RWC QF 4 AUS v SCO (Twickenham) 19th Oct 0200 AEDT

[Cardiffblue]

It seems to me that we need to find a way to play against well organised rush defense.
Wales contained us pretty well and so did the Scots.
Our last dominant game was against England who didn't pick a proper #7 to compete against The Pooper. 2 out of the 3 tries came from poor English defense in and around the ruck.
The AB's seem to be playing hot potato to counter rush defense. What are we doing?

Think this is right and the Argies contained Ireland very well.

 

[dru]

Just watched the match again making some notes of some critical errors. In Foley's case, he made a total of 7 clangers aside from the very average place kicking. What really struck me about his game this weekend was his positioning in defense. A lot of the time he is defending at fullback or on the wing, which is fine and something that we are used to seeing from a few sides other than those containing QC (Quade Cooper). But in his case he is taking way too long to get himself back into a position to be directing any sort of play or organizing our attack after a turn over. Most of the time it would take him 2 or three phases before he would get himself back into first receiver and during that time we seemed lost and saw a lot of one-out runners and completely lacked any shape. I didn't keep a count but I am fairly sure that Beale made it to first receiver more often than Foley in the second half..by default or by design I am not sure but Foley was pretty much invisible after the chip / charge-down. His confidence was obviously shot by that stage and I am amazed that he was able to muster enough composure to kick the last 3 pointer.

Giteau into first receiver more than once too.

 

[ArmchairGeneral]

Can we pause and appreciate the incredible run of games that the Wallabies have had during the RWC?! What a blooming trot of VICTORIES

 

[Cardiffblue]

Can we pause and appreciate the incredible run of games that the Wallabies have had during the RWC?!

Can we pause and appreciate the incredible run of luck that the Wallabies have had during the RWC?!

 

[ArmchairGeneral]

Can we pause and appreciate the incredible run of luck that the Wallabies have had during the RWC?!

Conan would argue you make your own luck

 

[Cardiffblue]

Conan would argue you make your own luck

True enough. You going to see the semi final?

 

[jollyswagman]

Just so we're all on the same page can you please list the 7 clangers.

Sure things BH.....times below are approximate.

4' - blew a try by throwing a 50/50 pass to Mitchell 1m from the line
16' - Completely missed a high ball - (contested)
18' - Dropped a high ball that was uncontested (knock-on), penalty to Scotland from scrum - 3 points
22' - Beale offload to Foley in space which he chipped ahead into the in-goal (ala Higgenbotham during TRC)
(0 from 3 conversions in the first half)
41' - no look inside pass to Fardy who drops the ball.
42' - forced 50/50 pass to Mitchell? (this was the Maitland yellow card - if Maitland managed to keep a hold on that he was away.
58' chip kick chargedown - try Scotland.

Those were the errors that he had a hand in directly or indirectly. What is harder to communicate is the effect of his positional play had on our attacking structures, or lack therof. He was missing from first receiver far too often when, IMO, he should have been in there and directing the play....and no, I am not going to blame Foley for Slipper's intercept, but this was one instance among many, when we had a forward at first receiver who was in two minds as to what they needed to be doing. Even if he managed to be two steps behind and barking orders at the guys it would have helped but he spent way to much time out wide or out back to provide any sort of organization on attack.

 

[Pfitzy]

We missed Pocock significantly but I think the larger issue relative to the English and Wales games was our defensive line was far more static and Scotland got across the gain line far more easily.

...

Where was the dominant tackling and strong rush defence that was so apparent over the last two weeks?

Fatigue. This week will be light training I'm thinking, and a good, long look at some video, with fines handed out for stupidity.

Argies will play the same kind of game as Scotland - in our faces. We need to address that, but doing what we did for TK's try i.e. bash them up in close and stop this "wide for the sake of wide" shit. We're not earning it.

Ok super tanked walking around central London right now singing True Blue is basically the best thing EVER

You can still spell straight so you're not tanked enough.

 

[BDA]

Lots of neutral (mostly kiwi) fans on here complaining how the Scots should have won. Give me a break.

If those team's had switched jerseys you'd be talking about how the Wallabies deserved to lose, were completely outplayed, let in 5 tries and only scored tries due to the Scots' errors.

If Foley had made his kicks this would have been a much more comfortable game for the Aussies.

Also if people want to talk about refereeing decisions, could we please start with the scrum? According to Joubert the Wallabies couldn't do a thing right in that area. Whilst I thought the Scots scrummed well, some of the decisions were frustrating to say the least. In particular the final scrum of the game should have been a penalty to Australia.

 

[jollyswagman]

I recall Sio being pinged for collapsing when it was the Scottish prop that slipped his bind too.

 

[Braveheart81]

Sure things BH...times below are approximate.

4' - blew a try by throwing a 50/50 pass to Mitchell 1m from the line - maybe he could have reached the tryline and scored himself but surely Mitchell should have caught this and scored. Not sure this is a clanger.
16' - Completely missed a high ball - (contested) - not a clanger
18' - Dropped a high ball that was uncontested (knock-on), penalty to Scotland from scrum - 3 points
22' - Beale offload to Foley in space which he chipped ahead into the in-goal (ala Higgenbotham during TRC) - certainly poor execution but he was pretty isolated. Not sure I'd call that a clanger.
(0 from 3 conversions in the first half) - poor goal kicking. Definitely one of his big issues this game.
41' - no look inside pass to Fardy who drops the ball. - the pass was fine. How is this a clanger for Foley?
42' - forced 50/50 pass to Mitchell? (this was the Maitland yellow card - if Maitland managed to keep a hold on that he was away. - how is that a clanger? Maitland got yellow carded. He was never in position to take an intercept.
58' chip kick chargedown - try Scotland. - absolutely this was a clanger

Those were the errors that he had a hand in directly or indirectly. What is harder to communicate is the effect of his positional play had on our attacking structures, or lack therof. He was missing from first receiver far too often when, IMO, he should have been in there and directing the play..and no, I am not going to blame Foley for Slipper's intercept, but this was one instance among many, when we had a forward at first receiver who was in two minds as to what they needed to be doing. Even if he managed to be two steps behind and barking orders at the guys it would have helped but he spent way to much time out wide or out back to provide any sort of organization on attack.

