Geekzone Rugby (Union) Discussion Thread

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#3508363 3-Jul-2026 14:57

Both teams now selected with the game under the roof in Chch, I expect points and lots of them. Both teams especially the French will attack from anywhere.

Going to be a fun game to watch, AB's to win a close win. France should be good even with their "B" team

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#3508365 3-Jul-2026 15:06

Shalfoon and Tuivailala departing the Crusaders for Japan.

I felt sure Shalfoon was going to be in AB's contention a while back. Bit of a shame to see him go given how well he was playing.

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#3508463 4-Jul-2026 07:57

Japanese teams on a tear hoovering up the fringe players

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#3508475 4-Jul-2026 10:12

Game Day!

Also looking forward to AU v Ireland and SA v England.

JPNZ

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#3508643 4-Jul-2026 21:14

ABs almost embarrassed by France B team. Great match to watch though, love there was very few box kicks. Attack at all opportunities like I anticipated. Lots of back and forth tries. Loved watching that.

ABs can only improve from that.

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#3508644 4-Jul-2026 21:26

JPNZ:

ABs almost embarrassed by France B team. Great match to watch though, love there was very few box kicks. Attack at all opportunities like I anticipated. Lots of back and forth tries. Loved watching that.

ABs can only improve from that.

it was a pass.... but only just....

I thought the no 10 was supposed to control the game like Barrett / Carter / Merhtens?

Love was pretty useless IMO...room for improvement from the team - LOTS of room

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#3508651 5-Jul-2026 01:31

I thought Love was fine, especially for first test with the keys. Didn't look out of place and had some nice touches. The way I see it, we aren't losing anything by having him in, and he will only improve. Weirdly it felt like him and Roigard were slightly out of sync sometimes.

Locks were both impressive, slightly disappointed in the pack failing to impose themselves, after Love was sent off I thought that period where they were keeping it tight before opening up to the backs was genuinely impressive. Before the game that was what I was expecting from a Rennie team.

Dmac and Love look to complement each well. Must be a nightmare to defend.

Jordan just seems to purr when he plays, man he is on another level. Clarke looked a bit out of sorts.

Lineout, scrum and kick receptions were all good, which feels like the first time in two coaches I've watched a game and thought that (I'm sure it's not the case, but whatever).

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#3508652 5-Jul-2026 02:50

JPNZ:

Both teams now selected with the game under the roof in Chch, I expect points and lots of them. Both teams especially the French will attack from anywhere.

Going to be a fun game to watch, AB's to win a close win. France should be good even with their "B" team

Eerily prescient

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#3508654 5-Jul-2026 05:54

>I thought Love was fine, especially for first test with the keys

That looked different on the stadium. Few very poor decision kicks, nervous under high ball. I think opening minutes yellow card did not help his confidence, it looked pretty obvious live.

On the other hand, Roigard was exceptional, fast, switch play, just how he moved off the camera.

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#3508656 5-Jul-2026 07:39

kobiak:

>I thought Love was fine, especially for first test with the keys

That looked different on the stadium. Few very poor decision kicks, nervous under high ball. I think opening minutes yellow card did not help his confidence, it looked pretty obvious live.

On the other hand, Roigard was exceptional, fast, switch play, just how he moved off the camera.

Everybody was rubbish under the high ball, so Love no worse then anybody else there.

Everyone has been calling for less kicking, well last night they got their wish and it was fun to watch.

France are a good side, Six Nations champs, and they always get up for the ABs, so anyone expecting a blow out was dreaming. In saying that I expected we would get away a bit in the last ten minutes and win by around 12. AB's are always slow to start a season, no matter who is coaching them.

Rennie was right in his comments at the end, we got a bit excited and went wide at times a bit quick when their big men were tiring in the inside. Frances midfield was like a brick wall.

Jordie was a beast. Roigard owes him a beer for the try he scored from the base of the ruck.

I was a bit confused on the make up of the loose forward trio when the team was named, but it seemed to work. Jacobsen was a beast on defence and some nice touches including that offload.

I loved the fact that Rennie brought on all those subs even though the game was in the balance. Past coaches would not have done that and there would have been a lack of trust with the game so close. These guys don't get experience if you don't play them. The scrum went up a level once the new front row was on.

