TPN - a new deity
Waratahs 25 Sharks 21
It was the same old shit different year for Tahs fans as Hickey’s men dished up a crapfest. The Sharks were better but not much – they were on the nose too.
I was chatting to some members as we were lining up for the doors to open and eyeing each other as to who had the pace to race up 3 flights of stairs to get the best seats. (Old Lee had a good run too – walking the dogs every night pays off). Anyhoo, folks were expecting a bit of running rugby. Even though they leaked 6 tries to the Bulls last week, they scored 4 and it was going to be fun to watch them against the Sharks; wasn’t it?
I was more circumspect knowing my Tahs under Hickey and McKenzie in the last 4 years or so and their ability to disappoint their fans, even if they win. [If you think this is boring it is cliffhanger stuff compared to most of the game.]
The Tahs were bloody awful. The same players who dished the ball out to each other at Loftus with a bit of joy for the game played like Englishmen – an insult, I know. Instead of aiming at gaps before they got the ball they found tacklers most of the time; nor was the support play as good as last week and ditto with the passing which was too much at the man and often too hard to catch.
Then there was the ping pong. I was sitting next to Sinclair Hill, the Oz polo legend, and explained a few things to him about the game. He kept tapping me on the knee and said why didn’t that Tahs player run with the ball instead of kicking it straight to a player in a black jersey. I got a few taps from the great man and a lot of the time I was flabbergasted because I had no clue either.
It was though they were being paid to provide material for Stephen Jones’ next article in the Sunday Times.
I don’t know how it was in other parts of the ground but the members were going ballistic at the lack of enterprise of the Tahs players; some of them even booed.
There weren’t many good moments but Kankowski’s effort in intercepting a Burgess pass and racing away to score was grand rugby as was Jacobs reading the Tahs backline like a comic book and slipping in to score, almost apologetically. TPN’s charge to score was good stuff too.
I thought the Tah’s bench would have it all over the Sharks bench in the last quarter but it was the other way around. Most of the Tahs players were used too late to have effect and that was unaccountable because the starting players must have been tired after their travel from JHB. The Sharks reserves such as BdP, Beast, Deysel and Botes had an immediate effect and they had the Tahs panicking in the last 20 minutes.
Earlier JdP was a real dickhead for putting his foot out and tripping Hangers who did a lovely dive, an 8.5 at least. The good doctor deserved a card for stupidity. Dunno what Goode did for his card but he’s a crafty sod and was probably guilty as charged.
Young Kurtley may have deserved the man of the match award for saving the game with a few minutes to go. I thought he went for an intercept and knocked the ball forward, but the incident was way over the other side of the field and I haven’t seen the replay yet. My jury is still out until I do.
If he was trying an intercept, he shouldn’t have got a card, but since he did get one, the Sharks would probably have scored a try had he not done what he did because they were heading for Campo’s corner at a fair clip and wouldn’t have been stopped. That means a penalty try should have been awarded.
Referee Marks either dudded Beale or the Sharks. He was weak and split it up he middle. Perhaps Marks deserves the Tahs MOTM award. I know damn sure that if Dickensen gave a card he would have given a penalty try as well.
For the Tahs TPN was terrific and easily the best of the park. Hangers looked very calm and assured as usual but he was standing back so deep sometimes it’s a wonder Burgess hads the strength to dish it back that far.
Barnes was disappointing as was Anesi but they were hardly Lone Rangers. 13. Carter got the ball once and seemed clueless about what to do, as though playing so wide has given him options he can’t compute. He’s only a 12 in my book. A pity because I thought he had his best game for the Tahs last week.
For the Sharks Pienaar was poor at scrumhalf and they didn’t start to sizzle until Kockott came on and Pienaar moved one out. Bismark dP was terrific from the bench and I thought the contrast to Smit was fairly embarrassing for the skipper. Adi Jacobs was an old master and full of tricks – and Terblanche as usual looked useful provided someone else did his tackling for him.
JdP was crap even apart from his indiscipline and Muller, like Smit, had better look in the mirror and ask himself how long does he want to keep doing this? But not Baxter for the Tahs; not Angry – he was like a pup.
