Wales vs Australia, EOYT 2010, Millenium Stadium

[Langthorne]

2 played, 2 won. Good start.

Fainga'a for Moore was always going to be drop in class. Fainga'a tries hard, but is a bit undersized. I was relieved that his first throw was not a sign of things to come.

There was some good play - the backs, lineout, general defence

Some OK - breakdown

Some poor - scrum, kicking out of hand

The backs were a pretty good except for Giteau's kicking early in the match when a pass would have been the better option. Cooper did a couple of good things in defence (ripping the bal out) but when the chips were down he missed his tackles. Sharpe and Pocock were the best of the forwards. Beale was very enterprising.

These guys willl need a good rest this week, athough there is the scrum to work on...

 

[RugbyReg]

I'm pretty sure he scored that one against the baa baas in 09 when he did the swan dive, all the commentators were laughing about it.

Does that match count as a test though

nah, that's not a test and this was his first test try.

 

[Jethro Tah]

Was it just me or was Barnes extra slow on the timing of the scrums? I swear I could have gone for a piss at 'touch' then be back in time to hear him say 'engage'.

 

[dobduff11]

Yeah he took along time to say engage but was ok not too many dodgy decisions

I think Alexander is the best trying scoring prop of the modern era, wasn't he nearly the top try scorer in the super 14 this year

This is the one I was talking about, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55qplH9Jc5U

 

[dobduff11]

Just had a look at the stats on SMH

Wallabies interesting stats include 21 turnovers,6 line breaks, 13 offloads, 3 line out steals, 89% tackle completion 11 missed tackles

Individual stats, Rocky 5 offloads,
JOC (James O'Connor) 110m from 6 runs, 2 try assists, 1 line break
Sharpey hit 11 rucks

 

[disco]

That was a step back last night but the good thing is we won. Deans loves to talk progress & that was definitely a step back & not just at the scrum we were also beaten at the breakdown.

If we play like that next week England will kill us.

 

[vidiot]

Winning two in a row is a step forward.

I didn't see General Noriega in the stands with JW and RD - maybe he just couldn't watch. You wonder what they can do in a week, though getting Moore back in and getting the pack to push might help. Meerkats, that was a nice analogy.

 

[dobduff11]

Who was the young guy in front of robbie and Jim wearing wallaby kit, he might have been an analyst or something to that effect?

 

[Jethro Tah]

A win is a win folks. I'll take that one. However, the scrum is going to have to put in a heap of hours on the training paddock as the English pack will be as keen as mustard and no way we would have got away with that overall performance against the french. I think rain is forecast for most of the week, which doesn't help matters. All up, the team did well and I expect to see improvement.

First impressions on individual performances:
Pocock excelled at the breakdown, as always. He seemed to sit back a bit for the first few Wales rucks to see how Barnes would referee it then seeing a fair bit of leniency got stuck in. The steal in tandem with Elsom was a gem, per the Welsh commentators "textbook stuff".
I thought Quade ran it a bit too much. I swear I saw him make one or two decent tackles early on but he got lazy as the game went on. Good on him for the two steals but crossed fingers he concentrates on his tackling as he was targetted by the bigger Welsh ball runners.
I actually think Gits wasn't too bad. Yes, Barnes would be better and yes I screamed when he kicked too early when he had players outside him but his defense was good in tandem with Genia covering the 9, 10, 12 channel. My expectations of him are falling thus by his recent standards he was ok.
Gilbert, Shmoo and JOC (James O'Connor) - irreplaceable. End of story. Turner, Hynes and Ioane to fight over the bench spot.

 

[dobduff11]

JOC (James O'Connor) kept slotting in at 12 throughout the match, I have a feeling/(probably just hope) that JOC (James O'Connor) will play 12 against Italy

Beale also went to 10 alot and he looked sharp from that position, maybe he will get some time at 10 this tour.

Back three were quality in the match, genia getting a bit better

 

[#1 Tah]

Well we won, the turf was wet and got ripped up so not ample conditions but confidence boosting anyway. I am worried about next week cause we travel to Ireland then England

 

[jay-c]

Yeah he took along time to say engage but was ok not too many dodgy decisions

I think Alexander is the best trying scoring prop of the modern era, wasn't he nearly the top try scorer in the super 14 this year

This is the one I was talking about, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55qplH9Jc5U

all we need now is to develop a scrum and we'll have a complete player

 

[Reddy!]

Beale also went to 10 alot and he looked sharp from that position, maybe he will get some time at 10 this tour.

Back three were quality in the match, genia getting a bit better

I hope Beale doesn't - anyway I don't think he will get time at 10 as it seems any player is allowed to slot into 10 when appropriate in this Wallaby backline - I saw Mitchell do it a bit last week and again this week, and as you mentioned Beale and obviously Giteau.

I'm pretty happy about the back 3 at the moment - Mitchell - despite a quiet-ish night compared with J'OC and Beale - showed an enormous amount of strength in the tackle last night making him a hard man to bring down. Let's support get there in time.

 

[S120]

Hey guys and girls, very new to this site and I'm just happy to find a site where there are plenty of people willing to talk about the rugby. The one I normally post on is pretty damn empty right now, very annoying. Anyway, here's what I put up on that site this morning.

