Handle9: That game was poorly refereed. At no point did they look at any of the high shots or leading elbows. Quite bizarre.

The All Blacks also repeatedly infringed in their own 22s (consecutive penalty advantages one after the other) without triggering a warning in the first real Fijian incursion into the half. In Super Rugby that's been a warning, right off the bat, for cynical play. Suddenly we get to internationals and everything is different. 

Same with the 'sorry we have to card you but it's a yellow because of the contact to the head, not much we can do about it' - that's now 'lmao nah all good let's get on with it'.

All it does is make you annoyed at the times in Super Rugby when that worked against your team - basically ruining two games for the price of one. 

Handle9: That game was poorly refereed. At no point did they look at any of the high shots or leading elbows. Quite bizarre.

Including a shoulder directly to the head of McKenzie that didn’t even get a second look, the commentators even lauding the great shot, “like a human missile”. Lucky they build them tough down south.

On the flip side, if the Fijians can draw together a group of players like the man-mountains that played last night and train them for long enough before the next World Cup, there should be multiple tier-one nations that should be very afraid. Luckily for them, the European clubs they play for will never release them early enough to let that happen.

Dingbatt:

Handle9: That game was poorly refereed. At no point did they look at any of the high shots or leading elbows. Quite bizarre.

Including a shoulder directly to the head of McKenzie that didn’t even get a second look, the commentators even lauding the great shot, “like a human missile”. Lucky they build them tough down south.

I see Chris R having his usual whine whine about Ian Foster. Foster wasn't to blame for last night, some players need to have a good hard look at themselves. Robertson isn't suddenly going to pull a more motivated ans talented forward pack out of thin air. The Crusaders forward pack wasn't nearly as dominant the past 2 seasons) Laulala was so static, he was almost tackling backward last night, it was awful to watch, Rettalick is obviously going to need a few more games, Soututu had a bad night, as did Tuipolotu. Tuipolotu is capable of magnificent play, but his consistency is terrible. It was embarassing how many times Fiji locked themselves over the ball with no cleaners from the AB's in sight. Taylor won't be happy with last night I'd imagine.

Fiji were fantastic (less foul play), and highly motivated, the AB's looked like they could barely be bothered attending.  The lack of focus has been present a few times recently. England in the Semi, we were missing intensity that game totally deserved, same with Argentina in our loss last year, and same with Fiji. The win or die trying attitude has gone away somewhat.  I read somewhere that in order to beat the AB's now you don't need be bigger or more talented, you just have to front up and out passion them (paraphrasing).

There are lots of reasons to attribute to last nights performance, including unfamilar player combinations, players coming back from long periods away, lots of team changes, an extremely fired up Fiji, but going backwards in the tackle, getting off the ground quickly and getting back in the defensive line, allowing players to get isolated because you don't front at the ruck, those things are basics every player should be doing to the best of thier ability for as long as they are on the field.

networkn:

 

I see Chris R having his usual whine whine about Ian Foster. Foster wasn't to blame for last night, some players need to have a good hard look at themselves. Robertson isn't suddenly going to pull a more motivated ans talented forward pack out of thin air. The Crusaders forward pack wasn't nearly as dominant the past 2 seasons) Laulala was so static, he was almost tackling backward last night, it was awful to watch, Rettalick is obviously going to need a few more games, Soututu had a bad night, as did Tuipolotu. Tuipolotu is capable of magnificent play, but his consistency is terrible. It was embarassing how many times Fiji locked themselves over the ball with no cleaners from the AB's in sight. Taylor won't be happy with last night I'd imagine.

 

Fiji were fantastic (less foul play), and highly motivated, the AB's looked like they could barely be bothered attending.  The lack of focus has been present a few times recently. England in the Semi, we were missing intensity that game totally deserved, same with Argentina in our loss last year, and same with Fiji. The win or die trying attitude has gone away somewhat.  I read somewhere that in order to beat the AB's now you don't need be bigger or more talented, you just have to front up and out passion them (paraphrasing).

