Wallabies v All Blacks Saturday 26th August at Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin

[Quick Hands]

To think if we had have not fluffed the restart after Beale's try which gave AB's back possession for final match winning try by them we could have been heading to Brisbane for a decider..so close..

I actually am still stunned by the quality of the Wallaby performance as after Super Rugby performance this season had such low expectations. Quality game. Also had a lot of players play a quality game that did not think had in them...McMahon and Simmons case in point.

May have lost the game but would not have lost too many fans with that performance.

I was a high quality performance from the Wallabies. We were as good as them in all facets of the game except goal kicking and the scrum.

Always hard to beat the ABs, just that little bit more difficult with N. Owen in charge. Some truly wierd calls in that match - the tip, the loose head prop being penalised after the half knocks the ball on. I could go on. One only has to listen to the conversations between NO and AB players to understand the depth of the bromance.

 

[TOCC]

My one little gripe with the coaching, is that I wish Cheika wouldn't carry on to the journalists afterwards, this week he went on about referees playing to a script, I thought the strange decisions went both ways, and the referee wasn't the reason for the loss.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Forward pass from Read to TJ for the last try?

 

[Lorenzo]

since when is defence a secondary consideration in test footy? after you sort your lineout and scrum (and even if you don't sort those things out), defence and kicking are the most important things.

We will never win a shootout with these guys. Of the 159 tests we've played, and the 42 wins, we've beaten them when they've scored more than 20 (their average: 12.7)on four occasions. October 2010 (24) , September 2001 (26) , Aug 2000 (23) and Aug 98 (23). Obviously if you go back far enough, trys were worth less etc, but surely we can see that they need to be kept to ~16 or less for us to realistically win (their pro-era average when losing to is 17.5).

If we really want to win (at all legal costs), we need to play the game in their half and defend well. They aren't perfect and will fuckup. Sometimes those opportunities will give as a chance to score 3, and sometimes 5 or 7. But we aren't gonna beat them playing their helter-skelter game, that's certain.

Part of our problem is that we like to see ourselves as fit, fast and capable of playing wild and loose. But at least relative to the ABs, we aren't those things anymore and haven't been for more than a decade. The only answer for us to slow it down, play it tight and grind it out.

Feel dirty quoting myself, but there's no point typing it again.

We scored a lot more points than I thought we would but let down by rugby basics yet again.

This was a great match to watch but it was 2017's paper-over-the-cracks match that allows the team and coaches to kick the can down the road for another 12 months, still in pursuit of the 40 or 50 points a game that we need to make up for our awful defence and barely schoolboy kicking.

 

[KAOPointman]

Are those success rates like for like, has Hodge attempted more difficult kicks than Foley, as a percentage of total attempts?



Has Hodge had the intensive work on his kicking that Foley has had?


He is a natural kicker. Foley always looks a bit stilted or something to me, as though he is not particularly comfortable.


Hodge is a brilliant kicker out of hand, Foley is meh. That means something, doesn't it?

Ahh...constructive criticism! EXACTLY what the wallabies need. None of this gut feeling junk. And yes your right....

Goal Kicking %
Foley 80%
Hodge 70%
Lance 75%
Barrett 63%

And of course....Hodge tries kicks anywhere in the 50. Foley only has a 35m boot on him....including in play kicks! But Foley did go 6/6 last week....but this week he potentially could have won us the game.

 

[KAOPointman]

I'd be keeping Foley as the predominant kicker but giving Beale the job for anything wider than the 15m marks.

That's Hilarious.....if that's the case, why not let Kepu take the easy kicks in front.....or how about anyone.....seeing as they'll have an easy 100% record....lol

 

[cyclopath]

My one little gripe with the coaching, is that I wish Cheika wouldn't carry on to the journalists afterwards, this week he went on about referees playing to a script, I thought the strange decisions went both ways, and the referee wasn't the reason for the loss.

I thought that was a weird comment too. Did he say "That's how it goes, maybe the script was written"? Sounded almost like he felt that was lot the mocker gods gave them, as much as saying the ref was complicit. I agree he should keep that stuff in his head.
I do think the Retallick incident needs to be clarified (especially looking at how many incidents have been handled in the past season after the World Rugby edict on this), and that can happen through channels, rather than in the post-match interview.
He certainly doesn't bottle much up.

 

[Up the Guts]

I was a high quality performance from the Wallabies. We were as good as them in all facets of the game except goal kicking and the scrum.

Always hard to beat the ABs, just that little bit more difficult with N. Owen in charge. Some truly wierd calls in that match - the tip, the loose head prop being penalised after the half knocks the ball on. I could go on. One only has to listen to the conversations between NO and AB players to understand the depth of the bromance.

That 30m advantage late in the first half was a strange one for me. Maybe for a dangerous tackle or foul play but surely when they'd advanced into the Wallabies 22 it was time to call advantage over.

