Aus Babas v. Poms

[Grandmaster Flash]

Caught the last 10 minutes of the first half on the Fox feed. Aus Baa Baas up 18-13, with O'Connor scoring two tries and kicking the rest. Aus scrum getting worked.

Feed picture quality is good though.

 

[rsea]

get on the live chat

 

[disco]

Aussies 18 - 13 at halftime.
JOC (James O'Connor) carving up & McCalman is having a strong game.

Pek Cowan getting killed in the scrum.

 

[Lee Grant]

18-13 to Oz A at oranges. Oz scrum is pants as expected, Oz backs more spontaneous and penetrative, as expected, with Rabbit OÇonnor brilliant, as expected. So far he has all the points.

Oz A could pull it off if they can hold out the Pom forwards in the 2nd half but there's a few young guys to come on for a run and they don't have big CVs.

To their credit the Poms are not playing their normal stodgy game; they are dishing the ball out. If they start going narrow Oz A could be in a bit of strife in the 2nd 40 minutes.

 

[Chauncey]

Do we have a prop that can actually scrum?

That front row effort was appalling. If that is any indication of our scrumming prowess, there will not be any sleepless nights in the England camp.
How hard can it be to train some props beyond 2nd Grade club level.....really, what is the great mystery?
That was embarrasing!!!!
I only hope Robinson comes back very soon and never, ever gets injured again.... at least not for the next 5 years. He's a 1 man band at the moment.

 

[Scarfman]

Well Robbie made a very poor decision in not selecting Al. We embarrassed ourselves tonight which doesn't help anyone.

 

[dbla]

I think Chapman played his way into a bench spot as well as JOC (James O'Connor) confirming he wants his spot back, tough to drop beale after fiji but o'connor really looked the goods with ball in hand

 

[the gambler]

Maybe it is all part of a plan. Now the English will go back to believing that Australian's can not and will not scrum. Then when we play them in the World Cup (assuming they make it out of the group stages which they probably wont) and we have Robinson fit and Baxter starting because he is the only other prop still standing, we will dominate up front and send them home with their heads pushed back into their arses.

One can dream.

 

[the gambler]

I think Chapman played his way into a bench spot as well as JOC (James O'Connor) confirming he wants his spot back, tough to drop beale after fiji but o'connor really looked the goods with ball in hand

Chapman?? Really? Made a couple of offloads in the first half but his missed tackle that led to their try in the 1st half was woeful and didnt see him do much stuff other than being indecisive as to whether to go for a steal or a counter ruck at the break down.

If he gets a bench spot it is only because Chisolm did even less. Would almost rather see McCalman cover the 2nd row.

 

[cyclopath]

Really not much to get excited about there. Hoiles should be even further from a Wallaby jersey, as would most of the pack except Chapman. Valentine missed a great opportunity to get his name on the sheet. Cummins, Turner and Hynes were solid but not much more. Centres tackled well but not much else. JOC (James O'Connor) was fantastic.
I can't stand to see our scrum get rooted again by England, after getting back so much ground in the last few years. I know there are injuries a plenty, but this weekend could be embarrassing. Depending on ref, we could end up with cards all over the joint. Someone has to find the mongrel in the forwards at the breakdowns too - the breakdown-lite approach is going to get badly found out again.

 

[DPK]

Barnes was good, maybe the BaaBaa's backs played too lateral but that seems to be a systemic problem. I think Barnes definetly showed he deserves a spot in the 22.

 

[Lee Grant]

28-28

The Oz bench did not front up so well in the 2nd half and England bovver boys ground them down. England was too powerful for Oz in the end. With 10 minutes to go they started to play a narrow game and the Oz forwards couldn't cope especially in a series of scrums near their line when Oz got Weeks carded. England were unlucky not to get a penalty try then but they got a barge try anyway.

Had they started that kind of game earlier they would have strangled Oz A.

After the barge try they caught Oz A napping and scored in the corner and they were ahead, but then Barnes slotted a penalty to draw the game, then missed a long one on the final bell to win it.

