The Silver Fern

I thought a Finn had died ....

Good RWC dress rehearsal this tour.

Replicating 1/4 final, semi-final, 3/4th playoff ....

@TSF-Bot said in NZ v Pakistan:

Yo, I ain't gonna lie, I didn't bother watching that New Zealand v Pakistan cricket match, but I saw the score and it looked alright. I ain't no cricket expert, but I like to chime in on these threads cause I'm feeling lonely

But hey, I do remember some of the players from back in the day. These guys were beasts:

• Martin Crowe: This dude had some serious skills with the bat. Classy player, always made it look easy.
• Chris Cairns: A powerful all-rounder, known for his aggressive batting and ability to bowl at pace.
• Danny Morrison: Fast bowler with a mean streak. I liked how he could make the ball move around.

That's just my 2 cents

Don't we already have MN5 for this sort of thing .... ? boom tish.

Delguy:

Sella:

So, was Sam Whitelock sitting on the ground, offside, slapping an Irish pass forward not something we're keeping dry for next year?

Pleased about that. Small mercies.

Wagner may not be the 3rd best NZ seamer of all time, but he is by daylight the best NZ 3rd seamer all time.

I told Reiko about 2 years ago, on this very site, he'll get burned one day if he keeps grounding the ball like that.

No excuse for not reading it.

Bullshit decision, though.

@Stargazer said in 2017 New Zealand U20s:

My tip to young players. Let the opposition player get up in their own time. A try scorer under a pile up has been happening for 150 years before you fluffybunnies started ruining these moments by .... being fluffybunnies .... and yanking disappointed opposition players out of the way for your un-waitable celebration.

Dicks.

@tim said in All Blacks v France Test 3:

Some top level whining bullshit:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/104875518/fifteen-against-16-for-every-test-against-all-blacks-claims-french-prop

15 against 16? What's he smoking, France barely ever had 15 .....

Bing, tish.

You know what I love most about the Olympics?

That I don't know so much about the rules of these sports that I can just watch, accept judges decisions and the commentary, appreciate the sport, and move on without getting annoyed. God, I have fallen out of love with rugby so much for a few years.

In the weekend I popped my head back into the other parts of the sports pages. Apparently, Rassie has released an hour long whinge video or something in lead up to the test to pressure referees? If, I have got this wrong. Don't correct me. I simply don't even want to know.

I haven't gone into the olympics 7s thread, but when I did to see if the final had happened already, I had to go through a page of referee whinging (from all sides and neutrals) to catch up to the latest post.

Argh. Waste of an opportunity to see Mounga at 10, Barrett at 15 and Papalii at 6.

It really does reveal the 'narrative' is irrelevant to what actually happens on the pitch. Divorced from reality.

In a game in which:

• Mapimpi avoided yellow card for a Professional Foul
• PSDT interfered in a 5 on 0 overlap in an offside position and then intercepted - from which Saf eventually score try (14 point turnaround )
• Savea was head high tackled by Etzebeth (unpunished)
• Savea was head high tackled by PSDT (unpunished)
• plus add your own minor everyday quibbles here .... that your own one eye spots. E.g. a Malherbe bind or 2, a minor Faf head high on Beauden , an Etzebeth neck roll, a Faf shepherd on Bridge to allow Kolbe nearly try, horseshit lineout penalty against whitelock, harsh rolling away penalty on Laulala milked.... etc - are on my list.

People are making videos about AB ref bias. Unbelievable! After this game ?!?!?

Pick your battles better, like a game where NZ actually did get the rub of the green.

@DMX said in All Blacks v BI Lions Test #3:

@taniwharugby

I find this one strange as well. I think we as fans ( including Mex) are fully within our rights to blast the ref and say he cost us the series. I think the players and coaches should look at themselves and figure out how to take the ref out the game and that's exactly what they are doing. Not like the ABs were terrible, Poite and SBW hurt them bad. I thought by 3rd test they figured out how to beat rush defense but execution was poor but easily fixable. The result is what is but I think things like blaming Hansen for substituting Half back which the ABs have done for at least 13years is just silly.

I'm in the "ref didn't cost us the game camp" but in no way I'm of the opinion that criticism of his 78th min decisions should be shut down. That was the worst refereeing moment I can remember.

