Hurricanes v Blues
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@broughie said in Hurricanes v Blues:
Well that was ugly and I bet MacDonald was not very happy. Not sure about all the kicking when you have a 3 man advantage. Lacking a good hooker. Akira acquitted himself well tonight and I hope he is getting the message. His work rate was a lot higher. He is always impressive in tackling as is PT.
Their ability to think how to take advantage of the numbers was terrible. Kicking the ball away from where the advantage was all the time instead of just pressuring the breakdown over and over until gaps appeared.
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I didn't mind the kicking. The breakdown was a lottery with that ref. Holding the ball was a reasonable chance of a penalty to the defence.
The Canes were struggling to get the ball through the midfield so tackling was easyThe quality of the kicking could have been better though
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@Duluth said in Hurricanes v Blues:
I didn't mind the kicking. The breakdown was a lottery with that ref. Holding the ball was a reasonable chance of a penalty to the defence.
The Canes were struggling to get the ball through the midfield so tackling was easyThe quality of the kicking could have been better though
Are you sure that the best way to take advantage of having three more players is to kick the ball away?
Surely holding onto the ball and playing with it ups yours odds considerably? -
@broughie I'd say it was lack of cool heads, making good decisions, Blues were in a position to beat a NZ team, something they hadnt done for a long time, i expect that carries some mental baggage.
That is where Parsons should be earning his coin.
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@taniwharugby might be right on the mental mind fuck of not beating a NZ team but 12 men?
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@Crucial said in Hurricanes v Blues:
Are you sure that the best way to take advantage of having three more players is to kick the ball away?
Surely holding onto the ball and playing with it ups yours odds considerably?It was very conservative. Yes holding the ball would have been the best way to take advantage.
However the Canes had the rub of the green at the breakdown all night. The best chance the Canes had of getting back into was penalties giving them easy field position
They had zero chance of scoring 80m tries with how their attack was going
It was about the best way of not losing. Not the best way of (maybe) racking up points
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@broughie that probably presents another issue in your mind in that you MUST take advantage of it...I very much doubt you do much practice of 15 v 12...Hansen said they had planned in the RWC for losing a player, I expect that would be offensively and defensively, but having such a massive advantage would be interesting problem to have too.
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@taniwharugby true. How about the KISS principle and just pound it in the forwards. Any way you slice it it did not reek of confidence.
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@broughie said in Hurricanes v Blues:
Any way you slice it it did not reek of confidence.
Sure, as I said it was conservative
However I don't think you can ignore that the Canes were getting breakdown penalties relatively easily
That was their unlikely way of getting back into the gameTheir lineout and attack was struggling. A territory game made the chance of turning it around almost nill
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@taniwharugby said in Hurricanes v Blues:
I'd say it was lack of cool heads, making good decisions, Blues were in a position to beat a NZ team, something they hadnt done for a long time, i expect that carries some mental baggage.
That is where Parsons should be earning his coin.
The call probably came from the coaches? Whether or not you agree with it, the Blues were all clearly following a game plan in that last 20 and finally got the result.
Maybe they wouldn't have played the territory if the Canes attack was functioning? Or if they could rely on winning the ball from their own rucks (The Blues were losing the subjective ref calls at the breakdown all match)
Conservative and winning will do
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@Duluth said in Hurricanes v Blues:
The Blues were losing the subjective ref calls at the breakdown all match
The Canes will tell you otherwise. In fact it was singled out by the coach as something he would be asking about in the post match review.
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@Crucial said in Hurricanes v Blues:
The Canes will tell you otherwise. In fact it was singled out by the coach as something he would be asking about in the post match review.
Ha. That was their best area and it was largely unearned.
Their coaches need to concentrate on the real issues before the Chiefs/Crusaders away
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@Duluth you can still be following instructions/plans and make poor decisions and execution, putting yourselves under unnecessary pressure
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Yup. I mentioned the quality of kicks was mixed
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@Duluth said in Hurricanes v Blues:
@Crucial said in Hurricanes v Blues:
The Canes will tell you otherwise. In fact it was singled out by the coach as something he would be asking about in the post match review.
Ha. That was their best area and it was largely unearned.
Their coaches need to concentrate on the real issues before the Chiefs/Crusaders away
I didn't get that impression at all and looking at the stats the penalty count is pretty much even. I can't tell how many were at the breakdown but can see that the Canes forwards were penalised more than the Blues forwards (excluding cards).
My biggest gripe when watching games this year is the latitude from the refs around players diving into and past breakdowns. The perception then follows that when they do whistle it, as they think it has directly interfered, it looks like inconsistency.
Watch Gardner in the Chiefs/Tahds game. He is a bit stricter around the breakdown in the first quarter and sets the tone for the rest of the game where we see more legit turnovers happen as there aren't bodies over the ball. -
Thought this game highlighted the weakness of the NZ game right now. I thought it was bash, bash with little "rugby smarts" being shown. The one difference - Black's positional kicking out of hand (he really needs to nail those penalty kicks to the corner though). What a difference an experienced play maker would have made for either team!