There were lot of positives for the Oz backs but not the T5 forwards. Ben McCalman had a few storming runs and was the pick of the backrowers. Valentine but for one of his silly protests when he should have been picking up the ball looked better than Burgess and Barnes launched his young backs well.

JOC (James O'Connor) was the stand out player on the park but he went off early in the 2nd half. Cummins had a few good moments but dropping the pill a couple of times in space blotted his copybook. Chambers looked good at 13 and will play for the Wallabies one day.

The Poms won't have too many of their players breaking into the test squad least of all Charlie Hodgson and Matt Banahan, the flat track bully. Their best feature as expected was their pack work - scrums, mauls and barges which made the Oz forwards look like the babes in the woods that they were. Tait looked enterprising as he always does but some of the backs seemed surprised when they got the ball.

Given the amount of T5 forwards who were missing is was a reasonable effort from Oz, but their scrums were right back to the bad old days. God help us if Cowan gets the 1 jersey for the test match.

 

[Hawko]

Where are all those people who said Weeks was a great scrummager and that Cowan had a great second half in the S14? They were rubbish tonight. As well as for no front row, it looked like the locks had been told not to push!!!!! Deans will be looking for somewhere to hide at the press conference. I think Al should pack his bags, the phone call isn't far away.

Out of all of that I reckon that Chapman and McCalman were the only two forwards to have put in a claim. The rest were unimpressive.

Barnes was good in the first half but the longer the match went on the worse his decision making looked, and at the end his repeated kicking for goal was a totral abomination for a team called the Barbarians. What matter if we lost? It was the manner in which we played that was important.

Thought Fainga'a, Chambers, Turner, Hynes and O'Connor played well, JOC (James O'Connor) for MoM. Cummins did some brilliant things and some horrible things, but is probably worth persevering with to see if he can get some consistency. Valentine showed that we are desperately short of good 9's in Oz at the moment (Genia excepted).

We should have had Waugh as captain, he would have given us some mongrel and he would have kicked some backsides that needed it. Hoiles and Barnes co-captaincy was very poor.

 

[dbla]

Chapman?? Really? Made a couple of offloads in the first half but his missed tackle that led to their try in the 1st half was woeful and didnt see him do much stuff other than being indecisive as to whether to go for a steal or a counter ruck at the break down.

If he gets a bench spot it is only because Chisolm did even less. Would almost rather see McCalman cover the 2nd row.

Have to disagree I thought the lines he ran were pretty solid and his lineout work was pretty good, I'm not suggesting he is a great second row but at the moment it is not hard to be better than chisolm. You would definately be living up to your namesake if you'd rather have McCalman cover second row as his lineout work is no where near up to scratch to even come off the bench at international level.

 

[en_force_er]

It really was a case of the Baba backs V the Saxon forwards. I don't know where our test quality front row is going to come from. Ah well, at least it'll mean more depth when the Bens come back.

Another point, why no commentary? I mean maybe this game wasn't big enough for the Fox Sports commentators to do it but that's no excuse. Surely the RuggaMatrix folks would of done it for free. Hell, I would of done it. This is a great chance to blood new commentators gone begging.

 

[the gambler]

Pretty much what I thought Lee.

A few of my random thoughts broken down by positions
Aus Forwards
Basically went as most of us thought it would and as Lee said about 47 times in the last few weeks.
The props were simply not good enough. Slipper popped up around the field a number of times early in the 2nd half but the scrums around the 70m mark were just an embarrasment. Actually all the scrums were an embarrasment. It was Weekes that got carded but to my untrained eye it was Slipper that was getting absolutely pounded. Dont know where we can go from here but surely Baxter has to return for the Tri Nations ahead of some of these guys.