Scrum first up. Fainga'a is not a Test player right now IMO. I'm sorry but I think it is clear. Of course he cannot be blamed for all of the problems had last night, that would be silly. But we desperately needed a stronger and more stable man in the middle. He improved somewhat in the Home tests earlier this year but at 93 kgs he is just not big enough to sustain a scrum for 80 mins against such a strong front row as Rees, Jenkins and the Black Sheep, Adam Jones. Moore being a late withdrawal hurt us quite badly in that sense and Ben Alexander seems to be taking some time to regain his best scrummaging form after his bad injury. It only gets tougher next week against Sheridan and Cole, possibly the scrummaging best prop combo in world rugby. Btw, the scrum they scored their try off was very unlucky not to be penalised for us as Benny Robinson had certainly gone through the 90 degrees on his side. But I digress.

The backline was just waaaaaaaaaay too slick and nothing the Welsh threw at us looked like penetrating our defence in open and general play. It was way more easy for our backline to make ground, find gaps, exploit those gaps and beat tackles than it was for the Welsh backline, understrength though it was. They never looked like anything that would threaten our lead. Even their play through the forwards in general play wasn't that effective IMO. It made a bit of ground but the Wallabies forwards had them covered it seemed. Lineout was good as well.

Beale dominated and it is amazing how much he has improved. His quick burst of speed and ability to find gaps and beat tacklers was too much for the Welsh defence to handle. Not to mention how often Cooper exploited space out wide with O'Connor and Mitchell also finding a lot of space often. Cooper's passing is just so crisp and quick and accurate, it gives out runners so much space to work with. Giteau had another underwhelming game.

Pocock had another cracking game. He is amazingly good at the breakdown and despite every country vowing to stop him with pure numbers, nobody seems able to do it. He is simply too good.

And well done NZ for shutting up that tosser of an assistant coach for England. Claiming the TriNations is not real test rugby is just another example of smug Northern Hemisphere arrogance and self-satisfaction. Something that their performances and general ability don't suggest they deserve to have. And well done to a very understrength SA for giving us a clean sweep of the Northern Hemisphere. Knowing how they operate though, their journos will spin it in a way that will make it seem like they are "building" and the gap really isn't that great. They're kidding themselves however.

 

[barbarian]

Firstly I think Wales played quite well. Their discipline at the ruck was good, and their forward pack was dominant. If they had a half decent backline then we would have been in real strife.

We played OK, but our execution in the 22 let us down. I can think of at least 5 silly turnovers on their line- a couple of inside flick passes from Genia/Burgess that were knocked on, a poor cross-kick, Beale's supposed 'double movement' (which should have gone upstairs IMO), Giteau's poor knock on in space, Beale's knock on after his two kick run (OK probably not silly but you see where I am going). There were many more.

Other than that our scrum was the obvious other problem. My only thought on that is I think we lose a lot with Fainga'a, who is very light. Lineout was good (becoming a real strength), kicking was better. Our backline played very well again, made ground and created space every time we had the ball. Gits was quiet again, the writing could be on the wall. Overall it wasn't brilliant, but wasn't terrible either, and I will certainly take the win.

PS Marto was right when he criticised Barnes for his yellow on Shanklin. The try was on for all money, and he should have played advantage. That cost us 4 points.

 

[Bowside]

This team can't lay claim to being the best in the world untill they fix a few things, such as:
A) the scrum is shite
B) They make far too many errors
C) Quade can not make a front on tackle unassisted
D) Giteau has lost his mojo and not dropping him for Barnes or JOC (James O'Connor) is now no longer unavoidable.
E) Genia's all round running game is off, he hasn't looked anywhere near as good for the wallabies as he did for the reds.
F) Kicking in play was generally shit, to many non pressure kicks out on the full.
G) Use of the bench still not as profound as I would have hoped, yet I have a feeling dingo has a plan that hes working to.

......did I mention the scrum.

 

[DPK]

We're fucked. England really pushed the New Zealanders at Twickers, and NZ had a proper scrum.

Fainga'a's got to go. Too light, can't seem to bind in the scrum and seems to try to hard and ends up giving penalties in the loose.

Barnes looked pretty sharp again, but Giteau will probably start at 12 in all games for the rest of the tour, nay his career. Maybe someone needs to convince him to retire?

Wayne Barnes was alright. Wales really crowded the breakdown but he reffed it pretty well.

Warburton vs Pocock was a good battle, the two young guns fighting hard. Great watching.

 

[ChargerWA]

Is Baxter fit, not that Robbies pride would ever let him send an SOS, but what if we all chipped in and had him sitting in the stands should Ben twinge a back muscle in the warmups.

 

[I like to watch]

What happened to the ruthless, aggressive Wallabies QC (Quade Cooper) was talking about?
I haven't seen the game yet,from the posts I have read it doesn't sound they played as he advertised.
I assume after he talked it up this week he was stellar in defence?

 

[vidiot]

QC (Quade Cooper) was minutely better - he made a couple of low tackles quite well, and ripped the ball from runners a couple of times in the tackle. Still not able to pull off a dominant tackle on .... anyone.