@chester-draws said in All Blacks v Springboks:

@booboo said in All Blacks v Springboks:

@chester-draws said in All Blacks v Springboks:

@mariner4life said in All Blacks v Springboks:

@akan004 cherry pick to make the sky fall?

how about looking at it like this. in 21 tests we are 17-1-3. In 13 of those tests we have hosed them.

We lost a game where we had 14 blokes for 3/4s of the game
We lost a dead rubber Bledisloe away.
We lost one of the best tests in years.

You know, now i think about it, we are 0-3 where we have scored less points than the opposition. That's not what you expect from a team with this much talent.

Try looking at it this way. We never, ever lose big. if it's a loss, it's by a bee's dick. We are balls deep in every game we play. That's a pretty sweet position to be in.

What you say is true, except the implication that somehow winning big a lot is good.

Say what? It's bad? Since when?

Winning isn't bad. Just that winning big isn't necessarily better than winning small.

Our recent massive victories over the Boks was not good preparation for the last game.

We have a game plan that I think tends to magnify our strengths and our weaknesses. When we play well we win by lots. But we equally come unstuck when it doesn't work.

I'd prefer a game plan that moved away from this emphasis on counter-attack, and assuming we wear our opposition down. I'd like to see us able to work on penetrating solid defences.

Because when we hit the 2019 RWC you can bet no-one, crazy Australians aside, will attempt to beat us playing open rugby.

But history has shown us that teams step up at the World Cup and a well organised, determined defence can be really hard to break down without taking a few risks. The All Blacks showed they could score 6 tries against such a defence without the defence every really crumbling.

Hansen's message to J Barrett and A Smith (for it was they who took the bad decisions that led to tries) is not don't take quick throw-ins or don't take tap penalties . It will be don't take quick throw-ins from a kick that left the whole Bok defensive line in your face and don't take tap penalties when there is no huge gap to exploit. The whole mantra of the ABs since Henry took over is to make decisions based on what you see - the mantra is not "put away the razzle-dazzle until you're desperate". There will be mistakes playing like that but by forcing the opposition defence to make tough decisions under pressure eventually the gap will appear and the tries will come.

One of the reasons the ABs never got much continuity (and zero tries) was the ridiculous number of infringements by the Lions. It felt like every time the ABs had possession in the Lions half, then there would be a penalty. And a man down and in those conditions, you have to take your penalties. And they were all kickable yet BB missed a couple of sitters. 10 kickable penalties in all - when you see a number like that, you wonder how the Lions were never on a team warning for repeated offences - especially as the offside line seemed to disappear completely at times.

Just got home from the game after not being online. Interesting to read the thread start to finish and just so many premature calls made ....

Looks like NZ are half an excellent side and half a poor one. It's basically Tauranga keeping things together. What a maestro Kane is as usual walking to the wicket after just one ball.

Great atmosphere at the game. English fans supporting the Windies and NZ fans mostly in their early 20s and mostly pissed.

I've enjoyed this thread as a small place of sanity where rational rugby fans gather to discuss the game. Please stop any references to wars and cowardice etc as we really don't need it here.

So far I haven't seen any complaints by Joe Schmidt about the game - that is good for Ireland. He's a canny chap, he'll be learning the lessons and planning for the next time.

If Kane's stats were to exactly match those of the last 4 years (looking back from today) - in 8 years time he would be 34 and have

137 tests
45 hundreds
61 fifties
12742 runs
57.92 average

What T20 has done is produce a current generation of batsmen who have very poor defensive technique. Even some of players who appear to have good/respectable records in test cricket. They plant their feet, have a good eye and hit through the line. If the ball comes on and is not deviating, they marmalise it. They can, and have, scored big in test cricket but also get a lot of low scores when conditions are tricky.

Which is why England's dangerous middle to lower order appear to be a strength in test cricket when it is Bairstow, Stokes, Moeen etc but all of them don't really have the technique to survive the moving ball - hence why there collapses. Same with Australia, Mitchell Marsh is a flat track bully.

It really stands out when you watch the likes of Root, Smith, Kane and Kohli. While Smith is unorthodox, he does know how to stay in for long periods.

Rant over.

Do old viewers remember Lee Grant on here and his spouting about a young kid called Beale who was going to be a great and single-handedly save Australian rugby? I think he's finally arrived, hell of a game he played last night.

From what I have seen of Kane he is very much in form - but India have been very good at frustrating him with a nagging line and length and he has uncharacteristically thrown his wicket away 3 times. It doesn't help when the openers are out so early as he knows they need 300 to compete and with Taylor being a slow starter, one of them has to force it a little.

