Why this feels different...
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This is not even in the same universe as those losses. ā95 - 2007 losses were devestating , all of them, never saw them coming. Even in hindsight the French losses still feel awful. ā91 the previous games were underwhelming and injuries/selections in the backs definitely put a question mark pre game. This one hurt mainly because there generally seemed to be a real turn going on with selections and wins particularly over Australia/SA/ Ireland and that really built my hopes up perhaps a little like 2003 but it was always clear that this England team posed a real threat. Looking at the whole picture when you consider the loss of our legends in 2015 and the continuing player and coach drain New Zealand still punches massively above its weight, but with each success it only raises the expectation ever higher which is probably where I was, but never the gut punch of those other losses.
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For me personally, it feels different because I always suspected it could happen.
Going into this world cup I felt any of SA, England, Ireland Wales or NZ could take this. On their day any of those teams could beat any of the others. We just have not had the consistency in our performances of late.
I won't deny the way we took care of Ireland gave me hope. But after the first 20 minutes against England I had already come back down to earth and realised that while we have a good team. We are not as totally dominant as we once were.
And you know what? I am okay with that. No one stays at the top forever. We went 24 years between drinks with the world cup. We will be back.
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From a football angle, this one feels so much like 03 to me ,
Before the tournament starts there were hints we might be a bit flaky ,
Seemed to be an over emphasis on Attack and a lack on forward play ,
A convincing quarter final made us feel at ease,
then comes the semi where we get smashed in the forwards and our attack barely gets going due to it
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I'm all chill about the result. It appears a lot of people are. No one really talking about it in the office.
I think I needed this result as Rugby was starting to get a bit blah for me with a turgid Super Rugby, a rubbish NPC format and us mostly winning all the time.
I said at the beginning of the year I would have a Cricket WC over a Rugby WC. The Cricket WC stung while I haven't really given this a second thought.
Will I watch the 3rd playoff? Prolly not. Will I watch the final? Prolly not too.
I am amped for the England cricket tour though!
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@MajorRage said in Why this feels different...:
The more I think about it, the more I think Iām cool with it as we still did better than Oz ....
and Ireland
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@Tim in that article:
Perhaps the quality of the New Zealand performance against Ireland ultimately contributed to their demise by highlighting the critical component parts of New Zealand's game that England would need to match. They certainly met the challenge with a clarity that stunned.
I think alot of the good we did against Ireland was missing v England, and nor just because they didnt allow it, was more we appeared to change the point of attack from the success v Ireland.
V Ireland we had runners take it up and pop to a runner right there (as England did duccessfully to us) which was in part a way to blunt the effectiveness of the rush defence.
V England, as pointed out by others, we rarely did this, we had the pop runner there but instead we passed behind him to another ball runner who was deeper, and England seemed to know it was coming (perfect example was Underhill on Read) catching us well behind the mainline.
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I joined the fern back in 2004 IIRC or just before the Lions 2005 series..the years blur together now. Comparing the Fern after the 2007 and now in my memory is fairly illuminating. When I joined the Fern, 2003 was still raw, but 2007 still resonated right up until after 2011 and even then the embers weren't fully expunged until the 2015 QF. I think losing to a very good team (potentially the champions) in a Semi-Final that was always going to be a close call in regards to the outcome makes it less catastrophic although the way we were dominated and outplayed across the park does evoke certain aspects of previous campaigns where on field leadership and initiative seemed bereft.
But unlike 2007, I'm not feeling physically ill at the shock because in 2007 I was as confident as all get out that we would progress, whereas this year, it seemd a lot tighter, especially as the games played out and we saw the strength of the final four.
