2012 Rugby Championship Game 1 Australia vs New Zealand - 18 August

[Braveheart81]

In that case WTF did Barnes take a quick tap in front of his posts inside his 22? WTF did they try and run the ball from their own half with a conservative defensive side? It would be naive in the extreme, espeically given Deans' media comments, that this was not the game plan. Maybe that was his big bluff, pick the proverbial lumbering brickwall and startle the ABs by running the ball?

I am certain it was Genia who took a quick tap from a penalty inside our 22 early in the game. It was a ridiculous decision.

 

[FrankLind]

The match stats seem to indicate that Moore did about as much work in 20 minutes that TPN did in 60...

Moore looked to get heavily involved as soon as he came on, plus with his form over the past few years he deserves to be the starting hooker...

At least Moore has attitude. He looks pissed off and angry when he is not playing, let alone on the park. He is one of the few Aussie forwards I rate. The others being Horwill and Pocock (and Vickerman when he used to play)

Your backs are potentially great, but I am not sure you have the cattle in the forwards. Specifically, locks, props, 6 and 8. As I said before, Higgers looks like he should be good, but somehow isn't quite there at test level. He really has a problem staying tight.

 

[Scotty]

Braveheart,

Why do you think genia had such a poor game. I saw him in our top 3 performers with Sharpe and Ioane. They way he picked up disrupted ball from scrums and lineouts and distributed effectively was impressive. He also made one of the only breaks and helped create ioane's one.

The slow ball was mostly down to lack of people to pass it to.

 

[FrankLind]

From a kiwi rugby journo' -

Clammed Up, hiding in their shells and devoid of any attacking ideas, the Wallabies need to be set free this week at Eden Park and reconnect with their Australian roots.
Ironically, the best way, the only way in fact, they can reach Auckland with any hope of winning is to inject a massive dose of New Zealand - and one Quade Cooper.
They can't seriously let Berrick Barnes go round again and sacrifice their instinctive flair. Barnes is a strait jacket - picked with the goal of steering the Wallabies away from humiliation rather than to seriously bring victory within reach.
His real purpose became evident midway through the first half in Sydney when, for the first time, quick ball was recycled by the Wallaby pack and Barnes kicked it. A nice 40 metre dink into touch - earning warm applause, the approval of his coach and the wrath of the men outside him.
Rugby is not rugby when the outside backs become decorative pieces: high street shoppers who stare in the windows, knowing that they don't have the credit card.
Pick Barnes and limit the damage - pick Cooper and at least open the possibility of another outcome.
Surely there is nothing less Australian than damage limitation? Scrummaging might not be in their DNA, but inventive, creative back play is. Having a go - that is quintessentially Australian and it's rare indeed for a Wallaby side to die wondering.
If Barnes is named at No 10 this week the Wallabies might as well talk openly and admit they will be happy with a 12-point defeat: they might as well flag it, celebrate it and say that respectability is their goal these days.
But bring in Cooper and the landscape changes. He can find holes, bring others into the game and at least prise cracks in the All Black defence.
He can provide the mental lift, the spark that comes with exuberance and a flash
The question, though, is whether it would be rise to expose Cooper to an unforgiving and tormenting Eden Park crowd. New Zealand's favourite villain cracked the last time he was in Auckland. He was booed, he was hissed and he disintegrated.
He'd be a Christian in the Lion's den at Eden Park - the stakes intolerably high. The Wallabies haven't held the Bledisloe for 10 years; they have to win in Auckland; they have to at least play with conviction and passion, generate hope for the rest of the tournament and halt the growing belief their seat at rugby's top table will soon be offered to a more worthy nation.
That pressure could inhibit Cooper. One nation willing him to succeed, another wishing him to fail. He knows that the power of the latter can be the greater. He knows that his home nation broke him last year - that he couldn't cope with being public enemy number one.
He could be broken again - properly broken to the extent his confidence is destroyed for the rest of the season - maybe even longer.
It's high risk but it is also potentially high reward and Australia, if nothing else, will welcome the fact the Wallabies are at least prepared to embrace being Australian.

 

[Bardon]

Scotty I would agree Genia was probably close to being in the top 3 performers in the game and certainly the best back after Diggers. But he still had a poor game it's just most of the rest of the team were dire rather than simply poor.

