Bledisloe match this weekend

It is a big game in which to be playing people out of position.

(Just like Cardiff was a big game to be playing people out of position).

First time he has to mark Toeava he will flail as Ice hits the gas. SBW = no pace

lol, SBW in the same sentence as Toeva. Classic!

From memory the only person who was close to being out of position in Cardiff was Mils at centre, and that's hardly out of position given that Mils has played a fair bit of centre and is in fact a very good centre. I still think that was the best selection available as last year we gained a lot more from having McDonald at fullback than we did from Smith or Ice at centre (I will concede that this season Smith is definitely the best choice this season based on Super 14 form).

What exactly has SBW achieved that's so great?

At least Ice has a championship.

Seems to me SBW's career has involved international failure and success in the NRL except when it counts - the playoffs.

He has won an NRL title.

hey may be rubbish at union, he may be great... but very few players have been great right after changing... it's always taken them at least a couple of seasons

I would rather have a mediocre winger on the wing, than a very green and inexperienced centre playing on the wing out of position.

If you had a problem with your carburettor you wouldn't take it to an auto electrician to fix it would you?

I agree though there is a lot more to worry about: speed of delivery, a lack of decision makers and kickers other than Carter and contesting at the breakdown.

I think theres little doubt that SBW can be great @ rugby

A Championship vadz? You mean NPC? A 3rd rate sporting comp? lol Ice vs SBW. Sometimes I wonder about you aye

Kahui has actually played plenty of his rugby on the wing according to th herald today

I have woken with a sense of optimism for this game. I just have this feeling they are gonna come back with a sense of commitment and intensity not seen for a while - and some respect for a simpler game plan. They can win this in the forwards. We need a grinding 50 minutes before any flash stuff. Some huge defence and Ritchie at the breakdown, will hopefully contribute.

The glass is half full: 27 - 19 to the AB's.

(Please let me be right - just once, please let me be right! I will never ask again).

Well it seems you're plain fucking wrong then, son. SBW won an NRL premiership in his rookie year with the Bulldogs... and as we all know the NRL is a far superior comp than any club rugby tournament in the world let alone.. the NPC?!

He has also been nominated for several Dally Ms, and got the International Newcomer of the Year Award...

And over the years he's been widely recognised as one of the games true talents, has been offered several lucrative contracts with overseas clubs and has become a SUPER-STAR of the game.

Toeava? LOL.

Jesus fuck Vadz, what the hell have you been smoking????


Sonny Bill won the NRL premiership with the dogs in 2004.



You just got owned son.

The NPC is the world's premier rugby competition (non-international) in ANY of the codes, including rugby uinion and rugby league.

BTW provinces are bigger than clubs so what's with the "let alone"? Seems to make no sense.

So they've both won a title. Except Toeava has two.

:>

Oh, and Toeava has also played at a World Cup

WHY WHY do you guys carry on with this guy

vadz you are a complete nutter love you for it though!

It's true though. Teams like Auckland 1989-1990 would go an entire game without a single handling mistake. That's how good it is.

No, that's how good it was.. 18 years ago. NPC is up to fuck-all.

And btw, gotta chuckle at the fact you bring up a supposed lack of handling errors as a side-arguement to your support of Isaea "Butter-Fingers" Toeava

:>

Credit where credit is due

Great All Black performance that was almost flawless in its execution.

Was this the same team as last week? they played 'real' rugby tonight with structure and precision.

Richie McCaw so so vital to the cause. Breakdowns were Scotland last week. Finest All Black tonight.

Well done.

jimmy cowan was awesome. why the fyck have the all blacks not used their kicking game in the past?

in the past i think they've tried to rush things too much. tonight you could see they were thinking about what they were doing.

was most excellant.

I think we played very well around the ruck and on attack. However, whenever Australia stretched the ball wide on attack our defence was very poor. Missed tackles, poor defensive pattern, in general just a bit porous. We were lucky only to concede the one try and it would be interesting to see the missed tackle statistics.

although I hate to say it about andrew ellis, but Cowan is so much better in the number 9 jersey.

Cowan is the new Marshall....all hail the new master halfback who will play like a demon and not take shit from anyone. We've missed you Justin


Convincing win but I thought Australia played like complete arse

^ Yep. Cowan was awesome lastnight. Good on the AB coaches for sticking with him.