The 7 clangers you suggested seems to be about 2 plus the poor goal kicking in the first half. One error was disastrous and cost us a try and one was poor and cost us 3 points.

 

[Pfitzy]

18' - Dropped a high ball that was uncontested (knock-on), penalty to Scotland from scrum - 3 points

Did Foley pack in the scrum too?

 

[gel]

That last penalty was not what cost the Scots the match.

I think letting in 5 tries with 2 conversions, as well as 1 other penalty goal might have had something to do with Scotland's loss.

I think anyone (be they Scots or others) who wants to fixate on that one moment to the exclusion of all other moments in the match is deluded.

The match is decided by who has the most points when the referee calls time up. That was Australia.

The bleeting is misplaced.

 

[jollyswagman]

The 7 clangers you suggested seems to be about 2 plus the poor goal kicking in the first half. One error was disastrous and cost us a try and one was poor and cost us 3 points.

I respect your opinion BH and have no interest in debating whether or not the errors meet the definition of clanger or not. Call them poor options, simple errors, whatever you wish. He made far too many of them at critical moments in the game. It was a very poor performance nonetheless and had he not slotted the last minute penalty I think you would have a hard time defending him.

 

[teach]

Lots of neutral (mostly kiwi) fans on here complaining how the Scots should have won. Give me a break..

Australia finished with more points on the board than Scotland. Where I am from that means you won. No problem.

As far as the penalty goes, from the replay I saw, it looked all the world to me like a scottish player propelled it forward. But if we have to get down to ultra-slow-mo- close up to find out what actually happened then Joubert, who made a decision in real time without the benefit of a rewind button, can hardly be faulted.

If Joubert made a cock up, so what? Refs are not perfect and make mistakes all the time. Some are worse than others. It is all part of the game. Goes part and parcel with the bounce of the ball, weather, illness, crowd support and others.

Do we want every game to have a TMO double checking penalties? They will take forever to play.
.

 

[Braveheart81]

I respect your opinion BH and have no interest in debating whether or not the errors meet the definition of clanger or not. Call them poor options, simple errors, whatever you wish. He made far too many of them at critical moments in the game. It was a very poor performance nonetheless and had he not slotted the last minute penalty I think you would have a hard time defending him.

I've said multiple times he had a poor game.

Let's keep some sense of rationality to the discussion though otherwise it becomes meaningless. How do you blame a player for other people's errors?

E.g. if Mitchell catches the first offload as he should and scores would you be saying that Mitchell scored a try in spite of Foley passing it to him? How does that make sense?

 

[Mr Doug]

I don't understand this idea of Scotland's tries being scored 'against the run of play'?!

The defence puts pressure on and the attack falters, makes a mistake and the opposition scores a try.

I don't think that in any of Scotland's tries, the Wallabies were on red hot attack and close to scoring their own try were they? It's not like there was an intercept 5 metres out from the Scottish line or some kind of bad luck against the Wallabies resulting in Scotland scoring.

Bullrush, I feel you are over-complicating the term "against the run of play". It's nothing to do with how far out from the line that possession changed, to me it's just simply this: If the gold team has possession and is running in a Southerly direction, and suddenly an "interloper" from the blue team snatches the ball whilst running in a Northerly direction, and scores a try, then that try is deemed to have been scored "against the run of play"!
Totally different to the term "gifted try", which I don't agree with, as the player who scores that try has to have placed himself in a position which allows him to accept that "gift", and that usually involves either individual skill, or the ability to read the play in advance (which is also a 'skill')!

Now look who's complicating things, but I think you get what I'm saying?!

 

[jollyswagman]

Did Foley pack in the scrum too?

WTF Pfitzy??......he dropped the pill cold.....it was a clanger. Scotland won a penalty from the ensuing scrum. 3 points to Scotland on the back of a basic error.

 

[Pfitzy]

WTF Pfitzy??..he dropped the pill cold...it was a clanger. Scotland won a penalty from the ensuing scrum. 3 points to Scotland on the back of a basic error.

Now you're just getting shrill.

Lots of players made mistakes in that game. Pinning shit on Foley after he's delivered us the fucking game in the end, and the two before that, is just white noise.

We got away with it, we learned a lot about ourselves, and we can expect the same thing from Argentina next weekend that we got from Wales and Scotland on the last two weekends.

How the team (and Foley) recover from this is what counts.

 

[Joe Blow]

It was a quarter final for the ages and no-one can deny that the Scots turned up in a big way.
Here we are looking at a semi next week and they are out. It could easily have been very different. It's the game we love and why we are all so eager to watch every single test.
Most likely the Wallabies were not quite at their best. We will find out next week if we can get back up there. In our world cup wins we have had a scrape through match at a critical point in each. This was ours in 2015. Anything can happen from here for all four remaining sides.
Love to see the Scots get back up to the level they were playing at in the 70s and 80s and give the 6Ns a shove.