Wallabies v All Blacks, Game I

[rustycruiser]

Blue,

You don't think a lot of those boys will stay around for 2011?

I would be surprised if they all did, unless hey feel that a title defense is enough if a draw card. Smit has said he will take it year by year.

Matfield wanted to come back from overseas for the Lions and now that it's over ha will be a huge target for o'seas clubs.

Botha tried to get out of his Bulls contract and failed. He will take a good offer once it expires next year.
JdV is a walking injury and must surely be thinking of cashing in before its too late. Same goes for Fourie these days. Both these guys value will drop with every injury.
du Preez - his body is being held together with duct tape. His shoulders are both fucked and his knees are buggered.

Most of these guys are still in their prime and can command top dollar right now. In two years time they wonlt get the same money.

Jean de Villiers has signed with Munster.
Jaque Fourie has signed with Clermont (pending release from the last year of his Lions contract)

With Frans Steyn off to Racing Metro, our midfield looks like Wynand Olivier and Adi Jacobs, and sweet fuck all behind them. Robert Ebersohn and Morgan Newman the heir apparents, I guess.

Thoughts on the game. Baxter was reffed a bit on reputation. Most of the 50 50 calls seemed to go NZ way. The Aussie backline on a dry track scares me. Of the three nations, I think their players are the most gifted naturally, and interlink very well. Also great yards made after contact. It would have been a different game if the botched try had been scored early in the 1st half. I also think you guys are giving Robbie a bit of a pass. The bench was a debacle. Only two replacement backs, both of them almost brand new to test rugby and kids. And having O'Conner cover the whole backline, rather than concentrating on fullback?

 

[Scorz]

Infuriating.

Despite tipping the All Blacks on oztips, I really thought we could win this one. Without wanting to bring up that semanticist debate on the word "re-building" again, last year we were rebuilding and this year, although not the finished product, we should be a lot further along than we actually are.

We've clearly got the cattle this year. Our tight five was better than theirs,

No it isn't. About the only place Aus had it on the 5 was in the lineouts. Again. No progress.

our midfield is miles ahead,

Which is less than what you had before Dingo Deans, and your 12 botched an open line that probably would have put the game out of reach for the AB's. I'll admit that every time the Aussie backs had the ball they had something "on", but the finishing was dire...yet:

and our back three and loosies at least have parity.

Your back 3 had a shitter offensively. Parity is not just turning up for the after match. IMO You really missed Tuquri, and Mitchell will want hide from the replay. Two Dads was at least solid I guess. Palu aside, the other two were largely anonymous in the 1st half, and I was watching from an 8 o'clock angle to them. Smith had a 100th test he'll probably not rate himself. A long way off parity IMO

While Burgess' mistakes compounded the shortcomings of not committing enough men to the breakdown, our biggest weakness is that we just don't have the "big match" mentality yet. Players went missing (Dick Brown), were overawed (JOC (James O'Connor)), lost their head (Sharpie with that stupid fucking penalty and Barnes for botching that try) and didn't harden the fuck up at the breakdown. Despite the talk of "confidence", "belief", "empowerment" and all those other Dingoisms, we're clearly still not ready for the big games.

You appear to correct yourself here, so which is it mate?

BTW, I'm not here for the boring old wind up, if you are just pussed orf and not seeing clearly fair enough mate.

 

[Scarfman]

Got post jase. That's probably what it came down to. The Wallabies played more nervously than our cricketers at Lords. Overwhelmed by the task on several occasions. What else could explain the Burgess, Barnes, JOC (James O'Connor) moments.

And get under the high ball, for fuck's sake.

Paarl - fair enough to laugh at us for blaming the ref, but you're being a bit harsh on Barnes. He bombed one try for sure, but that wasn't the Wallabies only howler on the night.

 

[cyclopath]

We lost that game due to three main reasons:

1. A completely inept and somewhat biased (see scrums) referee
2. Loosing the ball in attack too many times
3. Luke Burgess

Appalling refereeing killed us.

You're a little harsh on Burgess. He and Drew Mitchell were erratic, I thought Burgess saved us a number of times so he had a mixed bag. I thought 12 was a problem for us too. Barnes' insistence on long cut out passes was a gift to the All Blacks' defence.

We tried to play too wide, not wise given the conditions. In general we weren't smart. Why take the short option on a kick re-start on your own 22 with the rain and wind howling down and not having been out of your half in 20 minutes ?

Your 12 cost you the test. The normal ref , maybe a cricket umpire will satisfied you. :lmao:

As usual, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
Barnes' error was symptomatic of the poor execution of the match, and he did not "lose" it for us on his own. Multiple errors compounded each other. And the ABs committed themselves very well in the second half.
Joubert was just one little factor, and as I stated several times earlier, we didn't lose because of him. Only a blind man would say his decisions at many times were accurate however, particularly his reffing of some of the scrums which seemed to be pre-meditated. Advantage rule poorly applied several times, offsides poorly policed for both teams, forward passes missed, lot of players off their feet at breakdowns.
You'll probably defend him on principle because you know his second cousin in Paarl or something.

 

[fatprop]

That was one of those games I think we could have benefited from a safer back three, guys like Lote & Hynes are much safer and stronger under the high ball and we knew they were coming.

 

[Reddy!]

Yeh all it will take is a bad game from one of our current wingers, or an injury and I reckon we are going to start to miss Lote.

 

[the gambler]

Am hearing reports that Australian players will take to the field wearing white armbands with the slogan Justice for Al at the next test.

 

[Rugby Rat]

Good effort spoilt by the ref. We blew a few chances yet Joubert obviously is a cheat. The Advantage over call, the Baxter penalties and the deadset shocker against Moore.