Gold. They both hail from Mataura, a town of about 1500 in rural Soutland.

I actually thought it was classic rugby tactics of not *allowing* the opposition to play well... that's what a good kicking game does... I think it was proof that the ELVs haven't taken anything away from the tactical depth of rugby

comparing that to last week when the ABs got the tactics all wrong and Aus took advantage...

AB + IQ goes a long way.

What a great game.

Yea bwoys, that's how it's done!

Best ABs game I've ever been to....

Who loves stats? I fucking LOVE stats. So does Tracey Nelson.

Her stats from our loss:
http://haka.co.nz/haka-column.php?story_id=418&locations=ab_general

Her stats from our win:
http://haka.co.nz/haka-column.php?story_id=422&locations=ab_general

The story is in there.

We missed 17 tackles!
Normally you do that and you're on the wrong side of a 30 pt hammering.

Teams for the weekend.


South Africa: 15-Percy Montgomery, 14-JP Pietersen, 13-Adrian Jacobs, 12-Jean de Villiers, 11-Bryan Habana, 10-Butch James, 9-Fourie du Preez, 8-Pierre Spies, 7-Juan Smith, 6-Schalk Burger, 5-Victor Matfield (c), 4-Andries Bekker, 3-CJ van der Linde, 2-Bismarck du Plessis, 1-Tendai Mtawarira. Reserves: 16-Adriaan Strauss, 17-Brian Mujati, 18-Danie Rossouw, 19-Luke Watson, 20-Enrico Januarie, 21-Francois Steyn, 22-Conrad Jantjes.

New Zealand: 15-Mils Muliaina, 14-Richard Kahui, 13-Conrad Smith, 12-Ma'a Nonu, 11-Sitiveni Sivivatu, 10-Daniel Carter, 9-Jimmy Cowan, 8-Rodney So'oialo, 7-Richie McCaw (c), 6-Jerome Kaino, 5-Ali Williams, 4-Brad Thorn, 3-Greg Somerville, 2-Andrew Hore, 1-Tony Woodcock. Reserves: 16-Keven Mealamu, 17-John Afoa, 18-Anthony Boric, 19-Adam Thomson, 20-Piri Weepu, 21-Stephen Donald, 22-Isaia Toeava.

For a team that hasn't been able to settle on a centre since Tana we certainly have enough in our team.

Muliaina, Kahui, Smith, Nonu, and Toeva on the bench, all centres by trade (to start with at least).

Not much action in this thread for a while?

Bledisoe Cup and Tri Nations secured

What did everyone think of the game last night? I was so glad when they took butterfingers Nonu off the field. Seriously, how many times lately has he dropped the ball or needlessly got himself completely isolated?

It was much beter with Donald/Carter ...and with Weepu coming on.

Yeah, with all the kicking in the ELV's, players like Nonu are just to one dimensional.

I enjoyed the game very much.

yeah, wouldn't you love to see a WC final played like that?

Unfortunately, I don't think that'll happen, as the ELVs will get thrown out next year

Great game especially how the AB's turned the game on it's ear in the second half although they were a bit guilty of going to sleep in the last 7 minutes or so.

Really? That would suck.. have they been getting negative reviews from admin? I like the ELVs

This was an EPIC game as well - it's all been overshadowed by the Wuzza's, but boy I was proud after we put them away.

Daniel Carter is a fucking god.

The ELVs are fantastic but unfortunately the implementation by the IRB has been some what of a stuff up. The northern hemisphere local competitions e.g. Heineken Cup, Guiness Premiership etc. are playing under around 3 different variations of the laws, none of which I believe are the same as the ELVs used in the tri nations.

Trialling them has been an acknowledgement that the IRB aren't happy with the current state of affairs so it will be just be a matter of what ELVs they will use and when they plan to implement them.

Which is worrying... guess things have changed in NZ... that was one of the greatest ABs wins in recent years, it would never have been overshadowed by anything a few years ago...

The northern hemisphere is very anti ELVs. I think mainly because they haven't played them properly... lots of people were worried about them in NZ before the S14, thinking it was going to turn into league or something... the decision is in April I think. It'll turn into north vs south, and the north always wins.

