Wallabies vs All Blacks 10th August @Optus Stadium Perth

I'd like to note (if it hasn't already been discussed in this thread) the evident value in picking a bigger guy at 6, giving us two legit big backrowers. Those two units were everywhere on Saturday night.

Rather than looking at the carrying stats in absolute terms, I think you need to weight them by the amount of possession each side has. If a team has double the possession you'd expect them to make about double the carries. The match stats tells us that the Wallabies had 65% possession overall, which equates to 52 minutes of possession/attacking time. They should naturally, then, have a lot more carries and metres gained than the AB's and their 28 minutes of possession.

This is what you get if you quickly weight those carry numbers by the minutes in possession:



What do we find from a quick look? Well, as I think most would expect, Hooper and Savea were the most involved in their respective packs running game. Hooper carried 3.46 times per ten minutes of Wallabies attacking time, and Savea 3.21 per ten minutes of All Black attacking time. Though there's a bit of a discrepancy in their metres/carry, where Savea was comfortably out ahead at 6.67 m/carry, and Hooper at 2.28 m/carry. I suspect Savea's ridiculous dummy that allowed him to race off down field for a big gain is responsible for his large carry metres.

There's also a clear difference in the carrying contributions of starters and reserves between the two teams. The Australian starting pack accounts for 89% of the overall carries in the forwards, and each had 8-18 runs, equating to 1.54-3.46 carries per 10 minutes of possession. None of their reserves, however, carried more than once per 10 minutes of possession. Meanwhile the NZ pack is more-or-less the opposite. The bench accounted for 45% of the forwards overall carries, and all had at least one carry per 10 minutes of possession. In the starters, Coles, Savea and Read did most of the heavy lifting in attack, though Read wasn't that effective.

The reason for this difference? Likely a mix of game-plan and context, I'd guess. The AB's game-plan has the hookers as primary attacking threats out wide, and Savea is the de facto #8. I believe their forward assault leading to the try came one the reserves were on (?), which might explain their increased involvement as that was something like a ~20 phase sequence.

With regards to the Wallabies, their involvements are much more evenly distributed among the starters, which backs up the observations that it was an all-round effort with no one shirking their duties. As for the reserves low levels of involvement, could simply be the match broke up and got more frantic by the time they arrived, with the backs likely having greater prominence. You'd have to go back through the previous tests to figure out if it were something to be concerned about.

Did Matt Toomua actually do any playmaking? He ran well, but I don't remember much actual fly-halfing.

Salty, salty tears...

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12257778

I have a lot of affection for Kiwis and their generally rugged sense of humour and self deprecation but it all seems a bit brittle once the bloody All Blacks lose a rugby game.

This one is my favourite:

And while coach Steve Hansen called Ardie Savea's push on the back of Hooper's head shortly before that a "dumb act", for referee Jerome Garces to penalise it shows a remarkable lack of empathy and feel for the game. Hooper pushed Savea in the back of the head by way of retaliation, a penalisable act in itself.

Strange looking neck-rolls that let us score 6 tries.

Some arse about cause and effect there. Let's hope the Wallabies can up the ante in this discussion.

[/quote]

WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE ALL BLACKS!?

The obvious question is are the 80% possession stats a cause or a result of the terrific carry numbers in the first half?

Even saltier...

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby...grWDAM1ofL-5hIh7-jdzMVyppo_bjipzD8q0#comments

WTF? What is Kerevi supposed to do in that situation, stop?

diddums

This is peak delusion. We're in dangerous territory here chaps, possibly approaching a psychological break. This is what happens when the self-image of a nation is too finely balanced on the outcome of a single sporting team.

Yes, it's funny, I think Garces showed remarkable empathy by understanding the ABs tactics of targeting Hooper legally and otherwise. Individual actions are one thing, but he saw a clear theme, a dangerous theme, and responded accordingly.

Agreed. Even Phil Kearns couldn't sink that low.. that's saying something.

Ian Anderson might just be NZ's answer to Shiggins.

We are well and truly through the looking glass now. Looks like we were fortunate to not have at least 5 players carded!