[2017 Rugby Championship] Round 2: New Zealand v Australia (26/08/2017)

[SomeOke]

Still think SA v Japan is the greatest game of rugby I've seen.

Triggered.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

NEWSFLASH: The Lions tour was not a fluke this New Zealand side is well and truly for the taking.

I'd give Aussie more credit, the only areas they were really lacking we scrums and goal kicking

What a huge step up in defence, really impressive

 

[galumay]

Awesome test match, up there with any Bledisloe Cup game I have ever watched in 45 years. Fantastic turn around from the Wobblies, to my surprise they dumped the chaotic defensive structure from last week and the attack was a joy to watch. A deserved win from the AB's though, I felt the try just before half time was critical and it proved to be, they never let the game get out of range and their skill, experience, confidence and accuracy got them home.

I guess Foley will get blamed, but for mine he did plenty that was good, I am just so happy that we spent 80 minutes in a game against the AB's, huge game from Genia, Folau, Hooper and many others. Pretty obvious Moore has to go, Speight is a waste of space too and while Simmons had one of his better games, he is also not a test grade player.

At the end of the day its games like this that make me a Rugby fan, just such a great game, Wallabies can take a huge amount out of this game and the AB's also have every right to be incredibly proud of being able to win the game against a side who played out of their skins and had just about every bit of luck roll their way.

For the record I had no problem with the Retallick decision, I thought it was absolutely correct - not clear and obvious that there was anything illegal, just 2 players 'untangling'.

I thought Barnes had one of his best games as a referee, good communication with the players and very little open to debate in terms of interpretation.

 

[Brigantine]

If the ball had bounced differently off the goalposts those 3 times, it would have been a Wallabies win. 3 off the posts! Only 1 of Foley's kicks at goal actually went wide.

Or even if it just the penalty bounced differently, and led to a try under the posts like the SBW one for the Blues to beat the B&I Lions.

 

[RoosTah]

I have no issue with the Retallick decision from a technical standpoint - I just think it stinks of inconsistency for the vast numbers of innocuous and incidental contacts to players in the air that have lead to yellow/red cards.

One example would be the yellow card given to the All Blacks prop in the recent lions series where he tackled a player barely off the ground as he jumped to catch a pass. The prop doesn't see the player skip up, but the ref says it doesn't matter, so why does it matter if Rettalick is "untangling"? He's still got an arm between Hooper's legs...

 

[galumay]

If the ball bounced differently off the goalposts those 3 times, it would have been a Wallabies win. 3 off the posts! Only 1 of Foley's kicks at goal actually went wide.

Or even if it just the penalty bounced differently, and led to a try under the posts like the SBW one for the Blues to beat the B&I Lions.

True, but just about every other piece of luck went the Wobblie way, so the misses at goal probably evened things up a bit! Still, it shows how tight the game was, I think the AB's know they got away with one there, and the Wobblies will feel it was the one they should have got away with!

 

[galumay]

so why does it matter if Rettalick is "untangling"

I get your point, but I also understand, as an ex referee, the lack of "clear and obvious" foul play. Its one of those tough ones, I can understand Wallaby fans feeling hard done by, but if it had been given a YC i would understand the Kiwi fans being ****** off. Its a bit different to incidents with players in the air, the directive to referees has been very clear on that, this one fell into a grey area, it wasnt involving players in the air, it wasnt involving players in a tackle, there isnt much guidance or precedence for players 'dis-entangling' after a ruck!

 

[smartcooky]

NEWSFLASH: The Lions tour was not a fluke this New Zealand side is well and truly for the taking.

UPDATE: This game had a referee who actually knows the difference between offside and accidental offside, and doesn't bottle the big decisions!

 

[RoosTah]

I get your point, but I also understand, as an ex referee, the lack of "clear and obvious" foul play. Its one of those tough ones, I can understand Wallaby fans feeling hard done by, but if it had been given a YC i would understand the Kiwi fans being ****** off. Its a bit different to incidents with players in the air, the directive to referees has been very clear on that, this one fell into a grey area, it wasnt involving players in the air, it wasnt involving players in a tackle, there isnt much guidance or precedence for players 'dis-entangling' after a ruck!

Perhaps - but to me that just says there's some common sense lacking.

Maybe it's because I watch a lot of NRL, but I've seen so much stuff that is just insanely soft/innocuous and clearly unintentional result in send offs, that it just seems silly that this one gets a pass given the player ends up in a dangerous position.

 

[smartcooky]

If the ball had bounced differently off the goalposts those 3 times, it would have been a Wallabies win. 3 off the posts! Only 1 of Foley's kicks at goal actually went wide.

Or even if it just the penalty bounced differently, and led to a try under the posts like the SBW one for the Blues to beat the B&I Lions.

Coulda, woulda shoulda! If you don't want to hit the posts, kick the bloody thing down the middle.

I think a lot of 50/50 stuff went the Wallabies way tonight.