 

[cyclopath]

Ahh.constructive criticism! EXACTLY what the wallabies need. None of this gut feeling junk. And yes your right..

Goal Kicking %
Foley 80%
Hodge 70%
Lance 75%
Barrett 63%

And of course..Hodge tries kicks anywhere in the 50. Foley only has a 35m boot on him..including in play kicks! But Foley did go 6/6 last week..but this week he potentially could have won us the game.

Nah, 48m mate, he kicked one in 2014.
But yeah, kicking consistency is a widespread problem in Aus professional rugby. Some are touting Beale to take them - he is historically no better, although, like Hodge, he has more distance.
If only we had someone who practiced as relentlessly as Wilkinson or Carter. We talk about specialist coaches for it, but those two mostly did it all themselves by a drive to be better. Hmmm.

 

[Ulrich]

I don't see why Beale shouldn't kick. Make him your main kicker and stick with him. I remember him kicking the winning penalty in Bloemfontein a couple of years ago.

 

[Quick Hands]

That 30m advantage late in the first half was a strange one for me. Maybe for a dangerous tackle or foul play but surely when they'd advanced into the Wallabies 22 it was time to call advantage over.

Nige always manages to come up with a few very odd calls during games - maybe so he can give a rambling explanation in that musical Welsh accent, knowing that he'll be at the centre of attention. It's amazing how often these wierd calls seem to favour the ABs as the opposing captain stands there with a bemused look on his face.

How anyone can say with a straight face - the knock on was caused by 1 not pushing straight - is indeed a master of quick thinking.

 

[Derpus]

Forward pass from Read to TJ for the last try?

Plus Reid knocked it on.

You can do this all day though, and dissect everything. Owens had an off day but we were the beneficiaries from his poor decision making as much as the All Blacks were.

All you need from a ref is consistency. Whether hes bad or good doesn't matter as long as hes equally good or bad to both sides.

Cheika having a whinge about him is so tiresome. It would be tiresome even if he had uncovered some deep conspiracy to ensure the supremacy of the AB's because he does it so often.

 

[Baldric]

Forward pass from Read to TJ for the last try?

And we never saw the side-on view in the replay.

 

[TSR]

Just watched the press conference. I can't believe that they glossed over the massive unfair advantage that NZ had because of their quicker broadband internet speeds.

We wuz robbed.

(PS - does anyone actually know what that journo was on about?)

 

[cyclopath]

Nige always manages to come up with a few very odd calls during games - maybe so he can give a rambling explanation in that musical Welsh accent, knowing that he'll be at the centre of attention. It's amazing how often these wierd calls seem to favour the ABs as the opposing captain stands there with a bemused look on his face.

How anyone can say with a straight face - the knock on was caused by 1 not pushing straight - is indeed a master of quick thinking.

He said at the time it was on a call from one of the ARs.

 

[Lost]

And we never saw the side-on view in the replay.

That would be in the control of the home broadcaster. Surely a coincidence.
They won't be beaten with any regularity until the match officials genuinely referee without the expectation that NZ will dominate and go
out to make that happen. The number of 50/50 calls that go their way are statistically outrageous. Their shock when they don't get the benefit is obvious. They are whinging about tries being denied as a balance for other offences but the point at hand is that they were not tries awarded that were not tries and were no evidence existed to sustain the tries that Owens awarded. He thought he saw it and awarded it when it did not happen. Why?? Why did he see something that did not exist. The Retallick tackle on Hanigan was a between the legs grip to a spear, head first contact to the ground. It is a red card. Intent has bugger all to do with it. That was obvious direct evidence and the 4 match officials contrived to ignore it and give Retallick the benefit of the doubt. Why??

 

[cyclopath]

I don't see why Beale shouldn't kick. Make him your main kicker and stick with him. I remember him kicking the winning penalty in Bloemfontein a couple of years ago.

The first thing to do with Beale is to decide where to play him, and keep him there so he can build a consistent body of form in one spot. It hasn't been 10, on evidence thus far in his career. Maybe that needs to be revisited, I don't know. He has never been a really consistent kicker, but I'm sure he could be good enough if he dedicated himself to the art.

 

[Lorenzo]

I'd guess it's the influence of rugby league, but kicking has fallen away as an artform this century in this county.

 

[Tomikin]

I think the root of the issue is that there aren't any good kickers in Australia full stop, at least not at a comparative level to South Africa and New Zealand. Hodge has the distance, but he is a bit like Happy Gilmore before he met Chubbs, all power and very little control. I was king of hoping Mick Byrne would be the Chubbs, but he hasn't eventuates thus far.

A good kicker is as valuable if not more to a team as any Folau/Hooper/McMahon are, not just goal kicking, but tactical kicking.

Lilo is not bad let's hope his back in firm next year.. Maybe put some pressure on for the 10 spot..

Sent from my HTC 2PS6200 using Tapatalk

 

[wamberal]

If Lilo could possibly get back to something like his 2012, we will beat anybody.