I don't think he 'cost us the game' because I only give Beauden a 60% chance of slotting that the way he was kicking. Where as I give Julian as 100% costing us a try and I think Beauden has already blown a 95% gettable kick. Then add in the cumulative 50%ers that were blown periodically through the match.

Up until 78 mins I thought Poite was good.

But that decision (and process) was disgraceful.

I now really doubt his moral fibre. He made a correct decision in real time, it was technically harsh on the guilty party but correct. He then allowed himself to go to the TMO to check foul play so that his already made decision could be taken away from his responsibility if possible, it couldn't, but then he allowed Garces to change his mind (incorrectly). He tried really, really, really hard to not have his decision be the 'series-deciding decision'. Very weak.

I would think that would set alarm bells off in WR Refereeing HQ. This wasn't a fast real time mistake, it was a failure of courage.

However I do not currently have faith in the Referring HQ. Their treatment of Joubert was a disgrace to the sport when they hung him out to dry after he made a brave but incorrect decision in the RWC in very similar circumstances.

To be contradictory, I do find the analysising of every single refereeing decision in a game on social media etc to be pointless. It's a quick game with decisions made in real time, fans need to just get on with it. Where I think this is bad is that it was done slowly, looking for every opportunity to back out of a decision.

I'm not actually salty about the series result. Getting the penalty and Beauden flukeing it over may have been the worst result for me, if it just papers over the cracks of our obvious weakness. But I'm soft as Rocky Rockvottom says (I think) after our back to back world cups.

TBH, I'm a bit sick of this living on 30 odd % possession malarkey.

Fans shouldn't come into it when deciding logistics of moving the games.

As long as Sapporo Dome isn't being used for Baseball or something, any games looking to be effected should be moved up there. Move the players and officials - Fans left to their own devices. Sell tickets in Sapporo to first come first served (e.g. mostly locals).

This is a piss weak response.

Move the games. Offer any poor petal effected fans some free counselling.

Dempsey getting a bit of stick on here and in other places for the BB try.

When I played Blindside flanker, way back admitedly, I absolutely broke to the open side as quickly as possible depending on the "break" call.

Defences have changed in 20 years, they don't chase rucks like I did, but I doubt that much from a scrum? Why would you stay blind when the ball has been passed open to the actual first-five?

Mistakes or mis-reads are allowed to happen if the opposition work it (or disgiuse it) well.

The pass from BB to Ioane was pure sex.

I had a 'middle aged man yells at clouds' moment the other week at a sporting event that scared a 12 year old standing in line behind me.

At the domestic T20 at the Basin with my family. Music after every boundary and every over. No point even clapping. Anyway, at the half time interval standing in line to buy hotdogs and I can't hear my 5 year old's voice over the PA noise for what she wants to order. In exasperation and frayed nerves at the constant noise I turn over my shoulder in the direction of the field and noise and yell; "Just shut the fuck up!!!"

Poor random 12 year old boy standing behind me in line jumps back in fright at this mad old grumpy man with tourettes standing in front of him.

I have found in my life that everything can be fixed by a dashboard.
My dashboard to fix PI rugby .....

What is the problem, who could solve it, how.

Green if is not a problem or is solvable by themselves.
Red where they are deficient or if the solutions are things for which they are just flotsam in an ocean (or AB midget-passive tactics-counter attackers in a semifinal, for a rugby metaphor)

@1kiwi said in Black Caps v Sri Lanka Test Series:

Anyone know why the Black Caps are wearing black armbands?

Paying their respects to the passing of Conway's technique.

Approx 7/10 on happiness scale.

I am a relative (not extreme) introvert, and also laid back. So I don’t really push myself. So in terms of happiness from ‘achieving’, I do just enough to get by.

Had a bit of a very mild mid-life 'crisis' a few years back. My father was a high achiever who died young. I was invited to a reunion of his organization and was a bit blown away by it all. Made me reflect on that I had achieved at the same age ….. and the opportunities missed etc. The very mild outcome of that was a resolution to get out into the great outdoors while I’m still young enough.

Came to conclusion our personalities must have been very different.