Spirit v Rising - who's done the NRC right?

[swingpass]

Rising paid the price for continuing playing their A team even when they had sewn up top spot. The team they put out vs QLD Country was ridiculous.

no, the Rising yesterday just didnt play well enough. too many mistakes, too many poor options and too many poor executions to cope with the Spirits very organised defence and attack. simply the better team won on the day.

as i opined earlier in the thread, we wont see for 3 -4 years who has/had the better strategy

 

[ForceFan]

The Spirit gets my vote...

The reality is that they've played selections exactly as they said they would when the NRC was announced!

I reckon Kevin Foote has done a great job of raising the awareness of a large number of local rugby players re what's required to make it at the next level (this includes lots of travel). They have done very well - esp the first game against a SXV-credentialed Vikings.

By making the team selections as they have the well-traveled WForce players (more travel than any other franchise) have time to to be home base with WAGS and families and get over the long list of niggling injuries as well as set up their pre-conditioning for the upcoming pre-season.

Some of the WF players were never going to play in the NRC due to their work load during the SXV (Hodgson, Mathewson and Steenkamp) others needed to play often to prove what they can do (Alcock).
(Hodgson ended up playing against the BCs in Perth at McKenzie's request).

 

[Train Without a Station]

They played selections exactly as they said until the finals came along I think you mean.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Watching a replay of the game last night, there were still a lot of club players in that Spirit team.

 

[kiap]

Watching a replay of the game last night, there were still a lot of club players in that Spirit team.

Yep. They still get a decent run.

It was good a match up and the Spirit used their ball better despite the Rising being on top in the scrums.

This was an indication of the number of Super caps for each run on side:

Perth
89 Cowan
00 Abel
15 Hoskins
74 Wykes
00 Murphy
14 Stander
00 Koteka
00 Rovira
45 Prior
16 Holmes
10 Brache
20 Rasolea
00 Matuauto
53 Morahan
17 Haylett-Petty
353 TOTAL

Melbourne
50 Smith
17 Leafa
32 Alo-Emile
01 Jeffries
38 Neville
00 Noa
00 Taufa
18 Timani
22 Stirzaker
05 Debreczeni
00 Kamana
62 Inman
00 Naivalu
00 Lautolo-Molimau
01 Placid
246 TOTAL

 

[ForceFan]

They played selections exactly as they said until the finals came along I think you mean.

Disagree.

There was no prior commitment to any strategy IF the Spirit made the finals.

The 23 who played against the Melb Rising included:

• 11 Perth locals (4 in run-on XV);
• 4 x 2014 Replacements (Stander, Hopkins, Prior and Holmes)
• 2 x EPS (Abels & Heiberg)

By my count that's 17/23 or 74% of non-1st choice WF players.

Missing were:

• Hodgson, McCalman, Godwin and Faulkner (Wallabies)
• Dellit, Alcock (Other NRC)
• Charles, Tessmann, Coleman, Steenkamp, Walton, Cottrell, Mathewson, Ebersohn (injury or rested for NRC)

 

[Highlander35]

Interestingly enough, both sides had most of their caps spread about 4 players.

182 of the Rising Super caps came from Inman, Smith, PAE and Neville. 262 caps from Cowan, Wykes, Prior and Morahan.

 

[KevinO]

Makes it really interesting, you look at the 3 players who where taken on EOYT tour and the caps would be pretty much the same.

Spirit deserved the win after they kept the Rising score less in the first 20 minutes. That really gave them a confidence boost.