 

There are lots of reasons to attribute to last nights performance, including unfamilar player combinations, players coming back from long periods away, lots of team changes, an extremely fired up Fiji, but going backwards in the tackle, getting off the ground quickly and getting back in the defensive line, allowing players to get isolated because you don't front at the ruck, those things are basics every player should be doing to the best of thier ability for as long as they are on the field.

 

Foster has been part of the management for nearly 10 years. We've been seeing the same problems for 4 years now.

If Fosters coaching team can't address them then it's worth exploring other options. If he can then we'll see improvement in the performances.

Handle9:

 

Foster has been part of the management for nearly 10 years. We've been seeing the same problems for 4 years now.

 

If Fosters coaching team can't address them then it's worth exploring other options. If he can then we'll see improvement in the performances.

 

You mentioned (and I mostly agree) that the forwards are our weakest link right now. Where do you see the key issues lying? Is it a personnel issue (We don't have (m)any good forwards), a training issue, a motivation issue, or a coaching problem (wrong game plan, too much information being given to the players which makes it hard for them to play since they have too many 'work ons')?

If we end up playing all the matches this year that are scheduled, I think we will be able to more fairly judge Foster.

SA look like they may not be playing much at all this year, though, I guess if the entire team get it now, they are good to go later lol.

The Game in the weekend made for interesting reading from a stats perspective.

We had around 50% of possession and territory, 88% tackle completion vs Fiji @ 75%. Penalties were 15 each, we won all of our scrums and lineouts. We had the same number of turnovers conceded (15 which is awful).  We only won 87% of our Rucks compared to Fiji at 95%.

Laulala made 1 solitary tackle the whole time he was on the field. Groot and Lomax made 7 and 8 each. Whitelock made 3.

Mackenzie vs J Barrett at fullback, for me it's Jordie every day of the week. He has a bigger kick, is taller, but most importantly, despite Mackenzie being incredibly brave, just isn't going to stop a rampaging big player the way Jordie can. There was one try-saving tackle Jordie made that I just don't think Mackenzie would have been able to make. Jordie isn't as electric as Mackenzie, but I feel Mackenzie has lost some of his zip, defences are more prepared for him, and he is still fairly mercurial. What we lose in that regard vs what we gain, on the balance, I think it's worth it.

networkn:

 

Handle9:

 

Foster has been part of the management for nearly 10 years. We've been seeing the same problems for 4 years now.

 

If Fosters coaching team can't address them then it's worth exploring other options. If he can then we'll see improvement in the performances.

 

 

You mentioned (and I mostly agree) that the forwards are our weakest link right now. Where do you see the key issues lying? Is it a personnel issue (We don't have (m)any good forwards), a training issue, a motivation issue, or a coaching problem (wrong game plan, too much information being given to the players which makes it hard for them to play since they have too many 'work ons')?

 

If we end up playing all the matches this year that are scheduled, I think we will be able to more fairly judge Foster.

 

SA look like they may not be playing much at all this year, though, I guess if the entire team get it now, they are good to go later lol.

 

I think it's primarily strategic. NZ is focussed on "athletes" and attractive rugby and doesn't put enough emphasis on core skills of winning collisions and technical forward play. One of the bigger changes Henry made when he became All Blacks coaches was a focus on forward dominance. We haven't seen that for a long time. Now we give away heaps of penalties as our forwards aren't technically capable and we have a mentatility of killing the ball. Watch how many time Sam Whitelock gets penalised on his goal line - it's a mentality.

The NZ rugby system is very centrally controlled and set up to give the All Blacks what they want.

Handle9:

 

I think it's primarily strategic. NZ is focussed on "athletes" and attractive rugby and doesn't put enough emphasis on core skills of winning collisions and technical forward play. One of the bigger changes Henry made when he became All Blacks coaches was a focus on forward dominance. We haven't seen that for a long time. Now we give away heaps of penalties as our forwards aren't technically capable and we have a mentatility of killing the ball. Watch how many time Sam Whitelock gets penalised on his goal line - it's a mentality.

 

The NZ rugby system is very centrally controlled and set up to give the All Blacks what they want.

