2010 Wallaby Report Card

[MrMouse]

Average? It was probably average in the beginning of the year and is now either an embarrassment or a source of merriment depending on whether you support the Wallabies or their opposition.

Sorry, how was the scrum worse with either Slipper/Moore/Alexander or Robinson/Moore/Slipper than at the start of the year when it was a true embarrassment but noone in the North was watching, with Daley/Fainga'a/Ma'afu? They couldn't hold up a tissue box.

As a Wallabies fan it's a frustration, mostly, and that is mostly because every referee is coming into games planning to blow the Wallabies pack off the park regardless of the evidence. One of my favourites this morning was where the entire French pack engaged early and Lawrence pinged us (Robinson) because he saw 'a hint of head movement'. So no, there isn't embarrassment. The scrum could improve - a lot - and I have no problem if a team's good enough to hand our arses to us on a platter, but I'll be fucked if I'll be embarrassed when POB and the dickheads at the IRB make refereeing decisions based on Fleet Street's instructions.

I agree with your other points.

/rant

 

[ChargerWA]

As a Wallabies fan it's a frustration, mostly, and that is mostly because every referee is coming into games planning to blow the Wallabies pack off the park regardless of the evidence.

This might be true in a few other games, but Bryce Lawerance was good last night. While we are consistently the 2nd best scrummaging team on the field every week, we can't expect the referees to be doing us any favours. We need to take responsibility for being in this situation, this isn't some IRB conspiracy.

 

[Ruggo]

I would give the Wallabies a B or an academic D for this year. Two positives I want too see that we did against the French are

1/ Use the whole bench.
2/ Put sides too the sword as we finally did too the French.

Are we RWC contenders? Hell yeah we are. I see some bits of hte puzzle still missing but the nucleus of what we are trying to achieve has gtten much stronger this year.

 

[Bullrush]

Sorry, how was the scrum worse with either Slipper/Moore/Alexander or Robinson/Moore/Slipper than at the start of the year when it was a true embarrassment but noone in the North was watching, with Daley/Fainga'a/Ma'afu? They couldn't hold up a tissue box.

As a Wallabies fan it's a frustration, mostly, and that is mostly because every referee is coming into games planning to blow the Wallabies pack off the park regardless of the evidence. One of my favourites this morning was where the entire French pack engaged early and Lawrence pinged us (Robinson) because he saw 'a hint of head movement'. So no, there isn't embarrassment. The scrum could improve - a lot - and I have no problem if a team's good enough to hand our arses to us on a platter, but I'll be fucked if I'll be embarrassed when POB and the dickheads at the IRB make refereeing decisions based on Fleet Street's instructions.

I agree with your other points.

/rant

You're right - I forgot how hopeless your scrum was at the beginning of the year. So it probably went from being poor to avergae back to poor.

Yep - agree with that one call you mentioned where the Aussies got called for early engagement. Def looked to be like he stuck the wrong arm up and instead of changing arms, found a reason to justify it. But overall I think everyone outside of Australia sees your scrum as being very, very weak. Although you probably get a few hard calls go against you, every team does. What you don't see from every other one of the top teams is the jogging backwards and the splintering on such a regular basis that we do from your pack.

 

[mark_s]

One of the biggest positives to come out of 2010 is that we achieved similar results to 2009 even though we had a poor run with injuries this year, particularly in the piggies where our backup is the shallowest anyway. Overall a pass mark, but jeez, how many winnable games did we let slip away? Very very frustrating.

 

[RugbyReg]

One of the biggest positives to come out of 2010 is that we achieved similar results to 2009 even though we had a poor run with injuries this year, particularly in the piggies where our backup is the shallowest anyway. Overall a pass mark, but jeez, how many winnable games did we let slip away? Very very frustrating.

We won 9 from 15 this year = 60%
2009 was 6 from 16 = 43%

 

[Richard D. James]

Wow, didn't realise we had improved our winning % by that much...

And when you look at some of those really tight games that we should have won (Sydney Bled, Pretoria) it seems things really are on the up.

 

[daz]

We won 9 from 15 this year = 60%
2009 was 6 from 16 = 43%

Nice one Reg. 43% in 2009 gets us ranked #3 and 60% in 2010 gets us ranked #2.

It seems the question is more around when/what formula we win those games.

