[2017 Rugby Championship] Round 1: Australia v New Zealand (19/08/2017)

[Brabander]

Lots of linebreaks now for Australia.

Try 3!

 

[Brabander]

Try 4!

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Owens I think wanted that chopped off, but I'm with Barnes. If you have to freeze frame it then it's not clearcut and you should go with the on field decision.

 

[Ground We Won]

Jesus Barnes is a complete posh muppet.

Worst ref in the world.

A classic Barnes howerl. He's embarrassing.

 

[TommiG88]

Jesus Barnes is a complete posh muppet.

Worst ref in the world.

A classic Barnes howerl. He's embarrassing.

Definitely not the worst

 

[Gavin]

Nick Phipps has to be one of the most unlikable players in the game.

He is an utter arse and just loves to shout and act like a d*ck. The epitome of Phipps was when he threw away an opposition players boot.

Jesus Barnes is a complete posh muppet.

Worst ref in the world.

A classic Barnes howerl. He's embarrassing.

Wondered how long it would take a Kiwi to complain about an apparent forward pass

 

[Ground We Won]

Barnes doesn't know a forward pass if it smacked him in the face.

What a ******* muppet.

This has been like a super rugby game.

 

[Ground We Won]

Nick Phipps has to be one of the most unlikable players in the game.

He is an utter arse and just loves to shout and act like a d*ck. The epitome of Phipps was when he threw away an opposition players boot.



Wondered how long it would take a Kiwi to complain about an apparent forward pass

I was wondering how long it'd take some NH ****** to pretend like it didn't happen.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

One of the strangest games I have ever seen. The ABs took their foot right off the gas but there is no doubt Oz stepped up a few levels too. NZ almost lost their bonus point which is not a position they will have wanted to be in.

Doesn't change my feeling that NZ will win overall and Oz will come third.

 

[Car]

I didn't think Oz could score that much after that first half, but overall, this match just confirmed what we got to see throughout the Super Rugby season. Let's hope SA and Arg can do a better job, because this isn't healthy for the game in the long run.

 

[galumay]

Well the result was the one I expected, blew my $50!
What I found extraordinary in that first half was the utter chaos in the Wallabies defensive line, I was astounded none of the commentators, coach or players talked about it. WTF was Speight doing? often on the opposite side of the ground from his wing, nearly alway somewhere near the middle of the field leaving his wing totally open. It wasnt just him, I think it was Barrett's try in the first half, the 3 players i saw in front of the goals defending were Speight, Rona & Foley - WTAF??

The commentators were blaming the centers for poor spacing and missing tackles - but they were trying to defend about 30m across the field because the 'effing wingers were in front of the posts.

I must be an idiot though, because no one else mentioned it.

The K train added plenty of go forward and has to start in Dunedin, Kerevi was poor, sack Moore, start TPN, I dont understand why Hodge came on for Rona rather than the utterly useless Speight.

I am listening now to Cheika blaming the poor tackling, but with such chaotic defensive structure how can there be any other result??

Congratulations to the AB's for an amazing 50 minutes of rugby, albeit aided by some of the worst defence I have ever seen.

Barnes had a great game refereeing, I dont think there was a single decision a neutral would complain about, communicated well with the players and injected a bit of humour.

Also great to see such a good display of discipline from both sides, almost no ****le, no high shots, no challenges on players in the air.

One final positive, no aimless kicking from the Wobblies, thats probably the first game in about 10 years where they havent reverted to aimless kicking under pressure.

 

[Larksea]

barnes did ok, I was miffed with the awarding of Israels try and then disallowing Barrett's.

There was a clear offside with israel folau's try but Barnes decided it wasn't interested in going frame by frame to check for it yet he was happy for the tmo to go frame by frame multiple times from multiple angles shortly after with barrett's try. Textbook inconsistency in my opinion.

pretty interesting effort from the All Blacks. An almost perfect 50min followed by a really mixed final 30.
The wallabies always looked dangerous on attack its no surprise they eventually crossed the line but to let 4? trys in was disappointing. But at the same time it was probably good for the Aussies to have something to take from the game and they did play very well during that time.