Barnes showed his Reds form. Gitts missed a couple. We let the AB's settle and when they did it was game on.

 

[Rugby Rat]

deadset :lmao:

 

[fatprop]

Good effort spoilt by the ref. We blew a few chances yet Joubert obviously is a cheat. The Advantage over call, the Baxter penalties and the Golly gosh! shocker against Moore.

Barnes showed his Reds form. Gitts missed a couple. We let the AB's settle and when they did it was game on.

Joubert also missed a load of Aus forward passes, it evens out.

 

[Rugby Rat]

Good effort spoilt by the ref. We blew a few chances yet Joubert obviously is a cheat. The Advantage over call, the Baxter penalties and the Golly gosh! shocker against Moore.

Barnes showed his Reds form. Gitts missed a couple. We let the AB's settle and when they did it was game on.

Joubert also missed a load of Aus forward passes, it evens out.

Good point. Yet no, it didn't even out. The penalties against the Wallabies...Joubert had some "interesting" interpretations of the rule book when he was a metre way from the action. The passes are always 50/50 we know that.

 

[Rugby Rat]

Also, I wouldn't say "loads" ! A few < 5.

 

[louie]

i honestly think last night Burgess lost that game for us.
the role a halfback is to link the forwards and backs. he didn't and can't do this.
i could care less how much "x factor" or "flair" the guy has. having him on the park deson't help our backs get clean ball.
we're a better team when our ten is getting consistent ball. not when our nine is making dumb mistakes and trying to break the line himself.
genia for SA!
he was crisp when he game. really gave the backline some movement.

 

[disco]

Don't blame the ref Aussies, we blew that game because we don't know how to win that's why we didn't have one team in the super 14 finals.

Berrick Barnes should have but the game to bed inside the 1st 20 minutes but we missed our chance, we lost this game because Luke Burgess doesn't have a kicking game & he couldn't hit water if he threw a ball out of a boat we lost this game because we are used to losing & saying the words "we're close" & accepting that close enough is good enough.

This team has a losers attitude that looks for excuses when the going gets tough, the All Blacks did nothing but play field position becuase they knew we would choke & make simple errors to let them back in the game.

If Barnes had put Mortlock under the sticks the AB's would have to chase the game & ATM the AB's backline is lucky to string together 2 passes & we would have blown them away.

Deans needs to make some big decisions on some players & really look at making a statement with his next 22.

 

[waratahjesus]

i honestly think last night Burgess lost that game for us.
the role a halfback is to link the forwards and backs. he didn't and can't do this.
i could care less how much "x factor" or "flair" the guy has. having him on the park deson't help our backs get clean ball.
we're a better team when our ten is getting consistent ball. not when our nine is making dumb mistakes and trying to break the line himself.
genia for SA!
he was crisp when he game. really gave the backline some movement.

i just watched the game for a second time, i dont think burgess cost us. his first half (besides some kicking) was solid, it was the second half when he came undone, but this was the same time that barnes went off, and watching the wallabys, when barnes goes, the backline loses shape, gits looks like a maniac without someone telling him what to do.

genia made a couple of poor options in his short time on the pitch. he looked better with fresh legs but i would wait a while to throw him in clean. his pass to JOC (James O'Connor) who wasnt expecting it showed were both are at. especially when it was down the blindside in our own 22.

we definately need rocky back to ad to our number of players getting over the advantage line. palu was hammered, the all blacks did well at scrum time to screw us meaning he got no run off the back of it. but we rarely did much inventive in the second half. having mortlock have to be the one to break the line at every turn is getting old and was predictable five years ago. giteau needs to run more and dare i say it, but maybe quade would be a better asset on the bench than o'connor.

 

[louie]

i just watched the game for a second time, i dont think burgess cost us. his first half (besides some kicking) was solid, it was the second half when he came undone, but this was the same time that barnes went off, and watching the wallabys, when barnes goes, the backline loses shape, gits looks like a maniac without someone telling him what to do.

Burgess bad kicking pinned us back and thats hwere the try came from. his bad decisions put us under pressure and he lack of passing gave us little movement. bench him.

 

[Scarfman]

I always think that Giteau is a fairly hard target to hit. He takes the ball running full filt forwards, but sometimes also sideways.

But Genia hit him on the sternum every time, and they'e never played together.

 

[Grandmaster Flash]

I too watched a replay this afternoon, well all the way up to where Barnes fluffed the try, and Burgess was pretty poor.

Straight from the receiving the kickoff he hesitates to pass and instead takes it into contact with the AB forward pack. Then there's the bad kicking out of hand (as listed above), the litany of shocking passes going behind Gits and over his head, the poor decision making (that kick out on the full from his wrong boot on an attacking scrum!).

He's got great talent in his up-tempo game and ball-running but his passing, the core skill of a halfback, is really lacking. Can't he move in with Farr-Jones family for the rest of the year to mentored on his passing?

 

[Scorz]

Just trying to be helpful - Burgess had McCaw/So'oialo to contend with and Genitalia had McCaw/Read which for us is a very different set up - Rodders runs around behind McCaw a lot, Read is a more traditional 8, tends to track out a bit.

So in short, maybe Burgess had more Black jerseys in his face - remembering McCaw was blowing arse tired in the last minutes, first game back etc...

 

[rsea]

Just trying to be helpful - Burgess had McCaw/So'oialo to contend with and Genitalia had McCaw/Read which for us is a very different set up - Rodders runs around behind McCaw a lot, Read is a more traditional 8, tends to track out a bit.

So in short, maybe Burgess had more Black jerseys in his face - remembering McCaw was blowing arse tired in the last minutes, first game back etc...

heheh I saw McCaw having a big huff puff session about 5 in :lmao: