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USA v All Blacks Test - Chicago November 2014

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Hugh Jarse

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
@Ulrich, I live in a rugby tolerating country and if Australia's two best FiveKick teams were to play on my front lawn, I'd call the police.

Some clever bugger once said that you can very easily destroy an army from within. To win over the Septics, you have to involve the Septics. Sending the B&I Lions and NZL over to San Francisco, Houston and Boston to play a three match series would not achieve much.

To realise the potential of the USA (and Canada) you need to start at the bottom and build up. Build the foundation in the USA and the pointy bit will come in due course. Get into the schools. Get the NCA involved. There are no overnight instant Harry Potter magic words solutions. Awakening USA will take 20 years of concerted hard yakka.

While the IRB are doing that in Septica, they also need to get stuck into Russia and China with their game development muscle. Apparently the Peoples Army of China have declared Rugby as an official game. That means that about 2 million young men between the ages of 18 and 30 will be exposed to rugby. When they set their mind to it, what China wants China gets.
 
USARugger

USARugger

John Thornett (49)
Please no, keep the NCAA out of rugby. Just need better management from USAR or second division created to manage collegiate rugby. It's going varsity at more schools every year but could be quickened if the whole machine was handled a little better. No need for NCAA - they're not a broadcaster.
 
FilthRugby

FilthRugby

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
A crowd of 61,000 shows the potential of rugby for America.

Unfortunately, there's too much money being offered in other sports so it probably won't grow to a great extent, but the potential for USA to compete internationally is there.

I would like to seem more countries play there. Perhaps the Wallabies once a year could head there after playing Argentina. Anyway, it's just a thought.
 
Harv

Harv

Herbert Moran (7)
It was a great event and that means something in the US. Will thousands flock to stick their heads up bums in scrums? No. But it was a showpiece that builds on the admirable grassroots work being done that has transformed rugby into a rapidly growing sport in North America. Playing a Six Nations game here would be a purely expatriate event and relatively pointless. Especially with the friggin referee blowing the whistle every five seconds and those European fellas kicking midfield bombs every five minutes. The discussion that rugby will challenge (or wants to challenge) any of the pro sports in the US is bogus. It's seeking a niche and with patience, emphasizing the game's points of difference, a culture will develop further. America, as had much of the rest of the world until recently, sees the game as a prelude to beer drinking -- something 'crazy' college types do. Nothing wrong with that, but branching out from the old school tie thing to demonstrate the game is a genuine professional endeavor is vital. Globally the concept of pro rugby is still quite fresh. The idea that athletic kids can become professional sportsmen playing the game doesn't yet register. Development pathways can change that mindset -- or at least alert those interested to the possibility -- and exhibitions as sweet as the Chicago game demonstrate there is a light at the end of that pathway.
 
mxyzptlk

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
USARugger said:
It just irks me that Canada doesn't seem to have these same kind of issues with maintaining structure even though they are no more professionalized than the USA. Especially in attack, there was just no excuse for some of the things that occurred on that side of the ball - it looked like they all reverted to playing shitty collegiate rugby again.

I'm not mad, just disappointed.
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Are they no more professionalized? I don't know if they're any more or less professionalized than the U.S. team, but they seem better structured -- at least in recent years. They've had some fluidity between their 7s and 15s teams, which means they get more of their players playing together more regularly, which is going to help improve communication, which will help to maintain structures.

I'm watching Canada play the Championship IV right now, and more than a third for the Canadian team are also currently on the Canada 7s roster. By comparison, I think there were only two players on the USA team that are also on the current 7s roster (Shalom Suniula, Folau Niua).

That's not to say that's the way the USA needs to go -- there are a lot of decent USA players who play abroad -- or even that more 7s players in the 15s set-up would make a difference. It just seems to have helped Canada.
 
mxyzptlk

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
USARugger said:
It's not the score that bothers me - just the repeated use of tactics and same errors that have plagued the Eagles under Tolkin for years now. Obviously the ABs bring a whole new level of pressure but we also refused to take the game into our own hands by playing to the strengths that the squad had.

One of the biggest ones was that when we actually kicked short and contested, Scully grabs it out of the air and earns a penalty. Then we don't compete on another reset for the rest of the match. :(

Then there was the sudden shift from the opener where 9 was hitting forwards running onto the ball before moving out to the backs, to either passing to static forwards or to a disorganized set of backs. This allowed the Darkness to just fan out from the rucks and win the tackle with one or two men, forcing the kicks that really blew the score out in the first half (although the execution on a lot of those quicks was also terrible as well - I nearly ended the live blog after that chip directly to Dagg while we were going forward in the AB half).
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And the tackling -- don't forget the tackling. They hit those one-on-one tackles, but for most of the game sent no one else into the ruck, which allowed the AB's to get their offloading game going at will. It took the USA until something like the 65th minute, maybe later, to send two people into the tackle -- one low, one higher -- to shut down the offload before it ever got set up.

That didn't stop all of the offloading, but it slowed it down. The AB's only scored one try in the final 15 minutes when the USA started to take the tackle more seriously, as opposed to the 6 tries they let through in the second 15 minutes, when it looked more like the Globetrotters playing the Washington Generals.
 
USARugger

USARugger

John Thornett (49)
mxyzptlk said:
Are they no more professionalized? I don't know if they're any more or less professionalized than the U.S. team, but they seem better structured -- at least in recent years. They've had some fluidity between their 7s and 15s teams, which means they get more of their players playing together more regularly, which is going to help improve communication, which will help to maintain structures.

I'm watching Canada play the Championship IV right now, and more than a third for the Canadian team are also currently on the Canada 7s roster. By comparison, I think there were only two players on the USA team that are also on the current 7s roster (Shalom Suniula, Folau Niua).

That's not to say that's the way the USA needs to go -- there are a lot of decent USA players who play abroad -- or even that more 7s players in the 15s set-up would make a difference. It just seems to have helped Canada.
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Yeah, I was referring to # of test players who are playing professionally full-time as well as lack of a domestic professional league.

I am also under the same impression that they are just plain more organized and structured all the way from the administration on down - it was evident in how much earlier and how much more effectively they integrated the 7s and XVs athletes in order to maximize the return from their available resources.

Their team also just plain adheres to their structures better when on the pitch and it allows them to put together some seriously spectacular rugby at times.

mxyzptlk said:
And the tackling -- don't forget the tackling. They hit those one-on-one tackles, but for most of the game sent no one else into the ruck, which allowed the AB's to get their offloading game going at will. It took the USA until something like the 65th minute, maybe later, to send two people into the tackle -- one low, one higher -- to shut down the offload before it ever got set up.

That didn't stop all of the offloading, but it slowed it down. The AB's only scored one try in the final 15 minutes when the USA started to take the tackle more seriously, as opposed to the 6 tries they let through in the second 15 minutes, when it looked more like the Globetrotters playing the Washington Generals.
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Yep, defensive communication has just been downright poor in every possible way - particularly in calling the tackle and then reorganizing in time for the next phase.

It was a bit hard to watch at times when the ABs would run a simple unders line or a switch and you could see the huge pocket forming in the USA defense almost immediately - that just can't happen.
 
matty_k

matty_k

Peter Johnson (47)
Staff member
I'm not sure everyone understood who was actually playing.
Check out @livcarville's Tweet:
 
Hugh Jarse

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
^^^Well we have acquired Phar Lap, Pavlova, Crowded House, Rusty Crowe and Sir Johannas Bjelke-Peterson from NZL, why not appropriate their rugby team as well?:)

What has the general USA media comment on the game been?

Would Mr and Mrs "Middle America" have known about this game?
 
Harv

Harv

Herbert Moran (7)
Hugh Jarse said:
^^^Well we have acquired Phar Lap, Pavlova, Crowded House, Rusty Crowe and Sir Johannas Bjelke-Peterson from NZL, why not appropriate their rugby team as well?:)

What has the general USA media comment on the game been?

Would Mr and Mrs "Middle America" have known about this game?
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Not enormous mainsteam coverage, but most major dailies carried the AP story or a brief. In broadcast media, there wasn't a lot because it was an NBC event (national competition for ESPN/ABC & Fox Sports). Having said that, the fact it was on broadcast television at a prime sports time on a Saturday was huge. The good and numerous sports lunatics of Chicago knew it was on and the Chicago Trib and the (midguided) Sun-Times covered it as a significant local gig. Niche coverage was good too, from the NFL site to other sports chat sites. Not sure about the outreach from USA Rugby -- they undoubtedly tried -- issued a million press releases, but as any editor here will tell you publications don't have enough space/resources to cover pro-sports (the big four) as they'd like, let alone "Aussie rules".
 
Hugh Jarse

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
Any idea as to how many viewers there were on NBC watching the game live?
How did that rate?
 
Harv

Harv

Herbert Moran (7)
Hugh Jarse said:
Any idea as to how many viewers there were on NBC watching the game live?
How did that rate?
Click to expand...
Haven't seen anything but I think the test pattern wld grab about a million on NBC which is about a million more than the 45 of us who watch DirecTV's rugby channel. NBC's commitment stems from its ownership of Olympic rights -- the 7s inclusion has motivated the network to provided some rugby coverage.
 
M

Moono75

Guest
As expected the AB's destroyed that Southern Canadian team. Good to see such a big crowd get along to the game at Solider Field in North Eastern Mexico. No idea those yanks o_O
 
Hugh Jarse

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
^^ Still think we should take them over as one of our own, as per post #190.

You know it makes sense.

In fact NZL can have Joh B-P, Rusty C and Mr and Mrs Tony Rabbit back as part of the trade.:)
 
waiopehu oldboy

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
^^^^^^^^ I know his wife's a kiwi but isn't Mr Rabbit strictly speaking a pom? As for repatriating Joh, who among you is gonna tell Lady FLo? I'm not sure the good folk of Dannevirke would be too keen on the idea, either.
 
Hugh Jarse

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
That would explain a lot if he was as you suggest.

The last one was Welsh, and they were rejected.
 
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