Rugby: A New Dawn

[ithanos]

49 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I’m not sure the Springboks have changed much, they’ve just won a few more of the contestable high balls. The up tempo game New Zealand are playing though looks to be causing them a few problems. The kick chase on the Jordi Barrett break towards the end of the first half was very ragged.

NZ actually kicked more than SA in that first half. Intense finish, after SA pegged back the lead, several lead changes by penalties and a drop kick, and then the final leg taken by SA - who in truth were the better team overall on the night. Deserved victory by SA but it was close, again.

[ljkeane]

5 hours ago, ithanos said:

NZ actually kicked more than SA in that first half. Intense finish, after SA pegged back the lead, several lead changes by penalties and a drop kick, and then the final leg taken by SA - who in truth were the better team overall on the night. Deserved victory by SA but it was close, again.

Yeah, it’s not necessarily how much teams kick, it’s that as soon as they have a phase that doesn’t go over the gainline the Springboks go straight to putting up a high ball. It’s very prescriptive.

But, yeah, deserved win for South Africa. Their bench had a big impact in that second half.

[ithanos]

Halftime in the NRL Grand Final, an even arm wrestle with just a penalty in it. Brutal defence from both sides. Penrith have playing on defence these past weeks so I expect them to hold strong. If Cleary's kicking continues I think it will just wear Souths down in the second half, unless Reynolds & Walker can produce more inroads. Also, Benji Marshall is still to come on, it would be a fairy-tale finish to his career (if he is retiring) if he adds some magic touches for the bunnies.  

Great final. Penrith Panthers getting some relief after year's heartbreak.

Edited October 3, 2021 by ithanos

[ljkeane]

Huh, weird game. Penrith absolutely battered the Rabbitohs for about 75 minutes of the game but, honestly, I also feel like they were a bit lucky to come away with the win. If Walker doesn't throw a pretty soft intercept pass to Crichton I think they lose the game.

[The Anti-Targ]

Good win by the Red Roses over the Black Ferns. I only caught the youtube highlights unfortunately. Good to see the stadium more or less full. Not a large stadium, but even filling a modest stadium is good for building the fanbase of the women's game.

Edited November 1, 2021 by The Anti-Targ

[Which Tyler]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Good win by the Red Roses over the Black Ferns. I only caught the youtube highlights unfortunately. Good to see the stadium more or less full. Not a large stadium, but even filling a modest stadium is good for building the fanbase of the women's game.

Just watching it now - they're out after half time

[ithanos]

Woke up at 5am and watched delayed full streams of this morning's men's internationals. A great way to spend a lazy Sunday morning.

Ireland vs NZ. The Irish were amazing. This might be the best performance I've seen from any one team this year. I thought last week that Kieran Crowley had done masterly in getting the Azzurri to completely stifle and confront the NZ forwards for the first 20 minutes until a lack of familiarity in such a position let them hesitate allowing the opposition to finally get into the game. In this game, Ireland's variety in attack was impressive, I didn't think they had that in them to sustain for the majority of the game. Might need to check the record books but I don't think NZ has been made to tackle that much since modern records have been kept.   
Its a shame Ireland hasn't put in for a RWC hosting bid (could they?), as they're genuinely odds on favorite against any opponent on their home ground. Any consolation for NZ would be that the losses this year answer several questions they would've had about their squad and game plan - and they have a couple years to address before the 2023 RWC. For now they have the tough task of regrouping for a final match against France in Paris.  

By contrast the England vs Australia game was disappointing. The Australian coaching team seem to have struggled incorporating the new squad members, as experienced as some of them are, into the structures they started seeing fruits of in the second half of the TRC.

The Scotland vs SA match I watched last and it was engaging in the first half but the Scots were making too many errors, and SA were looking particularly sharp.  

[ljkeane]

I just caught up with the Ireland New Zealand game. Excellent performance from the Irish and I thought the margin between the side was bigger than the score showed, most of the game was played with the All Blacks pinned back into their own territory under pressure. The Irish pack in particular were excellent but I think New Zealand will be a little concerned about the performance of their own forwards. I don't think it's too far off a full strength pack for New Zealand and Ireland were all over them.

The England Australia game was pretty scrappy. Australia look to be missing Kerevi a lot and I think Jones is just trying to be too clever with his selections again. Smith should be England's 10 but just pick Tuilagi in midfield and an actual number 8 in the back row, preferably Dombrant.

[Padraig]

On 11/14/2021 at 8:18 AM, ithanos said:

Its a shame Ireland hasn't put in for a RWC hosting bid (could they?), as they're genuinely odds on favorite against any opponent on their home ground.

We actually bid for 2023.  Lost to France.  Our biggest problem (IIRC) is stadiums.  France (and a lot of other countries) have a lot of stadiums ready to go (since they can use football stadiums also).  We have 2 proper stadiums.  2 more that would require some work.  And everything else that would require a lot of work.

Ireland did say they would spend the money in the 2023 bid but if you were World Rugby, why risk it?  Especially as the stadiums in France were still going to be far bigger.

