I agree the Aussies looked much more fluent, their spine outclassed ours and even their forwards showed a bit more energy. Just saying that if our halves had been switched on we had enough opportunities to win. Not sure why you seem so upset, did you expect us to dominate and win easily? That try Inglis scored, just underlined how important it is to have experienced combinations, a lovely set play with ball movement, Slater into the line, decoys, and everyone knowing their roles. The Kiwis don't have that sort of cohesion due to very little experience playing together.
Internationals Anzac test match thread + predictions
- Thread starter ToiletDuck
- Start date
I agree the Aussies looked much more fluent, their spine outclassed ours and even their forwards showed a bit more energy. Just saying that if our halves had been switched on we had enough opportunities to win. Not sure why you seem so upset, did you expect us to dominate and win easily? That try Inglis scored, just underlined how important it is to have experienced combinations, a lovely set play with ball movement, Slater into the line, decoys, and everyone knowing their roles. The Kiwis don't have that sort of cohesion due to very little experience playing together.
Yeah, i agree with everything you've said..
But no i didn't think we'd win.. i think i predicted we'd lose by a converted try. It was the schoolboy errors that pissed me off.. the kicking out on the full, bad last play options, SKD giving that ball to Nightingale when he was covered by about 4 defenders - gets easily taken over the sideline, Blair passing that ball as he was still scrambling for control of it. We shot ourselves in the foot time and time again.. I'm just very surprised to see that people are happy with that performance. I think we can expect a lot better from the team and Marshall in particular..
Anyway, soz if i sound like a psycho.. that game just fucked me off.. and probably enflamed my hangover
well you pretty much did say it..
It sounds like you're judging it a good performance because we only lost by 8 points..
It seems to me that there's a bit of laziness, lack of patience and lack of preparedness to earn the result. This comes from a level of frustration and tiredness, and trying to look for shortcuts. When Blair passed that ball off the ground, it looked totally as if he was prepared to take a huge risk in the hope of some easy metres rather than let the team work hard to get out of our end. Same with Kenny Dowall when he put Nightingale into touch, just impatience and hoping for a miracle rather than being prepared to earn an opening. At that play Benji also messed up, he was running sideways for too long which gave time for the defense to mark up on that edge. He should have seen there was nothing on but still tried to force it.
Okay. The points margin is one factor, (if we'd played the same and won 12-0, this discussion would be different), but that isn't what I was saying.
No worries, though. At least you've got past the "my opinion differs from yours, therefore you mustn't have watched the match" vibe.
Now that I can respect haha.
Bunji was poo in this game. Shaun Johnson showed a lot more flair imo. Foran will be in for a fight to get back into the team. In one game he's shown more than Foran has in all of his tests. I think it was a good performance on the whole. Wasn't impressed with Blair or Fein though. Won't be in a rush to pick either next game. JWH was pretty good, but refs ping him for nothing these days. Hoffman was very impressive too, Locke might struggle to get back into the side unless his form is RED HOT.
The biggest negative for me was Manu's performance. He was one of our worst by far. A lot of errors and not a lot of good in attack. I wouldn't be picking him next time based off this game. Kearney is dumb if he puts Mannering at centre again as well. He's fine defensively, but doesn't know the position well enough to attack effectively. Let him stay in the 2nd row.
After this all of the following should be gone next time:
Adam Blair
Manu Vatuvei
Nathan Fein
my reading of this test match and others is this...
I think people involved in NZ league have become brainwashed into believing this razzle dazzle is kiwi-style bullshit.
I'm a believer in winning and australia win consistently because they don't make dumb mistakes and take risks. They have no nonsense forwards and lay a platform with forward momentum, allowing talented and intelligent halves to manipulate the game and make the creative decisions.
There is no doubt who controls the australian teams, it's the halves and in recent times it is Cam Smith, who happens to be the best hooker I have ever seen.
The fact is we like to pick guys with flair and enigmatic qualities, and as far as I can see, flair = flawed.
Blair and Harrison, Nu'auasala, Moimoi, JWH, Pritchard, Vatuvei etc are all guys who have loads of talent but don't actually have the integrity in their game to knuckle down and sacrifice the razzle dazzle approach for consistent and smart percentage play.
We push passes when we don't need to, we have forwards attempting miracle balls with very little margin for error in areas of the field that will cost us greatly in 80% of occasions.
We play dumb.
Those guys have the ability to emulate the aussie team and dominate physically if they concentrate on those aspects of the game and do the basics well.
That is why the Kangaroos are the best team in the world, they know their roles and play to them. They do the basics superbly and in doing so the forwards then allow their talented halves to control the game... we have the halves to do this I believe, we don't have the role players to allow it to happen.
Just because a forward in a kiwi jersey can do freakish things, doesn't mean they should and certainly doesn't help in a tight contest. With 10 minutes to go, throw the miracle ball or offload or whatever, but don't expect to get away with it in the 20th minute 25 out from your goal line.
We take risks that have odds far too high.
Essentially,
Allow the halves to do their job by doing yours. Wingers - catch the damn ball or piss off, it's your job. Forwards - Tackle hard and run hard, make metres and hold your own in the middle of the field, it's your job...
I don't care what else you bring to the table, what awesome other things you can do that makes up for your mistakes, your job is your job, do it first and do it well.
If we took this attitude, we would win more tests, I guarantee it.
I think people involved in NZ league have become brainwashed into believing this razzle dazzle is kiwi-style bullshit.
I'm a believer in winning and australia win consistently because they don't make dumb mistakes and take risks. They have no nonsense forwards and lay a platform with forward momentum, allowing talented and intelligent halves to manipulate the game and make the creative decisions.
