Geekzone Rugby (Union) Discussion Thread

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# 2347873 3-Nov-2019 21:49

Dingbatt:

I must admit I haven’t watched the final yet due to work commitments. After the NZ vs ENG semi, I hoped ENG would go on to win the Cup, but that was changed during the week by an Eddie Jones press conference where his arrogance and put down of Warren Gatland (enjoy the third-fourth playoff) changed my opinion. I’m glad SA beat them (comprehensively it would appear) and the way the English players refused to wear their silver medals, as if someone was trying to hang a turd around their necks, just reinforced that.

Sports Journalist Stephen Jones loves to poke sticks at the arrogance of the All Blacks, but the true colours of the English players have been exposed. I would like to think that Anton Lienert-Brown’s partial down-trou in the last play of Friday’s game was a special signal to the likes of Stephen Jones.

I love sport. Ideally id prefer my Team/player to succeed but if the other is great, I embrace that. I dont do pre determined bias or media

The people that embraced whatever results are, are the coaches, "most" of the players. And the knowledge of many spectators. ENG was great. They lost. Now we diss them? Congrats to RSA, and ENG and NZ

tdgeek

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# 2347881 3-Nov-2019 22:24

networkn:

I am extremely keen for the AB's not to go back to grinding Rugby. There is a place for it, but I have unfond memories of many a low scoring game dominated by penalty kicks in the long past.

IMO the RWC has seen the modern game change. You can win with running rugby. Check the AB's. ENG showed they can nullify that with boring kicking, "lets play the game in your half so you can drop the ball and leak penalties" I was super impressed by ENG, they played that game AND ran it. Ball skills were excellent.

Today the game has to be "we are a run the ball team and we can grind it out, then we will grind more or run it (as ENG did against us) and we NEED TO ADAPT

Its now a chess game. For all their credit, AB's fail to adapt. How can AUS, weak as it is, thrash us?? ARG a 4 point game? RSA a draw?

Lessons there, dont rely on the AB's game, that's one way to play. Excel and adapt. Im excited for the AB's, its finally dragged then back to reality. I assume most teams will now be rebuilding? If a team became jack of all trades but master of none, they will clean up. The AB culture will seen that through.

Rugby is about tries. The odd penalty bonus. Last night was forget about tries, it was "read the rule book what penalties can we create" I feel that penalties should cause a go back of 20m or more, not a 3 point gift

Hammerer

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# 2347883 3-Nov-2019 22:54

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The Springbok win was a fairy-tale ending for the RWC. I really enjoyed it and hope it does translate into some positive transformation in South Africa.

The final simply showed how hard it is to be at the top of your game every week. Last week barely any bounces of the ball went our way and many of the handling errors didn't work to our advantage. This week the same happened to England.

I don't see anything to be concerned about for the All Blacks. Any of the top seven(?) teams can beat us on their good day.

networkn

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# 2347884 3-Nov-2019 23:04

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tdgeek:

networkn:

I am extremely keen for the AB's not to go back to grinding Rugby. There is a place for it, but I have unfond memories of many a low scoring game dominated by penalty kicks in the long past.

IMO the RWC has seen the modern game change. You can win with running rugby. Check the AB's. ENG showed they can nullify that with boring kicking, "lets play the game in your half so you can drop the ball and leak penalties" I was super impressed by ENG, they played that game AND ran it. Ball skills were excellent.

Today the game has to be "we are a run the ball team and we can grind it out, then we will grind more or run it (as ENG did against us) and we NEED TO ADAPT

Its now a chess game. For all their credit, AB's fail to adapt. How can AUS, weak as it is, thrash us?? ARG a 4 point game? RSA a draw?

Lessons there, dont rely on the AB's game, that's one way to play. Excel and adapt. Im excited for the AB's, its finally dragged then back to reality. I assume most teams will now be rebuilding? If a team became jack of all trades but master of none, they will clean up. The AB culture will seen that through.

Rugby is about tries. The odd penalty bonus. Last night was forget about tries, it was "read the rule book what penalties can we create" I feel that penalties should cause a go back of 20m or more, not a 3 point gift

I am not sure why you think kicking was how England beat us, they totally dominated us in the forwards. Seeking penalties to win was, I had hoped, going away, but sadly seems not. The backs in the AB vs England games rarely got the ball, it was a forwards game, and we didn't meet their intensity and we lost.