The only real brain fade moment was the intercept pass McKenzie threw. You could see that inside defender coming a mile off and I was yelling at the TV for him to hold the ball. I also thought we should have gone scrum rather than the penalty kick in front as I felt we had them on the ropes then, but that three points could have been the difference in the end.

Overall a bit scrappy, but loved the freedom they were given and the intent and it sure beats watching 50 box kicks in a game. Pass mark for me.

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#3508726 5-Jul-2026 12:54

Well, that was a somewhat underwhelming performance by the AB's.

The Bad:

3 High tackles in 20 minutes

74% tackle completion rate for the first 30 minutes (improved to a 86% rate over the match, but missed 25 tackles in total).

1 Yellow Card

When we adjusted so we weren't taking peoples heads off, our dominance was very average in the forwards. More work required to get that balance correct. We need to make the gain line far more consistently.

Lots of tries leaked.

Dmac missed 4 tackles, including 1 that led directly to a try. His kicking out of hand again was pretty aimless.

What was very noticeable compared to other matches I watched over the weekend, was how much less distance we get when we kick for touch.

I counted 4 forward passes which inexplicably weren't picked up. IMO this is coming largely off the pressure the team is feeling to get the ball out wide as fast as possible.

Ardie had his quietest game for a while. Nowhere near as prominent as he has been in the last 12-24 months. I haven't kooked specifically at his post contact meters but anacdoteally felt less than usual.

Good.

Reuben Love got a good outing. He showed good composure to not let his yellow get into his head.

We showed periods of incredibly quick hands, which led to very fast attack. We manipulated space to get good attack going.

General handling was solid.

We nearly stayed inside 10 penalties total.

Tupaea was very good at 13, Barrett good at 12.

Ok (ish) under the high ball

Pretty reasonable consistency when we started bringing on Subs. Better than previously where we usually had one good half and one bad half.

Roigard very solid. Anyone else notice how close he was to being charged down repeatedly when he was box kicking? I think it needs looking at. Even 1 step backward would help.

Ruck clearance times were excellent and our cleanout was mostly pretty accurate.

The players seem to be clear on where they should be and when. Credit to Rennie for that.

Ultimately, we were a bit lucky to win that match. If the referee hadn't overruled the TMO and looked again at the bounce of the ball off the head, and saw it for the knock on it was, we would have lost.

If I hear 'optimism' much more I might throw up. You can see how uncomfortable the players look when they try and talk about it.

You'd call it a pass mark because we (barely) won, if we had lost, very different story. We need to improve massively before going to SA, or we are going to get spanked.

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#3508727 5-Jul-2026 12:58

Ireland vs Australia.

Most entertaining match of the weekend. Genuinely fun to watch and you didn't know who was going to win till the very end.

Ireland did an incredible job of coming back and honesly, that's the best I've seen Australia for a good few years. Particularly for the first match of the year against a much higher ranked Irish side.

Just before half time it looked like Australia were going to run away with it.

Eng vs SA

Worst game I've watched in a while. Boring, and uninteresting. Scoreline flattered England a lot IMO.

Hard to see what gameplan England is building.

SA looked prety dominant.

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#3508871 5-Jul-2026 23:55

French looked good. Not a huge fan of the "B" team narrative that's often promoted.

The French have impressive depth, arguably superior than ours (nowadays). But, they probably have the best club competition in the world.

I thought the English ref had a good game overall, but, pretty sure a southern ref would've afforded the defending team a better contest at the rucks - like what is generally done in the Southern hemisphere. For the way that Rennie wants to play the game (high tempo, constant ball in play), genuinely contestable rucks is an essential component.

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#3508876 6-Jul-2026 06:41

networkn:

Ardie had his quietest game for a while. Nowhere near as prominent as he has been in the last 12-24 months. I haven't kooked specifically at his post contact meters but anacdoteally felt less than usual.

According to the stats at Rugbypass Ardie finished with an All Black high 13 carries, and sixteen tackles.

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#3508878 6-Jul-2026 07:14

How does that compare with prior games? Anything there about post contact meters?

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