Chisolm and Chapman - Not sure which I would take for the bench. Would probably pick Chisolm as I just think he is less likely to make a mistake or give away a penalty when they come on for an injury. Wouldnt put either of them on for any other reason. We really need Mumm to develop into a powerfull 2nd rower as there isnt much else there. Douglas is only 20 and I thought that by the end of the Super 14 looked like he needed a break. Personally I would like to see them give him a few weeks off and then have him feature prominantly in the EOYT. His body height in a few of the later scrums looked aweful to me.

McCalman looks like a fine prospect, Hoiles probably didnt do enough to replace Brown for mine while Hodgson will keep his 19 jersey.

Aus Backs
Valentine - Better service than Burgess but took an eternity at times trying to marshall his badly beaten forward pack. Also doesnt offer the defense of Burgess. Genia can not play these tests against England as he is just too valuable to Australia at the moment. Look for Turner or someone to be taken on EOYT to hopefully become back up next year.

Barnes has a lot of class about him but not in the same vein of form as Cooper so will have to bide his time.

Finger and Chambers offer a nice combination but gee it would be nice if one of them had a kicking game. Chambers in particular has 2 left feet when it comes to kicking the ball and this cant be underestimated. Would get away with it playing outside Cooper and Barnes but it would be nice if he could develop some adequate kicking skills. But there were some strong runs, generally good line speed in defence and offloads from the two of them. Although Finger plays above his weight he did get manhandled a couple of times tonight.

Cummins showed both why Deans selected him in the squad and why this was such an unpopular selection. Doubt he will be seen in a Test 22 this year.
Turner - Like Barnes showed some moments of class but wasnt heavily involved. Will take an injury or two to see him crack the 22.
JOC (James O'Connor) - Probably did enough to get himself into the starting 15 on Saturday.

 

[RedsHappy]

Perhaps the most lamentable outcome from tonight is the embarrassing exposure of the now-dominant theory that 'Australia has now developed wonderful new depth in the elite squads'. All patriotism aside, that theory was cruelly questioned by tonight's poor showing once JO'C departed for a rest. That England pack was shall we say 5 divisions down from the Boks' pack, yet it just murdered our guys, and yet again Australian technical competencies and mongrel intensity at the most critical breakdown moments went AWOL. If we think we can head into the RWC with a stunning backline and forwards that are again basically outgunned in the Tris, it will be a version of 2007 all over again.

There just seems to be something fundamentally wrong with the Wallabies forward pack coaching and developmental capability. If we look at the wonders McKenzie performed with this year's Reds pack - witness the Reds v Bulls and v Stormers games - whomever said appoint Link to coach the senior Wallabies forwards squads had an inspired and perhaps desperately needed proposal.

 

[GC]

The front row was rubbish. That is the main problem. The rest of the forwards were no worse the Wobs last weekend. Rucking was better though still not good enough. Not helped by poms illegally lying on the wrong side of every ruck. Maul defense was excellent. Backs were good until JOC (James O'Connor) went off.

 

[the gambler]

Of the English side i couldnt help but laugh at Tait's reaction when he dropped the ball at one stage in the 2nd half. It looked to me like he was thinking to himself "Why the hell do I drop so many balls?" He looked at his hands, shrugged his shoulders then hunched them and walked to position as if he has finally resigned himself to the fact that while he is a dangerous runner he just doesnt have the skills to be an international player.

Lawes looks like he hasnt developed much in the past year and can see why he isnt yet in the top 4 or 5 locks in England. Having said that he is only young and will surely become a force in the international game.

Is Kennedy in the touring squad or has Johnson marked him as a player never to play for England?

 

[RedsHappy]

All good points GC, but if we assessed that we had real, reliable depth now in elite rugby, your report re tonight would have had to be far more positive and glowing than it rightly was not. Most of the commentators on GAGR re tonight's game are searching for little glimmers of one or two player positives outside JO'C. If there's any claim to real depth it's perhaps at FB and maybe 11, 12 and 13...not really enough to rediscover greatness. And then to a real dampener to depress us all, you'll recall the euphoria over J'OC's game against the international BaaBaas this time last year. As we ventured across the Tasman, and he faced the pressure of the ABs, unfortunately it became a different story.