They may keep some of them, but I bet they won't keep penalty = free kick, which is the most important one (in my mind).

From watching the recent games that is the one thing which stands out to me as being a brilliant new law... it just stops the stupid kick-for-goal fests many games became and I bet, increases continuous playing time by ten minutes a match - if not more.

The other one I like is the kicking out on the full - throw-in where the kicker was, not the point of exit.

R

If the free kick law does stay, it paves the way for a new breed of tight forward much like a league forward pack; big yet mobile units that can do the hard yards, offload in the tackle, are able to get back into the defensive line quickly and can make the tackles.

This is where Oz fell short on the weekend, they probably have one of the laziest set of tight forwards of any international team around these days.

ELVs are being introduced to club level next season. The preseason training will be fun due to the fitness levels have to be lifted to play under ELVs!

The best thing about the ELVs is that the ball is actually in play for more than 40-50% of the game

That's the one they hate the most in the north... (possibly because they only ever win big games on kicks?) ... for some reason they think it'll lead to people giving away endless fouls... but deliberate fouls are still full penalties, and it just hasn't been a problem for us... why should accidental or technical infringements be full penalties anyway? it doesn't make any sense when you think about it

Yet points-per-game have gone done, there is more kicking, good teams can't put lots of phases together (it favours shit, spoiling teams)...

ELVs = didn't open the game up at all

If you want to know how "good" the ELVs are, compare the points per game in the Super 12 and Tri Nations from 1996-2000 or so versus 2007-2008.

I don't know if you want to compare points vadz. It has been quoted many times that under ELVs teams are scoring more tries.

Yeah... cos deliberately picking an era before the southern hemisphere worked out how to defend is really relevant

Where are the facts for this? I know for a fact that scores in the NPC this year are lower than they were in 2007.

And the quality has gone down continually. Waikato and Auckland are perfect examples of this - 2006, 2007 they were playing high speed offload rugby and getting fast balls from 2nd phase - this year teams can just spoil that possession so soon because the breakdown doesnt allow players with the ball to hold on long enough for it to be secure. Makes it TOO MUCH of a gamble.

So scores before that were even higher, were they?

Dude, I can't be fucked looking for facts. You're the stats man. They might off been higher scoring games due to the amount of penalties. Pass.

My point is that amount of points does not equal amount of tries.

Exactly.

If you don't think the ELVs have opened up the game, you haven't been watching.

Please start making sense.

Also, make sure your comments match what you see on screen, not the selective bullshit you choose to read on the stats sheet.

You said "before they learned to defend", implying that before 2000 Southern Hemisphere teams couldn't defend. Which would indicate scores in say 1990, 1980, 1970 would have been 51-45 thrillers. Right?

Or... wrong..

Fewer tries this year. It's a fact.

Is the game more exciting? No. The two teams I watch a LOT of are Auckland and Waikato and the ELVs are preventing them play the sort of football I mentioned before. There are fewer clean line breaks, and when the attacking team goes into a ruck it often loses it. If the ball is going from one side to the other every ruck then teams can't build continuity and great tries, can they? I'd have thought a league guy would understand this.

How many tries have ABs wingers scored this year - usually a good indication of sweeping backline movements?

... compared to say Rokocoko and Howlett from 2003-2006.

Rugby's been way more interesting this year. Tries are not directly related to excitement.

And no, it was the introduction of the S12 that brought about high scoring try-fests. So '96-2000ish, before they all worked out how to defend properly and turned rugby into a skill-less bore-fest.

Urgh, why not address the point?

Prior to the introduction of the ELVs, the ball was in play for an abysmally low proportion of the 80 minutes.

HALF THE GAME INVOLVED WATCHING GUYS WALK TO THE NEXT SET PIECE FFS!

A free kick is still a set piece

And you'd rather watch aerial pingpong?

And you'd rather watch endless kicks for goal or touch?

Tap and go or a scrum is far better from just about every point of view

Yeah, but what about the rucks and mauls?
Replacing penalties with free kicks is a good move, but it's completely cancelled out by turning second phase into a lottery and preventing teams getting any continuity.

Look at the NPC points table. The two most exciting teams of the past five years (Auckland and Waikato) can't fucking score points!! Because of the ELVs.

Yet some shitty team that only scores on counterattacks from turnovers is leading the comp