Your backs are potentially great, but I am not sure you have the cattle in the forwards..

IMHO Aus actually suffers, at times, from having some excellent backs. No doubt it's preferable to have backs of their quality rather than of lower quality. However it does make some players seemly untouchable when they are in poor form.

Beale, Diggers & AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) are automatic choices these days in the backs. Only one of those 3 should be in the team on recent form. Genia has no real competition and while he is consistently one of the top performers he can also put in a stinker in an important game. Couple that with a midfield picked primarily for their defensive capabilities and there's huge pressure on the 10 to get the backline firing. This leads to the merry-go-round we see with Barnes and Cooper alternately being in favour.

The difference between them and the ABs is that if the backline isn't firing it's not just the 10 who's in the line of fire. Of course the advantage the ABs have is having backs of equal ability ready to step in if a starter is out of form.

I think the difference between Aus and any other Tier 1 nation is that the perceived gap between 1st choice backs and the next group of guys in line is bigger.

Having watched almost every game in this years S15 season (missed about 4 games) I don't think the gap is actually as wide as the Aus selection policy would suggest. Certainly there are players who are worth a punt if the incumbent is out of form.

 

[Scotty]

Dear Robbie,

Last night you picked a bloke to control our national team that:

a) created basically nothing all year in super rugby

b) got pushed to 12 for a converted fullback for his provincial side

c) was only truly involved in one of the five June test match tries and that was from his running skills, not passing skills

Was it truly a surprise that he failed, yet again to create anything for the players around him, particularly against the worlds best side?

And did it truly make sense with this limited attacking controller to attempt to play a game where we attacked a few passes wide of the ruck than close in?

Really?

 

[Braveheart81]

I think Genia improved in the second half but had a poor first half.

Taking a quick tap from a penalty inside our 22 early in the match was a horrible decision and put us under plenty of unnecessary pressure.

He made a few poor passes but generally I thought his service was really slow. When Genia is playing well I think he creates urgency around him and gets our forwards resetting quicker. It was amazing when we were on attack that we had a really slow reset, a forward punched it up and then he didn't clear the ball quickly. I blame both Genia and the forwards for this.

I certainly hold Genia to a higher standard than most of our players. He is one of our best and for us to beat NZ he needs to play really well.

 

[waratahjesus]

Dear Robbie,

Last night you picked a bloke to control our national team that:

a) created basically nothing all year in super rugby

b) got pushed to 12 for a converted fullback for his provincial side

c) was only truly involved in one of the five June test match tries and that was from his running skills, not passing skills

Was it truly a surprise that he failed, yet again to create anything for the players around him, particularly against the worlds best side?

And did it truly make sense with this limited attacking controller to attempt to play a game where we attacked a few passes wide of the ruck than close in?

Really?

Spot on, ad that last year he persisted with an outplayed and devoid of maturity cooper during the world cup and ask who is our plan c?

 

[Inside Shoulder]

It is not as though we are the only team to rely on X-factor.
NZ have Dagg, Carter and SBW. Some would argue Nonu, Gear, Smith X 2 have it as well.
It's more often referred to as having multiple threats. We normally have 4-5 in our backline and it has often got us home in games where our pack struggles to gain parity and we operate on less than 50% possession.
It has been that way for the majority of our rugby playing history.
Nothing has changed.

I thought that NZ played a very wallabies (recent) style game: they seemed to be looking to Dagg to just pull something out of the hat.....which he was happy to do.
Even with their multiple threats firing they usually play to a plan that isn't dependent on the individual brilliance of one player. You usually don't have the feeling that they're passing it to someone more in hope than by design. I thought they were a bit more like the former than the latter last night.
If loss of structure and heavy reliance on the brilliance of single players for moments of impact is to be the mark of life under Hansen we will be back on terms in no time.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[thierry dusautoir]

I think it's strange that he picks someone like higgers and then doesn't utilise him as a wide runner. Which he is devastating at. Deans seems to do this a lot though. He picks players but doesn't use them in the way that best suits them. Quade is a good fly half at super level and constantly sets up tries. But If you watch the footage of the reds you will notice that one of the key reasons he looks so good is because at least 75% of the time the reds structure allows at least 3-4 players each running different options to be running lines off him. Concepts like these deans fails at

 

[Scotty]

Spot on, ad that last year he persisted with an outplayed and devoid of maturity cooper during the world cup and ask who is our plan c?

