Nanai while leaving Collins on the field. He's had enough time to prove himself and has been found wanting. Time for him to go.
Yeh, Nanai got subbed after his desperate tackle on the chase back.. Maybe Tana was giving him a breather after doing a huge run..
Perofeta is definitely better than Gatland.. There's a reason they put on the points when he's on.. His goal kicking needs work though..
Blues backline had a really bad day at the office.. No1 one running onto the ball, but just passing on the buck to the next guy to get hammered.. Perofeta would've done a better job at 12 imo
Akira is probably the best #8 running off the back in a 5m scrum..
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@mimic said in Stormers v Blues:
@akan004 said in Stormers v Blues:
Perofeta is definitely better than Gatland.. There's a reason they put on the points when he's on.. His goal kicking needs work though..Exactly this. Perofeta seems to have a lot of time when he has the ball. Gatland is the opposite - very hurried.
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@kiwimurph Gatland is a headless chook
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I found the reaction to the Lions game strange and said so in that thread. The team mostly played like shit. 3-21 midway through the match and 10-28 down at the 63rd minute.
For the vast majority of that match we were abysmal (apart from a couple of individuals) and as fun as the last 17 minutes was, the analysis should have been more sober.Another point about the Lions match - they played poorly didn't they? They contributed massively to the Blues comeback.
They go run close by the Sunwolves this week. However the Sunwolves deserve credit.. Joseph and Brown seem to have made good progress in one month of matchesThere was a lot of talk in the media about Umaga sticking with a winning side. Well technically I guess that was true.. but a better way of describing it is he stuck with the combination that dug us into a hole against the Lions.
Unsurprisingly they dug us into a hole against the Stormers. This is the same performance without the cheesy comebackThe best 80min performance this year was against the Highlanders. The other 3 matches have been 50mins or more of an unstructured, error ridden rabble
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@duluth Exactly right. The Lions gave us chance after chance to the point where not even we could blow the game. Sure, we dominated territory and posession but looked disjointed for most of it. This game however, we started poorly and got what we deserved against a young hungry Stormers outfit.
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Lions certainly don't look like the same team that hosted a final last year
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@duluth said in Stormers v Blues:
I found the reaction to the Lions game strange and said so in that thread. The team mostly played like shit. 3-21 midway through the match and 10-28 down at the 63rd minute.
For the vast majority of that match we were abysmal (apart from a couple of individuals) and as fun as the last 17 minutes was, the analysis should have been more sober.Another point about the Lions match - they played poorly didn't they? They contributed massively to the Blues comeback.
They go run close by the Sunwolves this week. However the Sunwolves deserve credit.. Joseph and Brown seem to have made good progress in one month of matchesThere was a lot of talk in the media about Umaga sticking with a winning side. Well technically I guess that was true.. but a better way of describing it is he stuck with the combination that dug us into a hole against the Lions.
Unsurprisingly they dug us into a hole against the Stormers. This is the same performance without the cheesy comebackThe best 80min performance this year was against the Highlanders. The other 3 matches have been 50mins or more of an unstructured, error ridden rabble
This is the perfect summation of the last two weeks.
Umaga continues to select poorly, the team looked flat for the first 40 at least (are they being overtrained?), and the tactics are so easy to defend against.
If you took the Ioane brothers out of this team we would look even worse. We rely on individual contributions more than a team structure.
Lets shut the door on celebrity coaches, dump Umaga and promote Jackson and see what he can do. No point waiting for the end of the season, Umaga has had years and has made the team worse.
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@antipodean said in Stormers v Blues:
If the Blues have a defensive coach, he should be fired.
This season Alistair Rogers is in charge of the defense. So far it ain't looking good.