Now if the Indians would just pitch a couple short outside off, a couple on the pads and throw in some half volleys then things would be very different. They could learn a lot from watching NZ bowling ....

Can anyone show me an example of a classy boozy team celebration?

@machpants said in NZ vs. Aust - Japanese yawn edition:

You see mad eye hooper bursting a gut to limit beaudy getting towards the goal posts, the winger just leave him to it. He maybe a knob but he puts in a hundred every time

After he has retired, that will be my abiding memory of him. Sprinting to chase a back he has no hope of catching but never giving up.

@dogmeat said in Tipping 2020:

So I reckon that's twice I have failed to realise who the home team are and as a result have tipped the opposite to what I intended

I am so fucking thick

You are indeed - you picked the score as Crusaders 27 Blues 16 - almost spot on. But picked the Blues 9-16. Turned a weekend's best of 62 into a moderate 42. Nice work.

We're up to to date at https://www.thesilverfern.com/tipping/ - current leader Phooey failed to tip leaving TR to take over the lead by 7 points with Langakali, Sportboy & Kruse rounding out the top 5. Plenty picked 2 results but only Higgins, Winger and Mikey07 bagged both margins as well. Most were caught out by the relatively low scoring weekend - Winger top scored with 61 to move up to 6th.

In the Cup there were bizarre victories for Crucial and Mikedogz who had 2 of the lowest scores of the round but had drawn opponents who failed to show up. This was tough on the losers of the other 6 ties who all scored at least 18 more than those 2.

Half-way through the season - who can keep their interest long enough to eventually triumph?

Winger 61
TR 58
Higgins 57
Sportboy 51
Donsteppa 50
DK 49
Plastered Peni 49
Mikey07 47
Triple T 45
Langakali 44
Hooroo 44
Kruse 43
Unite 43
KP 43
Virgil 42
Dogmeat 42
Hurrycanes 42
Richie 41
Victor 40
Cactus Jack 40
Paj 38
Joan and Mary 31
Corkscrew 22
Mikedogz 20
Crucial 19
Stockcar86 17

@Bovidae it's crazy that PSG won't have played for 5 months by the time of the quarter-final.

@Duluth said in Tipping 2020:

@KiwiPie said in Tipping 2020:

I think that spreadsheet has become unlinked - I will ask @Duluth to change the link. I can see all the tips and the following have tipped so far.

I haven't changed anything.

I just see the first 128 rows. I think maybe the spreadsheet isn't shared properly?

I don't have edit permission to that one. If you add me as an editor I'll try to fix it

Unlinked from the form I mean - my doing. I couldn't find it download the tips last weekend so set a new one up.

Anyway the link to the new spreadsheet is

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ORxkTLkv6yhSt7j9acvEani9Pr76P7VWTbWwmgu4pmE/edit?usp=sharing

from which you can see that 3 people think the Blues will win and 5 back the Highlanders.

@Bovidae It's going to be like a mini World Cup rather than traditional home and away fixtures - makes it really hard to pick.

Not to mention it is high summer in Portugal so high energy football will be out

I think that spreadsheet has become unlinked - I will ask @Duluth to change the link. I can see all the tips and the following have tipped so far.

Hooroo
Mikedogz
Cactus Jack
Mikey07
Hurrycanes
DK
Langakali
Kruse
Kruse
Kruse
Triple T
Virgil
dogmeat
TR
Plastered Peni
Unite
Donsteppa
Richie
Joan and Mary

Everything is updated at https://www.thesilverfern.com/tipping/

Only Langakali, Paj, Broughie and Waynes World picked 2 results out of 2 - Langakali also was very close on scorelines and picked the try count for the Chiefs spot on. He scored 63 to be the best for the weekend, 3rd highest score of the season. Rising from 12th to 2nd, and only 5 behind Phooey who also fell back against Kruse, TR and Sportboy.

In the TSL Cup, the 15 winners go through along with both Mikedogz and Victor who drew 41-41 which was a higher total than any of the losing scores and so both go through without a replay.

Quite a few non-tippers - only 28 tipped on time and Donsteppa missed game 1.

@taniwharugby Actually everybody cracked because of the useless Chiefs!

@Bones Head not heart obviously

Brief report from the weekend.

Amazingly, Richie topped the scoring for the weekend despite getting the Blues v Highlanders result wrong. He did it by gathering up 35 points for the Crusaders game, picking a close 2 tries to 1 victory. Kruse and TR also exceeded 50 and are now 3rd and 2nd with Phooey still leading by 12. With a lot of people failing to tip, you could well guarantee a top 20 finish just by tipping every week.

4 are still picking results at 100% - Sportboy, Phooey, TR and Joan and Mary. Who is going to be the first to crack?