Plan c has already happened and been proven successful. Vs England in Oz, vs france in Paris vs Wales at the rwc.

With the support of Barnes outside of him, cooper has shown he can rip opposition defenses apart. It is unlikely to occur vs the ABs, but I know we will stand a much greater chance of winning.

 

[Scotty]

Ps I now see how Beale has sorted out his tackling - if you run far enough away from the guy you are meant to be defending you won't get charged with a miss tackle, because you are never in the position to ever make a tackle.

 

[Slim 293]

TPN also didn't have a missed tackle recorded because he torpedoed himself straight into the ground completely missing McCaw.........

 

[Richo]

I love that Barnes is the scapegoat du jour. What rubbish. The game was lost up front and, at any rate, he was far from the worst back. Beale, Fainga'a and AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) were all poor. Genia was bad early, then improved but was way too slow at the base of the ruck. Part of that was realignment but part of it was also simple indecisiveness.

I think the unfortunate reality is that we were simply beaten across the park. Aside from Sharpe and Digby, I don't think a single Wallaby outplayed their opposite number.

I'm not sure what - if any - changes will really turn things around. Quade to 10 and BB to 12, sure, but that doesn't address 1-8. With the injuries to key cattle, and players like Robbo out of form, we just don't have the depth necessary to put any real pressure on the All Blacks.

 

[Slim 293]

Nah, Barnes' decision making was woeful, and I don't know what adjective to use to describe his kicking.........

 

[ACT Crusader]

As I said before, Higgers looks like he should be good, but somehow isn't quite there at test level. He really has a problem staying tight.

But why should he have to "stay tight". He is a loose forward after all....

The problem is that when the tight 5 are struggling with either the pace of the game or not being effective at the collisions (and I agree with Ash after watching a replay also that TPN and Kepu in particular did not perform enough to secure quick ball) then that puts undue pressure on the loose forwards and takes them away from what they are good at - linking with the backs and playing loose.

 

[ACT Crusader]

I thought that NZ played a very wallabies (recent) style game: they seemed to be looking to Dagg to just pull something out of the hat...which he was happy to do.
Even with their multiple threats firing they usually play to a plan that isn't dependent on the individual brilliance of one player. You usually don't have the feeling that they're passing it to someone more in hope than by design. I thought they were a bit more like the former than the latter last night.
If loss of structure and heavy reliance on the brilliance of single players for moments of impact is to be the mark of life under Hansen we will be back on terms in no time.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

So all the lead up work and decoy running and scrum work was pinning our hopes on the brilliance of Dagg. Not sure I agree.....

 

[Paradox]

Barnes played as well as he could (place kicking was great under pressure) but he's not a 10. He has never had a great passing game and he stands super deep. However, I would like to see him at 12 with Cooper at 10.

 

[ACT Crusader]

I think it's strange that he picks someone like higgers and then doesn't utilise him as a wide runner. Which he is devastating at. Deans seems to do this a lot though. He picks players but doesn't use them in the way that best suits them. Quade is a good fly half at super level and constantly sets up tries. But If you watch the footage of the reds you will notice that one of the key reasons he looks so good is because at least 75% of the time the reds structure allows at least 3-4 players each running different options to be running lines off him. Concepts like these deans fails at

Like I wrote earlier, look at the work of the tight forwards and the lack of real impact and consistency and that is the reason Higgers is not able to play loose. I don't doubt that if the likes of Kepu, TPN, Timani were getting stuck in to secure ball that Higgers would have more opportunities to run the ball.

McCaw and Read and even last night Messam get those opportunities because guys like Owen Franks, Woodcock, Mealamu and Sam Whitelock are rarely shirking from the collisions.

Whitelock from a tight forwards perspective was immense again last night as he was vs Ireland earlier this year. He has a huge motor and his fitness excellent.

 

[Richo]

Nah, Barnes' decision making was woeful, and I don't know what adjective to use to describe his kicking...

Disagree. I would say average on both counts. And average was pretty good amongst the Wallabies last night. Barnes certainly didn't put in a good game, but blaming him for the loss is just revisionist history.