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spot on
Qh what a boring game………agree totally with “Tahs fans have had enough”
In his “Fitz Files” column in the SMH yesterday, Peter Fitzsimons wrote:
“Memo: NSW Waratahs. We’re all coming to see you play tonight. This once. We want you to win, and if you can’t win take a piece of them home with you to show your mother. Either way though, we want to see you run with the ball, dart from the base, swing it wide, charge it forward like mad things, step left and right, and through into open space with the wind in your hair and we in the crowd roaring for more. We don’t want to see so many up-and-unders – it makes our noses bleed; bloody endless collapsed scrums, time after time after time until we cry for mercy; dull clumps of forwards taking it forward a third of a metre at a time; penalty attempts from all over the field, all the time, and a desire to win the game that way. I repeat: we are coming, but we bloody well won’t continue to if you don’t provide rugby worth watching. You blokes played like genii in South Africa last week, and we want to see that here. The NRL starts next week, and this is the one chance you’ve got to get our undivided attention. So … run it!”
Sadly they didn’t get this memo.
Crowd last night 21,000. Crowd next week less than 5000. The crapiest game of rugby I have ever watched. Hickey needs to be sent packing back to club rugby for his comments at half time ” we don’t attack from our half” what f…king BS. He has ruined a mighty team.
That was unbelievable rubbish. The tahs should be 0-4….they need to fire hickey…and Phil needs to be stripped of captaincy. You would think the value of the bonus point would be clear by now.
I’m sure it was a crap game but give them a chance. Just getting back from a road trip might make them a little flat. I know it’s sad but s14 rugby just won’t become the spectacle it was five years ago overnight, although every friday after work I pray it will.
The side had 2 tough games in SA & then traveled back to Sydney so a scratchy game wasn’t that surprising. Thought our scrum was brilliant – Baxter & Robinson totally dominated their opposites.
That is the only glimmer of a possibility of a maybe excuse.
How long must you give them a chance…. uuummm must be a long flight I spose you cant realy sleep in business class. They are professional they need to suck it up and put some intensity in their game.
And it should have been a penalty try for the slap down.
No excuses, they are paid professionals, besides they can sleep on the plane. The players all have great individual talent and combined correctly should provide a synergistic powerhouse. There must have been some underlying problem for them all to play so miserably. I suspect it is Hickey who obviously has risen to his level of incompetance. If I was there I would boooed them as well and then left the ground early. Even the youngsters didn’t even want to rush on to the ground after the game. What a sad night for Australian Rugby, it just continues to slide into mayhem.
Burgess is so like gg stops has a look has another look meanwhile the defence is setting up he has another look then does as sideward dart ??????
Agree. We all applaud when he makes an instinctive break but he would serve his team better just to clear the ball as fast as he can 95% of the time without contemplating the universe.
It doesn’t sound too hard and it isn’t
I thought he played pretty well again in the weekend. He seems to be putting his runners over the advantage line every time and until someone else stands up in the Tahs backline and shows that they have the potential or willingness to create something his running game with the forwards looks like the only attacking source the Tahs have got.
Unbelieveably disappointing. I watched four games over the weekend. Blues v Saders – Brumbies v Lions – Reds v Chiefs and Waratahs v Sharks.
The only one where any real rugby was played was between the Reds and the Chiefs. Blues, Saders, Brumbies, Lions, Tahs and Sharks were boredom personified; especially the last two.
If this keeps up nobody will be playing any rugby at all twenty years from now. It is a professional game and yes you have to win, but you MUST entertain too. Otherwise there aint gonna be nobody come to see you play anymoa and you aint gonna get your fat salary cheques any moa.
Playing so that you don’t lose is not part of that equation and coaches and players need to start acknowledging their responsibility to fans and the rising generation of rugby players or the dwindling numbers of them that still retain an interest in rugby.
John O’Neill is right to insist on better things from the troops. He needs to give the coaches a bigger message with a bigger stick.
Berrick Barnes is not in my next WB team and neither is Handless Mortlock or Foxtrot Burgess, and for that matter Phil Waugh is out of the squad altogether. But I’m not picking the next WB squad so said members can relax.
With the state the games in, a new AFL team coming to Sydney and the NRL season starting, Hickey serves up this steaming pile of shit.
This is more important than just the Tahs. Hickey should be sacked this week for the good of the game.
Even though all 3 Aussie teams won this weekend (save the Force of course on a bye), I was only impressed with QLD’s win over the Chiefs.
ACT and NSW were extremely disappointing in their respective wins, simply bcoz they couldn’t play good enough attacking rugby and were not up for the 4 try bonus point at all.
Oh and aside that, I said in the earlier post that the Chiefs and the Canes MUST be stopped for Australia’a top 4 hopes and you got just that this weekend!
Apart from the Reds beating the Chiefs, all Aussies should thank the Cheetahs dearly for taking care of the Hurricanes in Bleomfontein about 5 or so hours ago from now
Next week from Australia’s point of view, this is who they should support in some crucial games for their top 4 hopes:
Chiefs v Saders => support Saders
NSW v Lions => (do I have to mention?)
