Brumbies V Blues Saturday 4 May

[Brumby Runner]

Brumbies Team

1. James Slipper
2. Folau Fainga’a
3. Allan Ala'alatoa
4. Rory Arnold
5. Sam Carter
6. Tom Cusack
7. Jahrome Brown
8. Pete Samu
9. Joe Powell
10. Christian Lealiifano (c)
11. Toni Pulu
12. Irae Simone
13. Len Ikitau
14. Henry Speight
15. Tom Banks

REPLACEMENTS
16. Connal McInerney
17. Scott Sio
18. Leslie Leuluaialii-Makin
19. Darcy Swain
20. Murray Douglas
21. Ryan Lonergan
22. Tom Wright
23. Andy Muirhead

UNAVAILABLE: Ben Hyne, Lachlan McCaffrey, Josh Mann-Rea, David Pocock, Rob Valetini

TK out altogether. Most likely a rest to keep Cheika happy.

May the Fourth be with them.

 

[Brumby Jack]

Blues

1 Alex Hodgman, 2 Leni Apisai, 3 Ofa Tuungafasi, 4 Gerard Cowley Tuioti, 5 Josh Goodhue, 6 Tom Robinson, 7 Blake Gibson ©, 8 Akira Ioane; 9 Sam Nock, 10 Otere Black, 11 Caleb Clarke, 12 Ma’a Nonu, 13 TJ Faiane, 14 Matt Duffie, 15 Melani Nanai.

Reserves: 16 James Parsons, 17 Karl Tu’inukuafe, 18 Marcel Renata, 19 Patrick Tuipulotu, 20 Dalton Papalii, 21 Augustine Pulu, 22 Harry Plummer, 23 Levi Aumua.

 

[Dismal Pillock]

Apisai's big chance and the rugby world better be prepared to be absolutely underwhelmed by this hapless pudding of a man. Between him and the James Parsons Project, hooker is a puddle-depth position for the Blues.

plenty of firepower to come off Blues bench elsewhere though.

 

[Brumby Runner]

Blues are a bogey team for the Brumbies. On top of that, the Brumbies are already better than the usual performance against NZ sides by having a win v the Chiefs. The portents are not good.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

^ on t'other hand I've taken loss Bleus in my tipping which means there's a better than 50% chance they'll lose......

 

[zer0]

Taking that penalty shot 12-0 up after 15 minutes was a pretty dumb choice. Should've kept hammering away. Instead the plonkers pile up the errors with compounding interest. Miss the kick. Surrender the ball. Concede a silly card. Give up a try. FFS.

 

[zer0]

A shame that ball didn't go out off the long pass. Would've been interested to see the mental gymnastics the ref would've gone through to penalise Otere Black.

 

[Dismal Pillock]

oh great, Bumbreeze have brought their own fuck3en ref, greta, just fucken great. Blues need to win this if only to take the wind out of MAAAAAARRDO's sails, fuck that guy

 

[Brumby Runner]

Brumbies need to realise that they don't have the power in the maul without Arnold and adapt to another plan.

I know some NZ posters will criticise Murphy (the ref), but they will not be as loud as me. He is just not up to Super Rugby standard.

 

[Dismal Pillock]

I know some NZ posters will criticise Murphy (the ref), but they will not be as loud as me. He is just not up to Super Rugby standard.

He seems like he's going through that newbie phase where they overcompensate by just guessing......

 

[zer0]

I know some NZ posters will criticise Murphy (the ref), but they will not be as loud as me. He is just not up to Super Rugby standard.

I've never seen him before. But if he's the best ref in Sevens, then those tournaments must be absolutely punishing affairs to watch.

 

[zer0]

FFS. The ref obviously heavily favours whoever has the ball, so why the f*ck would you keep kicking it away? If ever you needed Augustine Pulu to be Augustine Pulu, and stupidly run the ball no matter what, then tonight is that time.

 

[Dismal Pillock]

shit watch. BumBreeze bore everyone to tears with their rolling maul as local ref ushers them to the fucken tryline. #spirit_of_shiggins

 

[Brumby Runner]

Well,

I've never seen him before. But if he's the best ref in Sevens, then those tournaments must be absolutely punishing affairs to watch.

I would rate him better than Rasterveni from SA, but all in all 7s just isn't my cup o' tea.

 

[Up the Guts]

It's a strange one the Brumbies' reliance on the maul. On the one hand, you'd like to see be a bit more expansive but, on the other hand, why move away from a formula that works?

 

[zer0]

What a terribly dumb and lifeless efforts by the f*ckwits in Blue.

Firstly, the (alleged) game smarts. Want to see that team that killed the Stormers off with three/four minutes of intelligent and perfectly executed grinding rugby that the Crusaders would've been proud of? Yeah, well f*ck you. You'll get that for like ten minutes at the start where we'll go at almost a point a minute. After that? We're gonna go for the three at every possible opportunity thereafter instead of pressing the advantage. Why? Because f*ck you, that's why. Yeah it's clear as daylight that the ref only really bothers to officiate the defending team. So are we going to do the sensible thing and hold the ball and just force penalty after penalty like the Brumbies are doing? Of course not! Instead we're going to kick the ball as much as possible, because f*ck you. Even our dopey how-the-f*ck-does-he-have-more-test-caps-than-Brad-Weber halfback who always runs the ball is going to kick it. We're like so clever, sophisticated and Crusadery like that. You just wouldn't understand. It's a f*ckwit Blues thing.

As for the effort, if I didn't know the schedules leading into the match, and you told me one of these sides had travelled tens of thousands of kilometres in the last fortnight, while the other enjoyed a bye, then I would've guessed the f*ckwits in Blue had done the travelling. I've seen sacks full of dead cats bounce more than the f*ckwits in Blue tonight. Seriously. I get that Canberra is a depressing place, but FFS. At least actually try. If only to take your mind of the fact that you're in Canberra. But no. I'm sure we'll get some waffly excuse along the lines of 'oh yeah we had like this, you know, super duper analytics saying were like so cool in the second half, and the Brumbies are so like not cool in the second half. So we were like, you know, using like physiology analytics to peak at the championship minutes for the 83rd minute onward. We're like so clever, sophisticated and Crusadery like that. You just wouldn't understand. It's a f*ckwit Blues thing.'

MacDonald needs to cut a lot of the brainless and/or useless chaff once he gets a full handle on selecting the squad. Apisai can f*ck off. The James Parsons Project can f*ck off. Cowley-Tuioti can f*ck off. Pulu can f*ck off. Throw everything at poaching Funnell, Ennor and Tahuriorangi. Actually play Scott Scrafton. Never rest Rieko. Then we just might have a reasonable chance in breaking even next season.

In conclusion, f*ck you f*ckwits in Blue. F*ck.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

So not happy then mate?

 

[Brumby Runner]

Top rant, Zero.

 

[wamberal]

Top rant, Zero.

Rant of the century, I reckon. Lucky for him he is not a Waratahs fan, eh?

 

[Brumby Runner]

Congratulations to Len Ikitau on an excellent debut in Super Rugby. Scott Sio also deserves honourable mention for his best game in quite a while.