I'm going to watch with interest how things develop from now on, but in my heart lays a nagging suspicion that we will never see another AB era like 2004-2019 again
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@SynicBast said in Why this feels different...:
I joined the fern back in 2004 IIRC or just before the Lions 2005 series..the years blur together now. Comparing the Fern after the 2007 and now in my memory is fairly illuminating. When I joined the Fern, 2003 was still raw, but 2007 still resonated right up until after 2011 and even then the embers weren't fully expunged until the 2015 QF. I think losing to a very good team (potentially the champions) in a Semi-Final that was always going to be a close call in regards to the outcome makes it less catastrophic although the way we were dominated and outplayed across the park does evoke certain aspects of previous campaigns where on field leadership and initiative seemed bereft.
But unlike 2007, I'm not feeling physically ill at the shock because in 2007 I was as confident as all get out that we would progress, whereas this year, it seemd a lot tighter, especially as the games played out and we saw the strength of the final four.
I'm going to watch with interest how things develop from now on, but in my heart lays a nagging suspicion that we will never see another AB era like 2004-2019 again
The sad thing to contemplate is that the way money is influencing things a combination of NH getting its player base together and the increasing player drain is making staying near the top an incredible challenge.
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@pakman said in Why this feels different...:
@SynicBast said in Why this feels different...:
I joined the fern back in 2004 IIRC or just before the Lions 2005 series..the years blur together now. Comparing the Fern after the 2007 and now in my memory is fairly illuminating. When I joined the Fern, 2003 was still raw, but 2007 still resonated right up until after 2011 and even then the embers weren't fully expunged until the 2015 QF. I think losing to a very good team (potentially the champions) in a Semi-Final that was always going to be a close call in regards to the outcome makes it less catastrophic although the way we were dominated and outplayed across the park does evoke certain aspects of previous campaigns where on field leadership and initiative seemed bereft.
But unlike 2007, I'm not feeling physically ill at the shock because in 2007 I was as confident as all get out that we would progress, whereas this year, it seemd a lot tighter, especially as the games played out and we saw the strength of the final four.
I'm going to watch with interest how things develop from now on, but in my heart lays a nagging suspicion that we will never see another AB era like 2004-2019 again
The sad thing to contemplate is that the way money is influencing things a combination of NH getting its player base together and the increasing player drain is making staying near the top an incredible challenge.
After all of that we weren't that far off. As myself and others have said, keep the Irish game plan which meant tighter and narrower early, wear them down then see if we could get wide, who knows? Oh and it might have been good for the D coaches to fix the yawning hole that the aussies found in Perth in time to face England. It's not like they didn't have any time
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@pakman said in Why this feels different...:
The sad thing to contemplate is that the way money is influencing things a combination of NH getting its player base together and the increasing player drain is making staying near the top an incredible challenge.
It's ironic though, the drain is supposedly much worse now but the second gut punch in 2007 was realizing that McAlister, Hayman, Mauger, Howlett, Jack, Masoe, Kelleher etc had all played their last test (at least for a while); and over the next few months Collins and Evans firmed up as leaving too.
This time only Read from the starting side is off and it would be hard to argue Smith or SBW left too many test in the tank either.
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@rotated said in Why this feels different...:
@pakman said in Why this feels different...:
The sad thing to contemplate is that the way money is influencing things a combination of NH getting its player base together and the increasing player drain is making staying near the top an incredible challenge.
It's ironic though, the drain is supposedly much worse now but the second gut punch in 2007 was realizing that McAlister, Hayman, Mauger, Howlett, Jack, Masoe, Kelleher etc had all played their last test (at least for a while); and over the next few months Collins and Evans firmed up as leaving too.
This time only Read from the starting side is off and it would be hard to argue Smith or SBW left too many test in the tank either.
One thing which really upset me about 2007 was that we were by far away the best team there.
In 91 and 99 Oz were tops. In 2003 England was no 1, just. Being at Ellis Park in 95 and seeing what it meant for the nation was the ONLY time I've ever watched the ABs and thought, 'It wouldn't be so bad if we lost this', and after all it was a draw by normal standards.
Saturday for me felt as though we played the final a week early. That said, no guarantee Poms will get up this week.
