(2022 Rugby Championship - Round 2) - South Africa v New Zealand (13/8/2022)

[rN_X]

Ref was fine boks were bad.

 

[Alex Anghel]

New Zealand played very well tonight, but this had probably been Foster's regime in a nutshell: one brilliant game every other 5 or 6. No consistency whatsoever.

Sadly, I feel this result may be the worst thing that could have happened to NZRU, medium or long term wise. Granted, it's not like Scott Robertson was a given if SA would have won both games.

 

[miccloarch]

yeah if Dweba doesn't start and comes on and has a shocker at the 50 minute mark they are screwed

bigger question mark is the best defensive 13 in the world is moved over to wing.

The whole pressure the other team to get mistakes doesn't work as well when the guy who creates the most pressure isn't in a position to do that.

Prone to happen with a 6-2 split.

 

[miccloarch]

Will this game save Foster's job

No if the NZR board had brains but unfortunately they're all empty above the neck.

 

[duncanb]

As a neutral, very nice game.
Boks maybe chucked it way when dominant either side of half time.
Silly block to get them into dominant position was correct call.
6/2 maybe not the best default choice.
NZ deserved to win should be complaining fron SA.
Will Foster survive silly to change till end of championship.
In mix of 4 teams behind France to win the biggy.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

TBF all URC refs side with the Irish teams so it's fair.

Stay off Welsh rugby twitter

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Foster's resurgent ABs back to 4th in the world, just 0.02 points behind the Boks.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

Would you prefer Dweba in the last 30? Bongi is a big part of our pack and Dweba is not up for it.

If a player is the best in the world in his position why not 80 minutes from him and if he has to go off injured then THAT is why you have a bench position. At the same time though I understand that you want to develop the depth. Shifting Am though..

All in all though I am happy enough. A narrow win here would have been paper over the cracks we have which too many refuse to acknowledge. NZ pride lifted them and we simply could not get as up for it. Congratulations!

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

If a player is the best in the world in his position why not 80 minutes from him and if he has to go off injured then THAT is why you have a bench position. At the same time though I understand that you want to develop the depth. Shifting Am though..

All in all though I am happy enough. A narrow win here would have been paper over the cracks we have which too many refuse to acknowledge. NZ pride lifted them and we simply could not get as up for it. Congratulations!

by my math they spent 59 of 160 minutes possible with the runaway best form players at their respective positions somewhere other than those positions.

Now that was a silly statistic trick to make the coach look worse than he really was but those are two incredibly impactful players who were nullified.

I think doing the traditional front row rotation is fine when Bongi is there but when it's a rookie you should be looking at 70/10.

 

[GoTheNaki]

Can I get a recap of how Havili, Ioane, Clarke, and Jordan looked with Mo'unga playing 10? These guys have been under fire, but looked potentially like different players... Especially Havili.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Source? In 2019 he said he wanted a year or two off from coaching after RWC 2019 which he got. Hasn't publicly said anything more since then that I can find.

There's been a few times that he has said or alluded to not wanting to be a head coach. There was a post match interview in a blues game, he's been on the breakdown a couple of times, there's been other interviews. A couple of examples are, at around the 4 minute mark in the 15 may breakdown show when he was asked if he wanted to get back into full time coaching he said he came to New Zealand to retire.

In this interview about his current role he said something along the lines of head coaching being more about managing up and out, and he didn't really like that role so thinks this new role suits him better (a lot of coaches say this - Wayne smith always said it - that head coaching at the higher levels isn't really coaching as most people think of it).

Can I get a recap of how Havili, Ioane, Clarke, and Jordan looked with Mo'unga playing 10? These guys have been under fire, but looked potentially like different players... Especially Havili.

mounga was very good and they looked more connected with him but the biggest difference was how we carried into contact, placed the ball, and cleaned (week one under Ryan they fix the maul, week two they fix the rucks); plus the boks simply weren't as good in their defence or at the breakdown. Havili was great for the most part, but some bad moments like the cross field kick inside the 22. Ione also played more direct at times. Both of them improved what they were doing independently of what mounga brought, but yes the connection was better with mounga too.

Overall I thought the all blacks were a lot better, really took advantage of the altitude factor to try and tire the boks.

But I also thought the boks weren't anywhere near as good as last week, although you've gotta like some of what willemse brings in attack at twelve, even though it meant am moved to the wing which was a bit crazy.

All blacks still doing dumb things, looking disconnected at times (especially at the start but less so when the pressure came off; doesn't give me confidence for how well they would cope if we had to come from behind). some dumb penalties.

Lineout was great. Scrum was much better than last week. So glad to see de groot and Samisoni starting as it has been obvious after watching super rugby that these guys are our best.

Even though the backs weren't particularly balanced, it didn't matter, because what really matters is just that you have 3 key guys and a couple of secondary guys within the team who can carry hard; typically we just haven't had that. In this game we had taukeiaho, frizzel, Clarke, with Scott and de groot helping too, and everyone else going direct when they needed to.

