France v Australia

[Pfitzy]

Yes - its noticeable how long some of these "professional" lineouts fuck around and give the opposition time to set up.

Just make the call on the run and throw it as soon as pricks are there. Even better, try and get there first.

 

[fatprop]

Why aren't we proactively making some calls well before we get to the lineout?
Every penalty kick for touch provides you with this opportunity, and others can be made on the run while crossing the field.
Forget the opposition set up, make the call and execute it quickly and accurately.

Running a defensive lineout against two means you just man mark the two and make them throw to a competition or to the dwarven plan c,d or e's and wait for the errors

 

[It is what it is]

Running a defensive lineout against two means you just man mark the two and make them throw to a competition or to the dwarven plan c,d or e's and wait for the errors

Sorry I don't understand your comment.

 

[ForceFan]

a strong expression that many posters to GAGR have very little understanding of professional rugby, have not seen the game or are voting on geographic lines. damages the credibility of the ratings greatly.

i suppose there is also the possibility of many "rankers" having a laugh or, far worse, ranking strategically in the perceived interests of their pet players. such behaviour should not be able to be hidden by transposing "r" and "w" before "ank". "wank" covers it well.

I think that this is trying to read too much into what's a very simple system. I doubt if there is a conspiracy or co-ordinated strategy. Feedback on this site is proof that rugby fans generally agree upon very little.

I'm not a big fan of this system because there appears to be no consistent definition or use of "Thumbs Up" and "Thumbs Down".
With the spread of votes cast obviously not all players are ranked.
There is often a big difference between the rankings by this system and the ratings which come out a few days later. The ratings have a clear definition for each number.

I give "Thumbs Up" if I rate that that player performed OK or better in his selected position and vice versa.
I try not to rank him against the best person I've ever seen in that position, or who I think should be playing, or try and get get the MOM to the top of the rankings (but often this happens).

Hooper probably also gets ranked for his role as Captain.

The results to date simply indicate that the majority of those who ranked Hooper's performance against France considered that he was not OK, performed badly or below expectation at either No 7 or Captain or both.

It seems that in this instance I'm with the majority - and it doesn't happen too often.

 

[Dumbledore]

Simmons takes the lions share of the credit when the lineout goes well, surely he should take the same amount of blame when it goes wrong?

 

[TheBigDog]

Yes - its noticeable how long some of these "professional" lineouts fuck around and give the opposition time to set up.

Just make the call on the run and throw it as soon as pricks are there. Even better, try and get there first.

Agreed. At this level there is so much pre-gaming planning going on with opposition lineout footage, tactics etc that players should at least have some idea of where weaknesses are and where they should be jumping. For that reason it amazes me that the Wallabies seem to be still figuring stuff out when the ball should already be thrown in.

 

[ACT Crusader]

The criticism is a bit harsh. I watched the replay earlier today and it was a pretty good game of rugby.
Hats off to the French. Their line speed and commitment were top notch. Unfortunately we caught them on one of those days when they are in the mood. Some of their new players made a real difference. We had our moments too but could not seem to maintain momentum at any point although we were oh so close to snatching it at the end.
Poor ball security let us down but some of the spilt pill was due to the very aggressive defense as well.
It was a very fast game and Skelton struggled with the pace. Our bench players, forwards in particular, are a real step down from the starters. I doubt that will be the case come the RWC if we don't have too many injuries.
We really were not that bad. Not great but also not terrible.

Good post Joe.

I thought it was a very willing test match from both sides. Some pretty positive things from both sides. As you say the French line speed on defence was great to watch. Led by their 7,8 and midfield. A couple of the outside backs were strong in attack.

Thought Aussies weathered the storm quite well in the latter part of the 1st half. Upped the intensity and started to use the ball more effectively, particularly Foley.

Oz suffered though from a poor game from a few players that have been good for them recently and were virtually MIA - eg Lilo, Hooper, Slipper.

A close loss to a tier 1 nation away from home, that last time round towelled you up (another Kurtley at 10 special), isn't that bad IMO.

 

[disco]

Just watched that game again & the WB's played well for about 15 minutes out of the 80 so to be within 3 points at then end was rather good.

I must say that our fitness must be right up there as the French were rooted by the 70 minute mark & if that was a world cup & we slotted a field goal for extra time I'd be very confident that we would run over them in extra time.

Certainly 1 big positive after re-watching the game.

 

[fatprop]

Sorry I don't understand your comment.

The idea of a fast pre planned lineout doesn't work if the defenders can just hard man mark the only two jumping options

 

[Brumbieman]

Actually it would depend on where the throw was called to. But you already knew that didn't you.

Yes, but you're not saying that Fainga'a (who has hardly thrown a didgy ball all year) got it so wrong he threw to the wrong end of the lineout, 5 times?

 

[Brumbieman]

I've seen minutes 15-40, and 55-80. Other than that I seem to have missed us getting penalised a lot. So my thoughts are:

Why the fuck go out to the 2nd or 3rd channel against an umbrella defence? If the Frenchies wanted to rush so hard outside, we should have bashed it up in close and got in behind them. When we did this just before halftime and near the end of the game, we were making ground like a boss. It also limited Kuridrani's effect on the game running onto the ball at at pace. Would like to have seen him, Tomane, or AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) start running some inside lines to pull the Frogs up on the line.

Compounding this was Phipps reverting to a step-pass game rather than concentrating on speed from the deck. He does this occasionally and needed to be pulled into line by the coach via message runner.

I wasn't really analysing our defence, but the desire to seek the big hit is leaving our fringes a little exposed from where I'm sitting.