ACT v Sharks => (do I have to mention?)
Bulls v H’landers => (any)
Stormers v Canes => support Stormers
QLD v W Force => sorry Force. Give it up
The Waratahs are not running to the line together in attack… They are attacking the line as individuals which is easily defended… Surely this is questionable coaching as they have plenty of world-class talent in the backs.
Last nights efforts were disappointing. The Tahs let the Sharks back into the match and were very luck to hold onto a slim win…
World class is a bit rich but they are at least S14 class, but you wouldn’t have known it last night.
You can’t blame the outside backs too much because with Burgess hatching the ball so much and first receiver playing too deep to do anything decent except to avoid a charge down of a poor kick downfield, they got bugger all good pill.
Even the odd time the ball was spread wide it was contaminated by delay, poor passing and often, cluelessness.
Please come down Michael Cheika and bring Alan Gaffney with you to coach the backs. That combo has served Leinster fairly well.
Tell then how to run the ball Gaff and give them some of the old Randwick moves.
Start with the advice “This is a rugby ball. It is a precious thing. Cherish it fondly; for the ball, well received and well delivered will do wonderful things.”
Tell them some of the tenets of the game as old Cyril Towers told you: make your fellow backs look better than they are, never hesitate to run forward and most of all – enjoy the game.
These elements have been missing for so long in Tahs rugby that they are scarcely remembered.
There is no joy in the way they are playing even if they win. No joy.
Spot on! I 100% endorse everything you wrote.
I never saw Cyril Towers play but I still fondly remember his commentary on the ABC when they televised the Sydney comp on Saturday afternoon. He knew what he was talking about and he didn’t shout at the microphone either.
Most Sharks fans (or maybe anti-Waratahs) are blaming the ref Paul Marks for their loss to NSW; saying the ref, who is an Aussie, was biased against them and helping the Tahs to win the game.
Guys guys, let’s give both ACT and NSW one more chance each.
Both teams just returned from their respecitve SA tour and I’m sure the jetlag must have crept in to them.
Well at least they both won, unlike the Chiefs who tired out and lost to the Reds after returning from 3 week tour of SA + Western AUS
I think I understand the problem. Hickey says the Tahs don’t attack from their own half. At the SFS, which is their home ground, they effectively own both halves, so any form of attack therefore becomes illogical.
This from Burgo in today’s SMH
”I guess I’ve taken the shackles off a bit and am playing on instinct again – rather than overplaying stuff in my mind. [Waratahs forwards coach] Michael Foley’s been really good for that. He’s just been saying: ‘You can’t be afraid to make mistakes’ and ‘That’s just life’. And ‘Waughy’ [Phil Waugh] has also been talking to everybody saying it’s a responsibility of everyone not to go into your shell, to actually play football. It’s pretty simple when you think about it like that. And I’m loving it.”
He is fucking kidding isn’t he. That is the most galling thing about the Tahs, it’s not so much they play like an under 15 rep side, it’s the fact they constantly talk up how they are going to unleash a wave of attacking rugby.
How the fuck can they keep a straight face when they make statements like that, or do they believe what they are saying?
I think it’s dangerously close to the latter. They actually believe what they are saying.
just a thought, the tahs wernt the only team playing last night, maybe the defending team caused problems in the tahs attack, just a thought.
Hard to know if the Sharks defence was an issue for the Tahs as they rarely tested it preferring instead to kick.
I seem to recall Waugh (?) in his post-match interview saying something along the lines of “Yeah we would’ve liked to run with the ball a bit more and attack their line”, then not explaining why they didn’t. Can’t remember his exact words, and can’t find a transcript of the interview.
You could’ve bloody fooled me. I wonder if they’re saying that stuff just to con fans to turn up next week, or if they’re effectively saying “Yeah, if those guys hadn’t kept returning our kicks and had let us camp in their territory we would’ve run all night.” Or maybe he’s hinting that they want to run but are required not to by the game-plan.
On, hopefully, a positive note, TPN and Halangahu had good games. TPN keeps putting his hand up and his lineout throwing has improved immensely. Currently I think he is ahead of Moore for the run on hookers booth in the WBs. Halangahu looks to be technically accomplished, but not quite the goods that Cooper is at the mo.
It was also good to see that Big Bad Benn is still crunching into the scrums in a very authoritive way. He had some good minor touches in the loose too. Mumm could have done a bit more I feel, but overall he didn’t have a bad game.