I think a joint bid is the only possibility.  I know there was some talk about 2031.

And yes, while NZ could still have stolen a win, amazing how we blew NZ away.  I hope we don't start timing our peak 1 to 2 years before the WC.  We did that last time.  We have a 3 test tour in NZ next summer (hopefully).  Will be very interesting to see how that goes now!  Each time we have beaten NZ, we were trounced the next time.  But we were never on top by so much before.

[ljkeane]

So England scrape a win by 1 point against South Africa. To be honest though it was absolute daylight robbery, the Springboks battered them in that second half. England started well but I think losing Tuilagi early hurt them quite a bit, although the did score two good tries after he went off the lack of a big ball carrier in midfield to worry the Springboks limited England's attacking options. I'm not sure it should have mattered too much though with the degree of dominance in the pack South Africans had in the second 40.

[Which Tyler]

What a match in Paris - absolutely brilliant rugby

 

Oh, and worth pointing out.. the Raeburn will be spending Christmas in Twickenham

Edited November 20, 2021 by Which Tyler

[Which Tyler]

https://www.cityam.com/the-raeburn-and-utrecht-shields-the-newest-oldest-trophies-in-rugby/

Quote

 

The Raeburn and Utrecht Shields: The newest, oldest trophies in rugby?

It’s the one thing clubs strive for. Silverware. A piece of, usually, silver metal or varnished wood shaped into something teams grow to idealise.

The trophies of note tend to be the ones which have been around for the longest, and adopting new ones doesn’t always have a lasting effect.

So just what happens if a sport’s newest trophy has a history matching the oldest?

Article Continues...

 

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Which Tyler

[Which Tyler]

About bloody time!

 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/25/exeter-chiefs-to-ditch-native-american-branding-after-consulting-fans

 

Exeter Chiefs to ditch Native American branding after consulting fans

[ljkeane]

So it's Six Nations time again. It should be a good tournament this year with everyone other than Italy probably in with a chance of winning. Even Italy have some reasons to be hopeful with a bit of a pipeline of youth talent starting to come through.

England have a bit of a transitional look to their team. Still while the are still a few strange Eddie Jones selections in there (why wouldn't you pick Dombrant?) it mostly looks reasonably sensible this time.

Scotland have gone with pretty much the side you'd expect and with that continuity of selection they'll want to start seeing some consistent results. They've got a good, experienced side they should probably be expecting to beat the less experienced England team at home.

Wales look pretty depleted by injury. The stand out is Adams in midfield, he's a good finished on the wing but I'm not sure I can recall ever seeing him pass the ball so picking him in the centres is a gamble. Having said all that I though the same last year and they won the tournament.

Ireland looked really good in the Autumn and their provincial sides are playing well so they'll have big expectations I'd think. The only real surprise in their team is Mack Hansen on the wing. I thought they'd go with Balacoune who's looked excellent for Ulster but to be fair I haven't seen much of Connacht.

For anyone who's interest all the Under 20 Six Nations will be on Iplayer this year.

 

[ljkeane]

Really good performance from Ireland. They pretty much carried on from where they left off in the Autumn with the patterns of play looking very crisp and forwards generating some very clean ball from the breakdown. Mack Hansen looked good in his first game too.

A bit of a disaster for Wales though. In comparison to Ireland they really didn't look like they knew what to do in attack and they were pretty ragged in defence. Adams in midfield did not go well either. To be fair to them they did reasonably well to stay in touch in the first half but it fell apart pretty quickly in the second 40.

[ljkeane]

Ridiculous game in Edinburgh. England have absolutely battered Scotland and somehow contrived to lose the game. The defence for the Scotland try in first half was pretty bad, Cowan-Dickie's effort in the second half was completely atrocious.

[Which Tyler]

Talk about "throwing it away"...

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Ridiculous game in Edinburgh. England have absolutely battered Scotland and somehow contrived to lose the game. The defence for the Scotland try in first half was pretty bad, Cowan-Dickie's effort in the second half was completely atrocious.

It was one of those odd games where the winning team was the one which hardly had the ball for most of the game, not that any Scots will care about such stats. As well as the defensive mistakes England rarely looked turning their dominance in possession into tries.

Judging from today's games it looks like Ireland must be the big favourite from the Home Nations. We probably won't really be able to judge France properly until next weekend since they likely won't have to exert themselves too much to defeat Italy tomorrow.

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, williamjm said:

. We probably won't really be able to judge France properly until next weekend since they likely won't have to exert themselves too much to defeat Italy tomorrow.

It's France, being French again. Which means Italy could be a major banana skin for them as they're too busy doing their own individual thing to actually remember how to score points.

 

It'll either be a 50 point hammering for France, or a nothing-in-it nail biter that has the crowd booing the home team.

[Padraig]

Ireland really had to beat such an understrength Wales.  A lot to improve on (really should have won by more) but the two big tests are the away trips.  While performance will be important, i'm sure the team would really want to win at least one of those to keep up the positive momentum.