Genia added something when he came on I thought, but there were a few phases where he was passing to a static forward

It was a poor performance overall, but I agree with this:





But I don't agree with all of this:




On Folau, you're right - he looked very ordinary. Some of the balls that didn't go to hand were mind boggling, particularly that one between he and Foley in the first half.

But I don't think that reverting to kicking was necessarily going to be the answer either. We showed we could make yards, but we were trying to make them in all the wrong places with a rushing French defence.

Not blindly kicking everything, no.

It needs to be balanced, you kick until they expect it and the defence doesn't bother chargin up at you, and then you run madly for a few quick phases (which you can do because you're not rooted from running it everywhere) until the defence starts to get up in your face again, and then you put it up and behind them.

A rush defence like that is very vulnerable to a mixed bag of tricks, because it requires total commitment from everyone, and if they have no idea what your next move is, they cant commit to the rushing umbrella.

 

[Train Without a Station]

Bman I'm pretty sure Sully's saying that potentially the jumper may be at fault.

Perhaps Simmons called to himself and missed it. Perhaps Simmons didn't call loud enough or called the incorrect call.

As there was no jumper Saia probably hasn't done anything wrong, though perhaps he jumped the gun on the throw.

Or perhaps the jumper may have not taken the call in, or the lifter missed his cue.

Or perhaps the crowd noise was really loud and nobody could hear the calls.

Just saying those are all potentially errors that occurred.

But when it's functioning that badly, surely the thrower and caller need to come under scrutiny. That being said, if they were getting picked off each time, I'd be blaming the caller for sure.

 

[Quick Hands]

Geez there must be some ulterior agenda in that Hooper "have a rank" over there: worst player on the field - or merely worst Tah???

I think some would have had their fingers twitching for months waiting to give Hooper a thumbs down. Not his best game, but worst Wallaby on the field - not in the game I watched.

 

[Athilnaur]

I haven't had (read made) time to watch it again, but having had some time to chew the fat with others and read GGR forum members views here is my take:

1 Hooper had an even worse day than usual in Captaincy terms, even though his kick/tap decisions were good.
2 Folau had a bad day as did pretty much everyone at one point or other.
3 Best game from Simmons yet energy wise.
4 Tomane impressed me on D generally, didn't think he had it in him, very pleased with what I saw.
5 McMahon was pretty good, but like Hooper paid the price for poor tactics against a fired up French D.
6 On tactics we needed a kicking game and some pick n go to change it up. Unfortunately we don't have a kicking game and everyone knows it so Cheika had better come up with some better variations or every team that is good at manning up, ie NZ Boks Poms will smash us.
7 Scrums good but sorry Skelton you need to get some stuff done.
8 Jones needs a go, has Cheika lost the plot? Here's a guy scripted for Cheikas hard style who can play lock or blindside when Fardy is injured. Hello?
9 All of that said the team is 90% there. We played pretty well against an on fire frog team at home given all the errors. Yes errors are annoying but I took a lot of heart from the fact they didn't let it stop them trying.
10 Overall for me that game was a pass. We need to recognise that the opposition force errors and played very well. We didn't and still came damn close with a lot of fire in the last 10.

Much better than Wales game for mine.

 

[formerflanker]

1 Hooper had an even worse day than usual in Captaincy terms, even though his kick/tap decisions were good.

What negative captaincy issues did you see to justify your comment?

 

[Sully]

Yes, but you're not saying that Fainga'a (who has hardly thrown a didgy ball all year) got it so wrong he threw to the wrong end of the lineout, 5 times?

You were talking about one lineout now your talking about five. You blamed the freekick on Simmons. Without knowing what the call was. Without knowing whether Fainga'a was waiting for a front jumper or weather a jumper was waiting for Fainga'a.
Clearly you have nowhere near enough information to make any kind of informed decision so you used an unfounded prejudice to make one.
Then to top it off you moved the goal posts when you were found out.

 

[Athilnaur]

Mainly poor ref management, eg the Phipps comments for example, Phipps should not have had to go there. But also with the team. He needed to take the guys aside and cause for a variation when the Frogs were up so flat and flopping all over us. Also his body language looked off particularly with the refs. Nor did I see the cool head leadership I look for when a team is hitting walls. In 80 minutes I am struggling to think of a positive other than his personal drive and energy. Which is a given for him certainly.

 

[Pfitzy]

Most of our players had bad points. Lot of dropped ball, lot of missed tackles, some fairly poor tactical awareness by the backs and fairly poor effort by the pigs. 18 turnovers FFS!


I really don't understand where this expectation of perfection comes from. This isn't 1999-2001 where our professionalism was so far ahead of the rest of the world in combination with some all-time legends of the game.

This is a Wallaby team missing several top-line players, who are feeling their way under (yet another) new coach.

I've always believed you learn a lot more from a loss, and we've got two games on tour to rectify it, finishing with probably the toughest ask of all - England at Twickers.

So let's be objective about the negatives, point out the positives, and look at the WALLABY TEAM as representing AUSTRALIA.

For fuck's fucking sake.

 

[barbarian]

Agree there is a lack of leadership, but don't think Hooper should cop all the blame. Certainly he should take a fair chunk, but there are plenty of senior blokes out there who should be stepping up- Slipper, Kepu, Horwill, Simmons, AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper), Folau. All have been around long enough, and should be supporting Hooper.

I'm not sure that support is there at the moment.
.

 

[Joe Blow]

I thought that was probably Simmons best test for the Wallabies. He carried the ball often and with authority. He hit a lot of rucks and made a few tackles.
If he can increase the physicality in his game he will be our world class lock. He's the closest one and most top line locks take a while to get there, as he has.
He did miss a couple of crucial tackles.
We all know he has very good lineout skills and that he is our best scrum lock right now. If he starts to use his size more often as he did today he is going to be bloody good.
I think he consciously stepped up for that test.