@Mokey It's pathetic. But so many people now won't listen to experts that it seems that what we have now is the science side of the argument trying to use utter bullshit like this as a gimmick to get morons on board who won't listen to facts. Like the dumbing down of politics and everything else. Pretty depressing that idiocracy is real.

Isn't it nice how the conspiracy theorists transition so quickly from 'nothing happened' to 'everybody does it'.

Gin is basically a crock of herbal shit that gets none of it's flavour from alcohol, so a non alcoholic version should be very similar. Beer not so much. There are some less shit than others and it's better than drinking coke.
Way worse than drinking and coke though.

@rotated said in [Poll] The final choice (AB Coach):

Foster.

I would prefer they didn't make a mistake, but if they are going to at least make sure it isn't a mistake they've made before. We know it is too early for Robertson like it was for Smith and Mitchell/Deans.

By no means is that an endorsement of the past four years, far from it.

We know Robertson isn't ready just as much as we know Foster hasn't improved as a head coach from the chiefs days. At least Razor's won something.
Foster as Robertson's assistant might work, but so far we have no evidence that when Foster has the final say, good stuff happens.

I kind of agree, terrible judgement from Whitelock, but it was so out of character for him - and he's played plenty of important games including MOTM efforts in the last world cup knockouts, that it seems a bit harsh to say 'not captaincy material' based on one incident. Certainly the Crusaders have performed far better with him as captain than with Read.
You need more than Sam Cane's steely look in the eyes, you need to tell people what to do, and what not to do, and keep it simple under pressure.
As for whipping Ireland, the only impact that had was on over-confidence. We weren't tired from that game - it was never in doubt, we were able to sub early, and we had already missed the Italy game. And powder? England didn't adjust their tactics against us at the last minute after viewing the Irish game. We changed ours (poorly), dropped Cane, and we showed up without the right mindset - got smashed early and never recovered momentum, and the guys lost composure - that situation not helped by picking people like Jordie over B Smith, no Crotty etc.

@barbarian agree. As opposed to Fosters body of work at the chiefs.
Gets way more shit on here than he deserves for his coaching, mostly because of personality or presentation, or giving too much of a shit and coming across as a sore loser. A very similar comment to the 'not analysing opposition' one was made by one of the ABs before the knockout rounds, and as far as I can tell our analysis of the poms consisted of 'well their lineout was shit when we last played them fucking ages ago, let's target that.'

@booboo said in RWC: 3rd/4th game All Blacks vs Wales:

@Machpants said in RWC: 3rd/4th game All Blacks vs Wales:

@sparky said in RWC: 3rd/4th game All Blacks vs Wales:

@Rebound said in RWC: 3rd/4th game All Blacks vs Wales:

So what was the final score ABs 40 Wales 10 Barnes 14 (he gets double points for his two tries, 1 not given and one given). Probably why he got voted ref of the year. Hopefully reffing standards goes up up, the moment he and Garces ride into the sunsight. A real blight for far too many years, poor reffing

This. Worst thing about this tournament was the terrible standard of the referees.

@taniwharugby said in RWC: 3rd/4th game All Blacks vs Wales:

@sparky which seemed to change slightly from pool play to finals in terms of strictness and TMO involvement....

Yeah I think the RWC has highlighted to the world, the poor/invoncsistant refeereing - esp how it was a card game in the pools, then they were put away for the knock outs. Ridiculous.

I read that as a success for WR and the judiciary.

There was a distinct lack of high shots as the tournament hit the latter stages. And trust me we'd have heard about them via social media trolls (especially if there was even a sniff of an AB thinking about going high).

Maybe players and coaches learned?

there were without any shadow of a doubt tackles in the knockouts which were on par with tackles that were carded in pool play. now that's a hell of a low bar in some cases (stupidly low in my opinion) - but there were still plenty of incidences of contact with the head. also some incidents of contact with players in the air which previously have been a card every time.

did the harsh rulings have a positive impact on player behaviour? maybe.
did the harsh rulings ruin games? yep. arguably ruined fiji's tournament for a start.
did WR change the rules halfway through the tournament? fucken definitely.
was that a good thing? maybe in terms of not ruining games, but it is pretty damn bizarre to do that.

@Paekakboyz said in Cricket: NZ vs England:

@hydro11 it was $60 a ticket?? wtf, good luck with that NZC.

exactly. was planning to go with a group of 10 workmates - went online to buy the tickets, saw the price and changed the plan to watching it at the pub.

All the talk of Ben Smith being old and slow was always bullshit I think. He's never been particularly fast, his acceleration and footwork in traffic have always been his strength, along with low error-rate, good option-taking and strength in the air.
He was good all super season at 15, then the ABs drop him from his preferred position and give him really limited shots to get used to wing again in poor team performances and all of a sudden he's out of the 23 for jordie barrett, who - at this stage of his career - is always on for a fucking howler of a mistake, and didn't really deserve a place in the squad in the first place. I was/am okay with the mounga/barrett combo, but smith probably should have started on the wing, and absolutely bloody definitely should have made the bench.

As for Barrett over Cane. Sure you can see the theory, attack the lineout, but you don't drop sam cane to play scott barrett out of position and expect your defence to be okay. the cane/frizzell combo was actually really good in this game, gave the early defensive platform that everything else flowed from.

as for those thinking SBW would have made a difference, yeah, nah. when has he ever? alb has been great all year, and goodhue too - and he was our best in the loss. crotty should have been on the bench instead of sbw for composure and mistake-free footy.

we've got to stop thinking of the bench as being full of ball-runners who are going to stick an extra 20 points on an already-beaten opposition, and pretending that is 'impact'. Rassie showed us this WC what real bench impact looks like: a full tight 5 of big hard fluffybunnies, not a flash-harry amongst them - and they're subbing all the guys who physically are least suited to endurance. that's actually a situation where i could support jordie being picked - if it was just him and a halfback who both barely play barring injury or the result being beyond doubt, to allow a bench stacked with forwards.

@Bones said in RWC: 3rd/4th game All Blacks vs Wales:

@reprobate you forgot to add...Rieko should move to centre, he'd be good. Based on nothing of course, but he's ordinary on the wing right now so let's ditch our good midfielders anyway.

now i'm no rieko hater, but centre? now that's remarkable. goodhue was great for the crusaders all year, hasn't put a foot wrong for the ABs, come back strongly from injury, best on our side of the park in the semi loss in my eyes.
still, rieko... hard done by not being given jack's spot eh?