ARG, RSA draw, Australia, we were still perfecting a plan that has been coming for a long time. Ian Foster has developed a way to nullify the rush defence, however, it still requires forwards to be going forward. You should take a look at videos around 1014 for an explanation of that.

No teams adapt mid-game. Especially in a 15/23 man team, having a complete change of tactics isn't that easy. You can see it a bit if a team was kicking away possession a lot and then comes out and then plays with ball in hand, but no matter what, if you are getting smashed in defense, can't make the advantage line and your opponent is making that gain line every carry, then the chances are you won't win.

Rugby SHOULD be about tries, but winning knockout rugby is rarely about that, as demonstrated. The AB's are really the only team to win a final with running Rugby (Certainly in my Rugby lifetime).

Hammerer

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# 2347885 3-Nov-2019 23:09

networkn:

Ian Foster has developed a way to nullify the rush defence, however, it still requires forwards to be going forward. You should take a look at videos around 1014 for an explanation of that.

No teams adapt mid-game. Especially in a 15/23 man team, having a complete change of tactics isn't that easy. You can see it a bit if a team was kicking away possession a lot and then comes out and then plays with ball in hand, but no matter what, if you are getting smashed in defense, can't make the advantage line and your opponent is making that gain line every carry, then the chances are you won't win.

That 1014 video was good to watch. I visualised it several times during the semi-final particularly when the birds-eye view was shown.

I've seen teams adapt mid-game and the All Blacks have done it in the past. But they certainly didn't make a good go of it last week.

networkn

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# 2347886 3-Nov-2019 23:15

Hammerer:

networkn:

Ian Foster has developed a way to nullify the rush defence, however, it still requires forwards to be going forward. You should take a look at videos around 1014 for an explanation of that.

No teams adapt mid-game. Especially in a 15/23 man team, having a complete change of tactics isn't that easy. You can see it a bit if a team was kicking away possession a lot and then comes out and then plays with ball in hand, but no matter what, if you are getting smashed in defense, can't make the advantage line and your opponent is making that gain line every carry, then the chances are you won't win.

That 1014 video was good to watch. I visualised it several times during the semi-final particularly when the birds-eye view was shown.

I've seen teams adapt mid-game and the All Blacks have done it in the past. But they certainly didn't make a good go of it last week.

I think the AB's would have liked to have turned things around or adapted, but in order to do that, you have to HAVE possession and keep it, and because we were being dominated in the tackle and England were killing us at set-piece time, there simply was no platform to deliver that. Really, the only thing that might have changed the outcome, is that if the tight 5 had been able to get some energy from somewhere, or the replacements had something the run-on team didn't have, but they didn't for one reason or another.

One thing that seemed really curious to me, was that England seemed to know out lineout calls, and our set plays too. They were all over us for 80 minutes. I have an unsettled feeling about that.

Hammerer

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# 2347888 3-Nov-2019 23:24

Maybe they had worked them out but a team playing well and dominating often looks prescient. But I was most amazed at the relative lack of errors which they didn't manage to repeat this weekend.

I'm interested in what else is notable about the stats, either in the games or in the rankings and awards? Someone else may have commented on the following stats but if they did, I missed them, sorry.

South Africa still have a 100% record in RWC finals: now it is three out of three.

Southern hemisphere teams have now won 8 RWC finals; northern hemisphere teams have won only 1 final. That's an amazing statistic. That's almost as good as the All Black's win ratio and world ranking dominance.

Handle9

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# 2347889 3-Nov-2019 23:27

networkn:

I am not sure why you think kicking was how England beat us, they totally dominated us in the forwards. Seeking penalties to win was, I had hoped, going away, but sadly seems not. The backs in the AB vs England games rarely got the ball, it was a forwards game, and we didn't meet their intensity and we lost.

ARG, RSA draw, Australia, we were still perfecting a plan that has been coming for a long time. Ian Foster has developed a way to nullify the rush defence, however, it still requires forwards to be going forward. You should take a look at videos around 1014 for an explanation of that.