1. Genia definitely knocked the ball on from the back of a scrum that led to a Wallaby try.
2. I am pretty sure that Retallick grounded the ball for his disallowed try.
3. The PK against Crotty for playing Folau without the ball was BS, Folau was never going to catch that ball - Reiko in under the posts for all money (materiality)
4. The offside near the Wallaby goalline from which Reiko would certainly have scored was a dead-set penalty try and yellow card.
5. The Wallabies concedet a LOT of offside penalties on defence, and were damned lucky the yellow card didn't come out

They also got a LOT of the benefit of the doubt at scrum time. There were times where they were clearly stood up in the front row, yet St Nigel didn't penalised them (they score from one of them when the ball popped out)

All in all, I think they got the rub of the green.

 

[galumay]

Maybe it's because I watch a lot of NRL

Sorry, not trying to be argumentive, but I dont get the connection, I watch very little NRL - partly because the abject failure to prioritise player safety infuriates me!

Having said that, I think your argument has some merit in that as you say the player ends up in a dangerous position, and generally in Rugby we rule that intent is only material in deciding the level of sanction, perhaps a harsher sanction was warranted.

 

[RoosTah]

End of the day, the Wallabies weren't the better side. They played brilliantly with ball in hand - almost like the All Blacks in fact - but they can't scrum to save their lives, they failed too often on doing simple stuff like winning restarts, their tactical kicking is weak and they can't kick their goals consistently enough.

Spirited, but if they'd won the game it would have been in spite of vast numbers of flaws and mostly on the back of some very unusual All Black errors.

Sorry, not trying to be argumentive, but I dont get the connection, I watch very little NRL - partly because the abject failure to prioritise player safety infuriates me!

Having said that, I think your argument has some merit in that as you say the player ends up in a dangerous position, and generally in Rugby we rule that intent is only material in deciding the level of sanction, perhaps a harsher sanction was warranted.

In the NRL you really have to punch somebody or be super cynical to get sent off - otherwise they don't want to influence the game by changing the numbers. That's what kills me about union now though - you get sent off for bloody everything now.

If that's the system, then fine I can live with it, but at least be bloody consistent! If a bloke can get yellow carded for having the bad luck to stand under a player who has jumped for the ball, then tangling shouldn't be any excuse if in the process of untangling himself he dumps a bloke on his head. There's just zero logic to those two sets of rulings.

 

[smartcooky]

Oh, and the Retallick incident was play on (correct call by Owens)

This was just two guys trying to get up and getting in each other's way (its just a "rugby incident")

(and what they hell was Hooper doing lying on top of him on the opponent's side of the ruck anyway?)

 

[RoosTah]

Oh, and the Retallick incident was play on (correct call by Owens)

This was just two guys trying to get up and getting in each other's way (its just a "rugby incident")

(and what they hell was Hooper doing lying on top of him on the opponent's side of the ruck anyway?)

I get it's ok by the letter of the law, I just think it's moronic to the point of embarrassing for the game when you look at the other stuff you'll get sent for these days.

 

[galumay]

1. Genia definitely knocked the ball on from the back of a scrum that led to a Wallaby try.

Have to disagree with that one, I have the game on tape, no doubt his hand didnt touch the ball, also clear from the replays at the time, Barnes & TMO agreed this was the case.

2. I am pretty sure that Retallick grounded the ball for his disallowed try.

I suspect he did, but there was no video evidence of a grounding, so no try.

3. The PK against Crotty for playing Folau without the ball was BS, Folau was never going to catch that ball - Reiko in under the posts for all money (materiality)

Irrelevant, Crotty tackled Folau without the ball, end of story. You are right that Folau probably wouldnt have caught it, but that is entirely irrelevant.

4. The offside near the Wallaby goalline from which Reiko would certainly have scored was a dead-set penalty try and yellow card.

Well it wasnt a 'dead set' penalty try or YC, but certainly could have been the outcome on a different day.

5. The Wallabies concedet a LOT of offside penalties on defence, and were damned lucky the yellow card didn't come out

I agree, I made the comment in the 2nd half that I thought the Wallabies were very lucky that Barnes didnt give them a general warning for the amount of penalties. I suspect what saved them was that the majority were not within the 'red zone'.

All in all, I think they got the rub of the green.

Absolutely.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

Everything they say is true, but it smacks very much of political spin. To it spin, the ARU are fortunate that RU is a major winter sport in their country compared to others where the only one is soccer. Has this popularity split changed? If not, why didn't it hold the Wallabies back in 91 and 99 and many years either side of that when they had great teams?

I know next to nothing about the AFL, but from what I've seen, there are some really freaky athletes there who it would be great to see have a go at RU, but it appears that there's little to no incentive for them to do so.

FWIW, I've taken Australia +29, but only because it was a free bet!

I know I'm bringing up something from before the match. In 91 the sport was amateur and 99 was the first World Cup after professionalism. The disadvantages Australia faces due to Rugby's place in the winter sport hierarchy are only going to grow as professional rugby does.
Other countries saw rugby become an attractive choice for young gifted athletes when rugby became professional but in Australia league and afl had a hold and soccer had only grown.