 

To be fair, I do not ever want Rugby to go back to the grindy slow days of years gone by, I'd rather the AB's lose 2-3 games a year rather than watch 80 minutes of Rugby with a scoreline of 9-3.

Having said that, I strongly dislike the way we play that attracts so many penalties, and I'd like to see us get some forwards dominance. I am unsure how that gets fixed. I think Moody being out, shows how big the gap between what I'd consider our first choice prop and the next best player.

We had been working toward more mobile props at the end of the Hansen era, but it seems to have fallen away somewhat as a focus.

networkn:

 

Handle9:

 

I think it's primarily strategic. NZ is focussed on "athletes" and attractive rugby and doesn't put enough emphasis on core skills of winning collisions and technical forward play. One of the bigger changes Henry made when he became All Blacks coaches was a focus on forward dominance. We haven't seen that for a long time. Now we give away heaps of penalties as our forwards aren't technically capable and we have a mentatility of killing the ball. Watch how many time Sam Whitelock gets penalised on his goal line - it's a mentality.

 

The NZ rugby system is very centrally controlled and set up to give the All Blacks what they want.

 

 

To be fair, I do not ever want Rugby to go back to the grindy slow days of years gone by, I'd rather the AB's lose 2-3 games a year rather than watch 80 minutes of Rugby with a scoreline of 9-3.

 

Having said that, I strongly dislike the way we play that attracts so many penalties, and I'd like to see us get some forwards dominance. I am unsure how that gets fixed. I think Moody being out, shows how big the gap between what I'd consider our first choice prop and the next best player.

 

We had been working toward more mobile props at the end of the Hansen era, but it seems to have fallen away somewhat as a focus.

 

The premiership final was won by Harlequins 40-38

Having high quality forwards doesn't preclude great back play, it enables it.

AU v France 2 - I quite enjoyed that game. It was less bonkers than the previous game. Both games Australia showed fantastic grit to come back into the game after France got early leads.

Ultimately, last night, Australias handling errors every time they built pressure, cost them the game IMO. Interestingly, they didn't miss a tackle for 34 minutes, which was pretty solid. France showed a lot less flair, and a lot less attacking intent.

I can't pick a winner for next week off the form that the teams have shown across 2 games.

SAA v BI Lions was interesting. The Boks looked pretty lethal to be honest. Hard to believe they have played as little rugby as they have. Defense was outstanding and the Lions looked well off the pace. I felt the score didn't reflect the game. BI Lions fought back well. Faf de Clerk looks very good again this year and was nice to see Morne Steyne on the paddock at the ripe old age of 37. Still pretty handy kicker.  Cheslin Colby is a slippery character. SA's attendance in the Rugby Championship looks questionable now, but it will be very interesting to see how the AB's measure up. I'm slightly worried off the back of what I saw today. 

A much better performance all around last night against Fiji. Lualala was good last night, someone I was looking at after a dismal effort the week before. A big improvement as expected from Retallick. Not much of one from Taylor.

Havili surely has secured the 12 Jersey. I think ALB or Goodhue at 13 is a good match. The understanding between Mo'unga and the other members of the AB's seems to be improving and starting to see a few sparks which is encouraging. Jacobsen definitely needs to be seen more in Black in my opinion. He was a monster last night, and I think Blackadder has a bright future too. I don't see Blackadder at 7, his physicality is suited better at 8 or 6. I like Akira at 6, though he is still a little prone to going missing for (admittedly lesser) periods. Loose trio was an area of concern, but given some more time for combinations to gel, I think that looks OK for now.  Reiko is a winger, they need to stop with trying to make him a centre.

The players seem to be able to respond to Fosters requests to do better, I think that's positive. 

Australia have showed some grit the likes of which we haven't seen for a good many years, in the series against France. There seems to be a much better 'feel' to the attitude of the team in general. I actually think the red card (which I thought was tough from a game perspective, but correctly given regardless) helped them. They lifted visibly afterward and I believe it was probably the reason they won that game. I am not sure without it, if they would have won. Who knows, but it felt that way to me. It will have done them the world of good to self belief.

didn't watch ABs. Aus - Fra was the best game of the year so far.

and no way that was a red card.