No teams adapt mid-game. Especially in a 15/23 man team, having a complete change of tactics isn't that easy. You can see it a bit if a team was kicking away possession a lot and then comes out and then plays with ball in hand, but no matter what, if you are getting smashed in defense, can't make the advantage line and your opponent is making that gain line every carry, then the chances are you won't win.

Rugby SHOULD be about tries, but winning knockout rugby is rarely about that, as demonstrated. The AB's are really the only team to win a final with running Rugby (Certainly in my Rugby lifetime).

Why should it be about scoring tries? There's nothing that is inherently superior about a try other than it's worth more points. If a team consistently infringes when under pressure then kicking goals is a legitimate tactic. The All Blacks are past masters at strategic ruck penalties on our line to kill try scoring movements.

One of the things I prefer about union to league is the variety of tactics that are available. New Zealand, Australian and French teams usually play a running game as it suits our conditions, skills and mindset.

Doing that in the middle of an English winter is pretty hard so they evolve in different ways. One of the things I liked about this world cup was the different styles. South Africa went back to a style that suits their players skills and particularly their mindset. They did it very well and it was a good contest to watch.

Handle9

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# 2347890 3-Nov-2019 23:28

Hammerer:

networkn:

Ian Foster has developed a way to nullify the rush defence, however, it still requires forwards to be going forward. You should take a look at videos around 1014 for an explanation of that.

No teams adapt mid-game. Especially in a 15/23 man team, having a complete change of tactics isn't that easy. You can see it a bit if a team was kicking away possession a lot and then comes out and then plays with ball in hand, but no matter what, if you are getting smashed in defense, can't make the advantage line and your opponent is making that gain line every carry, then the chances are you won't win.

That 1014 video was good to watch. I visualised it several times during the semi-final particularly when the birds-eye view was shown.

Sigh, still no way to watch the 1014 overseas...

GV27

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# 2347902 4-Nov-2019 07:19

Handle9:

Why should it be about scoring tries? There's nothing that is inherently superior about a try other than it's worth more points. If a team consistently infringes when under pressure then kicking goals is a legitimate tactic. The All Blacks are past masters at strategic ruck penalties on our line to kill try scoring movements.

Of course, NH teams totally do not have a reputation of conceding three instead of conceding seven or slowing the ball down at ruck time.

Just because a team manages to grind out 15 phases and still can't get over the line doesn't mean a penalty was deliberately conceded if one is eventually given.

tdgeek

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# 2347903 4-Nov-2019 07:26

My point was the scrum penalty after scrum penalty. Did ENG infringe a rule? Yes. Did they mean to? No. Same when player is penalised for not releasing when he can't release. Instant penalty created by a player who did not mean to infringe

Handle9

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# 2347904 4-Nov-2019 07:27

GV27:
Handle9:

Why should it be about scoring tries? There's nothing that is inherently superior about a try other than it's worth more points. If a team consistently infringes when under pressure then kicking goals is a legitimate tactic. The All Blacks are past masters at strategic ruck penalties on our line to kill try scoring movements.

Of course, NH teams totally do not have a reputation of conceding three instead of conceding seven or slowing the ball down at ruck time.

Just because a team manages to grind out 15 phases and still can't get over the line doesn't mean a penalty was deliberately conceded if one is eventually given.

Do you ever miss an opportunity to criticize England?

The point I was making was that creating pressure leads to sides deliberately infringing. New Zealand does it just as much as any side. It's cynical and totally sensible.

Having a game plan based around forward dominance will generally result in more penalties. That doesn't make it morally less pure than expansive game.

GV27

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# 2347961 4-Nov-2019 09:56

Handle9:

Do you ever miss an opportunity to criticize England?

Considering they are holding back the global game and their fans act like they are the destined winners of any tournament, it's fish-in-a-barrel stuff.

Should I not criticise them just because they're England?

tdgeek

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# 2347966 4-Nov-2019 10:02

GV27:

Handle9:

Do you ever miss an opportunity to criticize England?

Considering they are holding back the global game and their fans act like they are the destined winners of any tournament, it's fish-in-a-barrel stuff.

Should I not criticise them just because they're England?

How are they holding back the global game? Genuine question

networkn

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# 2347968 4-Nov-2019 10:05

They are preventing a global season by refusing the move the timing of the 6 Nations event.

There are lots of smaller things as well (more reasonable profit splits etc), but this is the main one.

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