Bledisloe 1: 29 July @ MCG
- Thread starter Tex
- Start date
swingpass
Peter Sullivan (51)
the wallabies made a lot of poor decisions tonight on and off the field. not taking the 3's on offer, ill judged option taking and the worst one - not taking off Tupou when he was first injured . FFS 41 days to the RWC, you have just seen the other THP taken off in a medicart and you leave on the only remaining class THP to be belted again. as someone posted above a few minor glimmers of hope in a sea of merde.
KOB1987
Rod McCall (65)
Schoupp is loose head, HJH (Harry Johnson-Holmes) is injured. It will be Pone or Talakai, and Holz or Nonggor after that. I think TT will be fine by the WC if it’s ribs, albeit a bit undercooked, but we do have a few pool games to get his fitness up. Slipper will cover TH as well. Next week could be ugly.
Derpus
George Gregan (70)
Fine for 10 minutes until the next injury.
Equalizer
Phil Hardcastle (33)
Have we said this before? 20+ years. Don't be playing with your team in the year of a World Cup. I'm sick of excusing Australian Rugby being a dumb a$$
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Dctarget
John Eales (66)
Those cries made me shout back some awful stufff. I apologise for anyone sitting in Q10, genuinely didn’t know I had it in me. I’m sorry that I said if you enjoy our economy and country you must support local. Keep paying taxes pls cuz.
Wilson
David Codey (61)
Wilson
David Codey (61)
It'll be Van Nek before Holz
zer0
Jim Lenehan (48)
I mean. Auckland is more local to Melbourne than Perth is to Melbourne so...
Brumby Runner
David Wilson (68)
Uelese turned the ball over with his first two touches. He had one lineout throw that could have been called crooked but wasn't and hus defence near our try line was poor. I am another who hopes this particular experiment is over.
Tomikin
Simon Poidevin (60)
I reckon Van Nek will get a game next week his in the squad. Definitely before Holz
Brumby Runner
David Wilson (68)
That in itself speaks volumes about the risk of playing him in the lead up to and in the RWC. He is right now a shadow of his former self and does not warrant being in the team.
hifflepiff
Charlie Fox (21)
Glad I've stopped watching the Wallabies live, weekends are much more enjoyable now.
Marce
John Thornett (49)
It doesn't matter. Your starter kicker wasn't able to convert in front of the posts
molman
Peter Johnson (47)
I've got to say I'm a tad gutted by that result. Not that I thought we were likely to win on recent evidence, but more because I'm not sure that the result reflected the effort that looked evident by the team.
There are a lot of inflection points in that game where things might have turned out with a more positive margin which others have already mentioned.
The issue for this team is that while other teams are likely working on detail and honing elements of their setup, this team feels like it's still trying to work itself out and come up to speed in a number of areas. I just don't see the timelines working for this cycle, which is a shame because I do feel that there is some genuine talent still in the team.
Part of the issue is one of depth where we have too many players who are compromised in some way, be that through lack of game time this year, returning from significant injuries, below historic peak ability due to age, lacking consistency of skill execution under pressure due to experience...etc. There should be other players pushing for the spots, but we tend to have a couple of players a cut above even with the compromises.
There are some positives still to take away. In the first half in particular the ruck work was generally much improved with increased urgency to secure the ball. The physicality was all round much improved on past performances. They were finding space and breaching the NZ defense in places. There was a much better platform in this game than there was in the first two. Even with the scoreline, as a whole the defense looked to be improved.
Not being able to convert those 22 entries into points however is an issue. Attack generally takes more time to embed, but being unable to convert all that energy and effort into something was at the heart of it.
There are a lot of inflection points in that game where things might have turned out with a more positive margin which others have already mentioned.
The issue for this team is that while other teams are likely working on detail and honing elements of their setup, this team feels like it's still trying to work itself out and come up to speed in a number of areas. I just don't see the timelines working for this cycle, which is a shame because I do feel that there is some genuine talent still in the team.
Part of the issue is one of depth where we have too many players who are compromised in some way, be that through lack of game time this year, returning from significant injuries, below historic peak ability due to age, lacking consistency of skill execution under pressure due to experience...etc. There should be other players pushing for the spots, but we tend to have a couple of players a cut above even with the compromises.
There are some positives still to take away. In the first half in particular the ruck work was generally much improved with increased urgency to secure the ball. The physicality was all round much improved on past performances. They were finding space and breaching the NZ defense in places. There was a much better platform in this game than there was in the first two. Even with the scoreline, as a whole the defense looked to be improved.
Not being able to convert those 22 entries into points however is an issue. Attack generally takes more time to embed, but being unable to convert all that energy and effort into something was at the heart of it.
Brumby Runner
David Wilson (68)
Agree with most of this WF.
In my opinion, Rob Valetini was best of the Wallabies, nearly BOG, Angus Bell was excellent as was Allan Ala'alatoa until he went off injured. Tom Hooper put in the best No 7 performance of TRC series for the Wallabies. Others claim he didn't have the speed for a No 7 but he was everywhere even into the 80th minute. Nic Frost put in another sterling performance and Skelton had some notable moments but seemed to miss quite a bit of the action from time to time. I also have some concern about our second row at scrum time. Reportedly, the scrum was the heaviest ever put out by the Wallabies but still got pushed backwards by the ABs. Who isn't pulling (or pushing) their weight?
Tate had a couple of horrible moments but he was overall far superior to Nic White when he came on. Is it time for Lonergan to get a run, if only for his goal kicking and better skill at box kicking?
I was happy with Carter Gordon's efforts, ignoring the poor kicking. Quade did nothing when he came on, so I'd stick with Carter.
We have big problems in the centres and outside backs. Kerevi is not up to scratch and looks to be still suffering from his injuries. I think Foketi is better value in the 12 jersey at this stage. Jordan Petaia just makes too many poor decisions to run the backline at 13. He is best suited to wing and I'd like to see him out there. Len Ikitau is sorely missed at 13.
Andrew Kellaway did not perform any better than Tom Wright at 15.
Before the game I tipped to my family that the ABs would put 50 points on us this game. As it turned out, they didn't, and I suggest they would have been closer to half that had the injuries/yellow cards not affected the Wallabies so severely. So, overall I was pretty happy with most aspects of the game, but I am left wondering about the wisdom of bringing Eddie Jones and his League/English entourage in to oversee our run to the Cup. I fear we are on the brink of having the game destroyed at the Wallaby level again, just as he did in his previous sojourn as Head Coach.
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Brumby Runner
David Wilson (68)
I reckon the odds of Slipper moving to THP and Scott Sio coming in are shortening.