The question constantly in my mind these days is whether a forward pass is a refereeing discretionary event. Sometimes the refs call it and sometimes they don’t, even when you feel that they must have seen it on most occasions.
Puzzling.
Squeak has set up some nice tries for the brumbies this season. TPN has a way to go and his playing style lends him to injury…
Yeah, he is a bit kamakaze isn’t he?
Hooray to Australia!
By the end of next week’s actions, we’ll be able to see at least one Aussie team in the top 4 (likely to be the Brumbies)!
Coz this is what is likely to happen for next week:
1. Chiefs vs Saders @ Hamilton
Saders by 10 to 15
2. NSW vs Lions @ Sydney
Tahs by at least 15
3. ACT vs Sharks @ Canberra
Brumbies by 10 or less
4. Bulls vs H’landers @ Pretoria
Bulls by at least 15
5. Stormers vs Canes @ Cape Town
Stormers by 10 to 15
6. QLD vs W Force @ Brisbane
Reds by at least 15
If the results pend out like mentioned above, then the Brumbies should get into 3rd or 4th, with the Reds and the Tahs not far behind
Crap…. what a bloody disappointment, I would have preferred they played like last week and lost than have to watch 80 minutes of that rubbish. Hickey looks desperate and out of his depth. The Tahs have looked consistently under prepared and lack the cohesion and execution of team who’s players have been training together for the amount of years that this Tahs team has been together.
Good article that I think reflects the thoughts of many a die hard Tah’s fan, including myself.
The sad fact is the Tah’s have done little to demonstrate they are a contender for the S14 title this year and with almost a 3rd of the season over may become little more than nuisance value to the top few teams.
I was amused by many fans (probably the same people who say that it is not whether you win or lose but whether you have fun) last week in a different forum talking about how well the team played in Pretoria. Despite the warm and fuzzy feeling everyone seemed to have, we still lost. You don’t win titles unless you can play for 80 minutes and put away all comers when it counts.
The Tah’s game plan doesn’t seem to have moved into 2010. Conservative play still seems to be the norm and the team actually appears to have gone backwards in some areas. Phil Waugh has been a solid servant however I fear that with him as Captain, Hangers at 10 and Hickey driving the clipboard status quo will remain.
Perhaps the team should spend less time organising bloody dog parades for their pets and start thinking about what it takes to win.
So, the dumping of the ELV sanctions have made no difference whatsover to the predominance of kicking in the game? Point proven….
Not wishing to get too personal here but the 1/2 time interview with Chris Hickey made me wonder if they had just woken the bloke out of nap. I mean the bloke doesn’t just understate he totally fails to maintain interest.
Is he really as uninspiring as he comes across?
In honour of the Tahs forthcoming visit to WA the 20th of March has been declared “Ladies Day” in Perth.
You know they won right?
Yeah, they were going for the whinge though.
nice one.
I saw the last ten minutes on tele on Sat night and thought the Sharks should have won, and should have been awarded a penalty try (can the ref assume Kankowski would have caught the pass?).
Then I read the Sun papers saying it was a shit game.
Then I watched the replay on Sunday arvo and thought neither the game, nor NSW, were all that bad.
Have all you other guys just got it in for NSW, or the whole game?
Kankowski’s interecept = ‘grand rugby’?:poor vision by Burgess and indicative of his slow service. Don’t see how an intercepts qualifies as great rugby?
I hate to blame the coaches, but the writing’s on the wall.
Mckenzie, with the same player roster as last year, if not less, has produced the goods. Hickey has taken over a solid outfit, and turned it into a group of individuals.
They lack direction.
2 names to solve the problem.
Michael Cheika and Todd Louden.
Bulls at loftus is the toughest game in Super 14. I got more confidence from a Tahs loss playing well there than a rubbish win at home against the Sharks. They have reverted to playing like an early 2000′s Eastwood side which will bore their fans and get them by but will never let them threaten to win the S14.
so if Cheika and Louden are out for now with other contracts, who does it leave? Surely not Eddie Jones? Any suggestions?
What is Jake White up to?
How about a caretaker coach for the rest of the S14 season – Rod McQueen.
3 yellow cards and tahs still kick the ball away… stupid..stupid…stupid..they got lucky like they did against reds
Hang on. As a member of the Fire Hickey Club I find myself in the weird position of defending the coach I dislike. I think he doesn’t get much from the talent he has. But saying he should be replaced with Link or Jake White? BOTH of those coaches were also accused of playing boring rugby. Short memories?