There is no doubt who controls the australian teams, it's the halves and in recent times it is Cam Smith, who happens to be the best hooker I have ever seen.
The fact is we like to pick guys with flair and enigmatic qualities, and as far as I can see, flair = flawed.
Blair and Harrison, Nu'auasala, Moimoi, JWH, Pritchard, Vatuvei etc are all guys who have loads of talent but don't actually have the integrity in their game to knuckle down and sacrifice the razzle dazzle approach for consistent and smart percentage play.
We push passes when we don't need to, we have forwards attempting miracle balls with very little margin for error in areas of the field that will cost us greatly in 80% of occasions.
We play dumb.
Those guys have the ability to emulate the aussie team and dominate physically if they concentrate on those aspects of the game and do the basics well.
That is why the Kangaroos are the best team in the world, they know their roles and play to them. They do the basics superbly and in doing so the forwards then allow their talented halves to control the game... we have the halves to do this I believe, we don't have the role players to allow it to happen.
Just because a forward in a kiwi jersey can do freakish things, doesn't mean they should and certainly doesn't help in a tight contest. With 10 minutes to go, throw the miracle ball or offload or whatever, but don't expect to get away with it in the 20th minute 25 out from your goal line.
We take risks that have odds far too high.
Essentially,
Allow the halves to do their job by doing yours. Wingers - catch the damn ball or piss off, it's your job. Forwards - Tackle hard and run hard, make metres and hold your own in the middle of the field, it's your job...
I don't care what else you bring to the table, what awesome other things you can do that makes up for your mistakes, your job is your job, do it first and do it well.
If we took this attitude, we would win more tests, I guarantee it.
It wasn't that at all.. i actually wasn't sure if you were joking or taking the piss
I agree with you Danpatmac. There are certainly situations when flair is the only thing that can guarantee a good result, and in those situations go for it. But generally when you try to do high risk plays it's just a sign of being beaten in the simple stuff and trying to compensate. I'm pretty sure the Kiwi team would have those role players you're talking about, in fact last night I thought the forwards were ok, they were just outlasted maybe. I thought it was the halves that failed to provide direction in attack.
I didn't think it was a penalty try myself but was surprised to see Slater sinbinned for ten minutes and no penalty try. I thought if a defensive player transgressed that badly that close to the line that the attacking team would be awarded points.
4-4.5/10. We started off well enough and it looked like we were finally going to see another win over Australia which wouldn't need A: Last minute flukey brilliance (2010 Four Nations) or B: Australian mindboggling stupidity (2008 World Cup) to do it. Realistically, I think we were dead at half time. Johnson's intercept, great, fantastic, but I wasn't confident even when we got it back to two points that we could carry it on based on our first half performance - it was going to go back to needing the brilliance or the stupidity for the Kiwis to win. Neither happened.
Manu seriously pissed me off last night. Didn't deserve the jersey. Marshall ditto. Now, I'm not for a second advocating telling them their Kiwis days are done but neither will look back on last night with any great feeling of accomplishment or of having tried their hearts out.
Hoffman and Nightingale were good.
Can't say I'd miss the ANZAC test if it never happened again. Since the Four Nations, this game has taken on the same feeling a Warriors game against Canberra in Canberra has - great to win, would love to win, but we lose it every time we play so can we please get it over and done with? Add to that feeling my views that, Kiwis record aside, it's a one-off Test that's come up out of nowhere (ie it's not like a Four Nations final, a game of a series) and TBPH what's it there for? I watch it, I enjoy it, but instead of really, really hoping a win I'm grateful if A: We don't lose too badly and B: No-one from the Warriors breaks anything.
I know, I need my Negative Nancy hat on.
Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying.
And to clarify from my end, I wouldn't make a post commenting on the value of a performance if I hadn't seen it.
I didn't mean that as a verbatim definition. I haven't seen the wording, hence why I'm asking for clarification on it. There would obviously be sub clauses that provide exceptions and so on.
I remember when the Kiwis were given a penalty try in the 2008 final, and the Kiwi (and I think English?) commentators were saying it had to be a guaranteed try for it to be awarded, while Sterling and Gould were saying that it had to be a penalty try. I recall Gould later saying that it was a penalty try because Hohaia was denied a scoring opportunity.
And that penalty try was far from clear cut - Slater was right in the mix and may have beaten Hohaia to the ball.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this.
"A lot of errors" - he made 2. The same number as Bronwich and Cronk. (Although there was that weird in-goal moment near the end where play on was called.)
"Not a lot of good in attack" - he gained 173m, which was more than anyone else on either side and more than double what 5 of our 8 forwards made.
Granted, it wasn't a flair filled performance, and one could argue that he was playing more as a forward than as a winger, and there were certainly missed opportunities like that first knock on, but he wouldn't be my first pick to be dropped.
This. (Sorry - I can't 'like' on Tapatalk.)
And to be honest, I thought our forwards were doing their job for large portions of the first half in particular.
There were many sets where they simply laid a platform and carted the ball up and out of our end, and the flair only turned up after halfway.
At some point, that changed, possibly because as Attila has suggested, they were trying to 'miracle' their way out of defeat rather than earning victory.
The test isn't pointless. It provides much needed income for the NZRL. We're the only amateur country of the big three. Sad but true.
Agreed re: Roots. I really want to see that, and soon.
Forgive me for my ignorance but if the NZRL is amateur, why does it need to spend so much money? I'd look it up myself but frankly I wouldn't know how.