I thought McKenzie was very good, sure he made a couple of mistakes but overall the positives completely outweighed those. he looked dangerous every time he touched the ball. The movements that lead to the first two tries started with McKenzie line breaks. He picked up a try himself and was good on defense, even a couple of times Ioane missed his man he was there to cover.
Squire was massive, he definitely has it in him to play like that he has been excellent this year but hes also been picking up injuries with the way he is playing so hopefully he can find a good balance.
Joe Moody had a very good game.
Sam Cane was a beast on defense. 21 tackles? some very good ones too, was over the ball a lot. Very big performance.
Crotty & SBW were very good, and ALB was also good when he came on. He was arguably the only bench player that came on and had a positive game.
Ioane was good but went quiet when the Aussies picked up there game, it would be good to see him go hunting for work hopefully he will start to do that more when he gets some experience.
Ofa Tu'ungafasi struggled a bit, shame he needed a better game with this genuine opportunity to clock up some minutes... I wouldn't be surprised if Laulala got a chance now but the coaches have said they have a fair bit they want to work on with Laulala.
Same with Harris, not really taking his chances. He hasn't been his best since he was injured.

with Crockett probably out it will be interesting to see who comes in. Hames probably? I think he is a good option, probably better than Crockett.

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

barnes did ok, I was miffed with the awarding of Israels try and then disallowing Barrett's.

There was a clear offside with israel folau's try but Barnes decided it wasn't interested in going frame by frame to check for it yet he was happy for the tmo to go frame by frame multiple times from multiple angles shortly after with barrett's try. Textbook inconsistency in my opinion.

pretty interesting effort from the All Blacks. An almost perfect 50min followed by a really mixed final 30.
The wallabies always looked dangerous on attack its no surprise they eventually crossed the line but to let 4? trys in was disappointing. But at the same time it was probably good for the Aussies to have something to take from the game and they did play very well during that time.

I thought McKenzie was very good, sure he made a couple of mistakes but overall the positives completely outweighed those. he looked dangerous every time he touched the ball. The movements that lead to the first two tries started with McKenzie line breaks. He picked up a try himself and was good on defense, even a couple of times Ioane missed his man he was there to cover.
Squire was massive, he definitely has it in him to play like that he has been excellent this year but hes also been picking up injuries with the way he is playing so hopefully he can find a good balance.
Joe Moody had a very good game.
Sam Cane was a beast on defense. 21 tackles? some very good ones too, was over the ball a lot. Very big performance.
Crotty & SBW were very good, and ALB was also good when he came on. He was arguably the only bench player that came on and had a positive game.
Ioane was good but went quiet when the Aussies picked up there game, it would be good to see him go hunting for work hopefully he will start to do that more when he gets some experience.
Ofa Tu'ungafasi struggled a bit, shame he needed a better game with this genuine opportunity to clock up some minutes... I wouldn't be surprised if Laulala got a chance now but the coaches have said they have a fair bit they want to work on with Laulala.
Same with Harris, not really taking his chances. He hasn't been his best since he was injured.

with Crockett probably out it will be interesting to see who comes in. Hames probably? I think he is a good option, probably better than Crockett.

Won't it just be Tu'ungfasi shifting to 17 with Laulala coming in at 18?

 

[galumay]

There was a clear offside with israel folau's try but Barnes decided it wasn't interested in going frame by frame to check for it

To be fair it wasnt 'clear', it was marginal, and it was the TMO who told Barnes there was "no clear and obvious offside, so play on" I dont think you can call Barnes inconsistent on that basis.

 

[KeyboardWorrier]

Not much to take away from this.

All Blacks were perfect.
Wallabies were a disaster as usual.
Wayne Barnes needs to go ASAP. A mentally retarded hamster would do a better job of spotting the Wallabies constant obstruction and non-straight line-ins. Also, the Hamster wouldn't give Hooper an off-side ruling and then a minute later be like 'oh yeah I just cost you seven points but I was wrong. Sorry about that!'.