 

[RoosTah]

I know I'm bringing up something from before the match. In 91 the sport was amateur and 99 was the first World Cup after professionalism. The disadvantages Australia faces due to Rugby's place in the winter sport hierarchy are only going to grow as professional rugby does.
Other countries saw rugby become an attractive choice for young gifted athletes when rugby became professional but in Australia league and afl had a hold and soccer had only grown.

Add to that, in the 90s Rugby League had the Super League war, which fractured the game and sent it back years along with a tonne of fans - many of whom went straight to Union. The NRL has since recovered in a massive way and is bigger than it's ever been before - massively dwarfing rugby.

Meanwhile, the AFL is as dominant and professional as they've ever been. Indeed, in some ways they've been worse for Union - the NRL have vastly greater development pathways and therefore take a lot of union talent, but the AFL have been stopping talent from even developing in places. They've targeted to Union heartlands with great effect, entrenching themselves in all the big private schools that produce so much union talent here and getting them to play Australian Football instead.

But that said, I feel like I should reply to this point myself.

Everything they say is true, but it smacks very much of political spin. To it spin, the ARU are fortunate that RU is a major winter sport in their country compared to others where the only one is soccer. Has this popularity split changed? If not, why didn't it hold the Wallabies back in 91 and 99 and many years either side of that when they had great teams?

To be honest, your argument here is a little like me asking why England haven't won a major Rugby League tournament in 40+ years.

Rugby Union is a "major winter sport" in Australia in the same way Rugby League is a major winter sport in England. In short, it's not. In fact Union in Australia is probably behind British rugby league these days in terms of its standing in the country... they've just cut a team from Super rugby here, the money is drying up and no one goes to the games or watches it on TV.

Heck, last year when England came out for their 3 tests everyone expected it to be massive because the Wallabies had shamed England at home in the WC, but people here were too focussed on the NRL and AFL and the series couldn't even secure a sponsor. None of the games sold out and they rated poorly on TV - in fact none were able to beat the average for a Friday night NRL or AFL match. I can't stress this enough - Australia were playing England in a sport where we both generally think of ourselves as having a shot AND England had a smart arse **** stirring Aussie coach AND Australia had just thumped England. This was the perfect circumstances you could wish for to get general public interest, but the thing was a non-starter.

Put it another way - women's cricket gets more viewers here than rugby now.

 

[RoosTah]

double

 

[smartcooky]

I know I'm bringing up something from before the match. In 91 the sport was amateur and 99 was the first World Cup after professionalism. The disadvantages Australia faces due to Rugby's place in the winter sport hierarchy are only going to grow as professional rugby does.
Other countries saw rugby become an attractive choice for young gifted athletes when rugby became professional but in Australia league and afl had a hold and soccer had only grown.

Add to that, in the 90s Rugby League had the Super League war, which fractured the game and sent it back years along with a tonne of fans - many of whom went straight to Union. The NRL has since recovered in a massive way and the AFL is as dominant and professional as they've ever been. Indeed, the AFL have targeted to Union heartlands with great effect, entrenching themselves in all the big private schools that produce so much union talent here and getting them to play Australian Football instead.

But that said, I feel like I should reply to this point myself.



To be honest, your argument here is a little like me asking why England haven't won a major Rugby League tournament in 40+ years.

Rugby Union is a "major winter sport" in Australia in the same way Rugby League is a major winter sport in England. In short, it's not. In fact Union in Australia is probably behind British rugby league these days in terms of its standing in the country... they've just cut a team from Super rugby here, the money is drying up and no one goes to the games or watches it on TV. Put it another way - women's cricket gets more viewers here than rugby now.

100% on both of these

In the threads on the axing of one Aussie franchise, I have been at pains to point out what a really bad decision it was to cut the Force instead of the Rebels

Western Australia is a growth area for rugby. There are only two AFL teams, one A-League (football) team there. Most importantly, there is NO NRL Team in WA. Some of WA's home grown talent has already made it to the Wallabies

However, Victoria is fully saturated with professional code; one NRL team, two A-League teams 10 AFL teams and 15 VFL teams. There is no room left in Melbourne to develop the game. Its a saturated market.

 

[RoosTah]

100% on both of these

In the threads on the axing of one Aussie franchise, I have been at pains to point out what a really bad decision it was to cut the Force instead of the Rebels

Western Australia is a growth area for rugby. There are only two AFL teams, one A-League (football) team there. Most importantly, there is NO NRL Team in WA. Some of WA's home grown talent has already made it to the Wallabies

However, Victoria is fully saturated with professional code; one NRL team, two A-League teams 10 AFL teams and 15 VFL teams. There is no room left in Melbourne to develop the game. Its a saturated market.

It's madness that they cut the force... but from an NRL perspective it's great news. The guy who runs the WA NRL (for branding they're all called NRL now) is apparently a real gun administrator and has grown League there significantly over the past decade - to the point where some of the Force talent was being supplied by the local league comp he'd developed.

With TV contract negotiations coming up again soon, the NRL will most likely look to make the Pirates a reality and they'll be taking a State of Origin there in a couple years as well.

Rugby did well for a few years into the pro era largely due to Rugby League incompetence, but with the NRL's $2bn TV deal and some very healthy clubs now, those days are long gone.