And how great was Sam whitelock. Phenomenomenal. Enomenomenomenomenal. (Ok maybe not that good but couldn't resist after realising I'd accidentally overspelled phenomenal) Ardie pretty damned great too.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

Richie was good. Thought the All blacks were generally pretty good. Putting this South Africa team to need freak plays from their best players just to stay in it is a victory itself.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

If a player is the best in the world in his position why not 80 minutes from him and if he has to go off injured then THAT is why you have a bench position. At the same time though I understand that you want to develop the depth. Shifting Am though..

All in all though I am happy enough. A narrow win here would have been paper over the cracks we have which too many refuse to acknowledge. NZ pride lifted them and we simply could not get as up for it. Congratulations!

I think for this game more minutes from Marx would have made sense, in fact to your point as many minutes as you can get until he's becoming a liability. And you'll only know that by starting him. When mbonombi is playing it's a different story though. While he isn't as good as Marx, he is very very good and so it makes absolute sense to get both of them to have decent minutes and to absolutely empty their tanks when they are there. Still, I can see your reasoning for starting Marx, but if he starts I still think you bring bongi on at the 50 minute mark.

 

[The Seeker]

Vengeance is ours sayeth the All Blacks. Impressive win.

 

[ChicagoKid]

I think for this game more minutes from Marx would have made sense, in fact to your point as many minutes as you can get until he's becoming a liability. And you'll only know that by starting him. When mbonombi is playing it's a different story though. While he isn't as good as Marx, he is very very good and so it makes absolute sense to get both of them to have decent minutes and to absolutely empty their tanks when they are there. Still, I can see your reasoning for starting Marx, but if he starts I still think you bring bongi on at the 50 minute mark.

Marx was absolutely knackered after 53 minutes not at altitude. He was never lasting 70 minutes. I have no idea how anyone could assume that after watching him play all season.

 

[Alex Anghel]

Quick question for the New Zealanders: would you prefer to stick with Foster through the 2023 RWC, based on this latest team performance alone (at the risk of losing Scott Robertson to another country), or have Scott Robertson appointed now?

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Quick question for the New Zealanders: would you prefer to stick with Foster through the 2023 RWC, based on this latest team performance alone (at the risk of losing Scott Robertson to another country), or have Scott Robertson appointed now?

Is Scott robertson going to leave before the World Cup? Are there other teams looking to change their coach before the World Cup? Robertson for the next World Cup is a no brainer if he's available, this World Cup is not so clear.

 

[miccloarch]

head coaching at the higher levels isn't really coaching as most people think of it).

A head coach is more like a manager, which is what they used to call the coach in football/soccer. I still do actually, it's more man management than actual coaching but the buck stops with the head coach. He makes the important decisions and therefore takes most of the responsibility for bad team performance and results.

He's the appointed leader of the group which is why Foster is such a coward for throwing his assistants under the bus after the Ireland series even though he was supposedly hired on the basis of them being so much better than Razor's assistants that we could ignore how much better Razor is than him.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

A head coach is more like a manager, which is what they used to call the coach in football/soccer. I still do actually, it's more man management than actual coaching but the buck stops with the head coach. He makes the important decisions and therefore takes most of the responsibility for bad team performance and results.

He's the appointed leader of the group which is why Foster is such a coward for throwing his assistants under the bus after the Ireland series even though he was supposedly hired on the basis of them being so much better than Razor's assistants that we could ignore how much better Razor is than him.

Everything we've heard is that it was the players who wanted to keep foster and get rid of the assistants. Although I'm sure you are right that he confirmed what the players claimed - and it has been pretty obvious to see that the assistants haven't been up to it. But yes, he got the job because of plumtrees international experience (as well as his own). Razor was bold in picking relatively unproven assistants given he himself was relatively unproven , but the assistants razor wanted have continued to prove themselves in the years since. Too hard for the selection panel to see I guess, or they didn't look hard enough, so they went with what seemed a safer bet.

So, in football, does the manager hire his coaches or is it some board? Either way, do the coaches ever get replaced but the manager stays?

 

[miccloarch]

Everything we've heard is that it was the players who wanted to keep foster and get rid of the assistants. Although I'm sure you are right that he confirmed what the players claimed - and it has been pretty obvious to see that the assistants haven't been up to it. But yes, he got the job because of plumtrees international experience (as well as his own). Razor was bold in picking relatively unproven assistants given he himself was relatively unproven , but the assistants razor wanted have continued to prove themselves in the years since. Too hard for the selection panel to see I guess, or they didn't look hard enough, so they went with what seemed a safer bet.

So, in football, does the manager hire his coaches or is it some board? Either way, do the coaches ever get replaced but the manager stays?

In football the manager hires and fires his own coaching team but he doesn't need any top level approval unless he goes over budget. If his job is under pressure, replacing his assistant won't save him. It's much less political that way.

RE: players wanting to keep Foster: everyone keeps saying he's well liked so yeah maybe they like him as a person. That doesn't necessarily translate into confidence in his coaching abilities. At the very least there's no way the Crusaders in the team think he's better than Razor.