 

[The Jones Boy]

I was impressed with Liam Squire, he certainly stood up today.
Beauden Barrett was amazing, his speed of thought and anticipation is miraculous.
Crotty had a blinder.
Good to see SBW and Ben Smith get on the board.
Damien Mackenzie had a mixed bag but he has gas and an eye for getting in on a break. Good experience for the young fella.
The pack delivered.

Were we really that good in the first half?
Or was it a bit of Aussie not showing up. They looked a bit apprehensive and they were dropping off tackles. Probably a bit of both. Aussie are definitely lacking a little in the confidence dept.
Cheika's face was a story...

Wayne Barnes; only two little surprises for me, they were the Folau try, and the Barrett no try at the end. Small potatoes in a game that was played at a gazillion light years an hour.
My issue with Barnes is that he looks like he's getting old.
He was blowing hard in that game and struggling to keep up at times. He has been around a fair old while now and maybe father time is catching up with him a bit. Maybe it's just me and I can't forget his fresh faced youthful face from the 2007 quarter final, lol, it just caught me that he's looking old, but then I'm no oil painting in the morning...


For the AB's there were some good things that came out of the game but, they shipped a lot of points in the last 30 when ok, some of them were a bit unlucky in terms of throwing a dodgy pass to try to keep a move alive and it went to Kurtley Beale etc, but they need to tighten up and strangle the game to protect their lead. I'm sure Hansen will have them working on it.

 

[galumay]

Were we really that good in the first half?

They were good, no question, but the insane defensive 'structure' that the Wallabies had apparently been coached to play was a factor.

I am still processing some of what I saw, 45 minutes to put 54 points on the board and then not a single score after that - thats a weird statistic. Wobblies manage just 6 in the first half and then add 28 unanswered points in the second - thats enough to win most games!

I think its telling that the Wobblies scored more points in a half of that game than in the whole Bledisloe last year, their attack looked pretty good right from the start and once the possession evened out they started scoring points.

I will be interested to see if there is any analysis of the disaster that was the defensive plan, and any talk about who was responsible (Grey?) Cheika talked post game about the first up tackles needing to be better, seems to me to ignoring what actually created the problem.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

A frame by frame on a marginal offside is entirely different to a frame by frame on a grounding (which can likely be far more decisive a call). If you are having to frame by frame an offside it becomes a farcical case of establishing which if Folau's body parts were infront and which were not infront of his teammates different body parts. Or was 100% of him infront or was it only 49%?

I don't think either side was as good during their periods of scoring dominance as commentators seem to think. Both sides were massively sub-par during the periods when they were shedding points. Cheika does appear to have maybe sharpened a fairly blunt Aussie attack though.

 

[Larksea]

To be fair it wasnt 'clear', it was marginal, and it was the TMO who told Barnes there was "no clear and obvious offside, so play on" I dont think you can call Barnes inconsistent on that basis.

I think the TMO early on thought it wasn't offside looking at the first angle and thinking when ben smith made contact with the ball was the moment to look at but then after looking at the angles he started to actually see that it was offside because the key moment was later on but as the TMO started to look at the replays again then Barnes interrupted him stopped the replays and awarded the try.
even with the angle coming from behind you could see that folau was completely ahead of the other player at the key point in time.

 

[galumay]

I think the TMO early on thought it wasn't offside...

As I said, in the end, after veiwing all the angles the TMO said it wasnt "clear and obvious" that Folau was offside. You seem to have a different opinion, but sorry, I am going to go with the opinions of the professional referees. BTW my immediate reaction was that he probably was offside, but once it was slowed down and replayed, I wasnt sure if it was or not.

Without obsessing about it too much, its pretty hard to argue that it WAS "clear and obvious", so at worst its an error of degree in the analysis and if that is the worst mistake a ref makes in a game I think we would all be pretty pleased. Its probably a fair testament to the quality of the reffing in the game, that this marginal decsion on a potential off-side is the only real point of discussion!