At the RWC11, WLWLWLW is no good.

We need WWWW/WWW.

Ouch!

 

[MrMouse]

You're right - I forgot how hopeless your scrum was at the beginning of the year. So it probably went from being poor to avergae back to poor.

Yep - agree with that one call you mentioned where the Aussies got called for early engagement. Def looked to be like he stuck the wrong arm up and instead of changing arms, found a reason to justify it. But overall I think everyone outside of Australia sees your scrum as being very, very weak. Although you probably get a few hard calls go against you, every team does. What you don't see from every other one of the top teams is the jogging backwards and the splintering on such a regular basis that we do from your pack.

Can't disagree with such a reasonable statement(s).

I think everyone within Australia sees the scrum as pretty weak too, tbh. But I'd rather see heads up arses, hookers shearing away from props, locks not binding etc than have a tool with a whistle pre-emptively or incorrectly blow it up - it's a trend across all international rugby that refs are blowing it up and grabbing a penalty out of the hat and that disadvantages the top scrummaging teams more than anyone else. One of the few good things Bertos did in the Wobs Italy game was allow Italy to hold the ball in and use second, third and fourth efforts to demolish us. Lawrence probably would have blown it up for not using it, or treading on a four leaf clover, or unnecessary violence. Anyway, with a great offseason and some Super rugby, our super props and locks will be ready to steamroll Myth and Co I'm sure

 

[MrMouse]

Nice one Reg. 43% in 2009 gets us ranked #3 and 60% in 2010 gets us ranked #2.

It seems the question is more around when/what formula we win those games.

At the RWC11, WLWLWLW is no good.

We need WWWW/WWW.

Ouch!

We can afford WLWW/WWW can't we? Or perhaps WWWL/WWW to make it only three at a time?

 

[daz]

We can afford WLWW/WWW can't we? Or perhaps WWWL/WWW to make it only three at a time?

Oh, ok then.....

I had a nice dramatic thing going on and you just ruined it with your damned logic.

 

[Groucho]

Can't disagree with such a reasonable statement(s).

I think everyone within Australia sees the scrum as pretty weak too, tbh. But I'd rather see heads up arses, hookers shearing away from props, locks not binding etc than have a tool with a whistle pre-emptively or incorrectly blow it up - it's a trend across all international rugby that refs are blowing it up and grabbing a penalty out of the hat and that disadvantages the top scrummaging teams more than anyone else. One of the few good things Bertos did in the Wobs Italy game was allow Italy to hold the ball in and use second, third and fourth efforts to demolish us. Lawrence probably would have blown it up for not using it, or treading on a four leaf clover, or unnecessary violence. Anyway, with a great offseason and some Super rugby, our super props and locks will be ready to steamroll Myth and Co I'm sure

MrMouse, I may be wrong (I often am) but I'm not sure allowing Italy to hold the ball in and use second, third and fourth efforts to demolish us was quite within the laws. Some of those second and third efforts resulted in no forward movement.

 

[mark_s]

Where do you get your stats from RR?

In 2009, we beat the bah bahs, Italy (twice), Boks, France, England and Wales. We drew with Ireland and lost to the Scots, All Blacks (4 times) and Boks (2 times)

So thats 7 wins and a draw with 7 losses. So thats a win rate of 7/15 or mabe more accurately 7.5/15 allowing for the draw?

 

[TheTruth]

This might be true in a few other games, but Bryce Lawerance was good last night. While we are consistently the 2nd best scrummaging team on the field every week, we can't expect the referees to be doing us any favours. We need to take responsibility for being in this situation, this isn't some IRB conspiracy.

Interesting that the AB's are pissed as well and talking about not "engaging" on opposition feed

 

[I like to watch]

2009 was 6 from 16 = 43%

Then would 7 from 16= 50% ?

 

[cyclopath]

Then would 7 from 16= 50% ?

Yeah, 37.5% is it not?

 

[mark_s]

What was the 16th match in 2009? I make it as 14 tests plus the bah bahs to give 15 Wallaby games?/

Also if you add in the mid week games, then thats an extra loss in 2010 compared to 2009.

That would give 2009 as 9 wins plus 1 draw plus 7 losses from 17 games and 2010 as 10 wins and 7 losses from 17 games.

Lies, dammed lies and statistics!