22 October 2016 v Australia, Eden Park, Auckland

[Catkins73]

nice piece on the wallaby half back........ hilarious

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/...e-seven-deadly-sins-expected-from-nick-Phipps

 

[The Jones Boy]

No amount of Pocock's work outside of Rugby can sway Owens bias when he's dealing with Moore.

He loathes Moore for some reason, and I tend to agree that Moore is difficult to deal with as a captain, however Owens is a professional and needs to maintain his professionalism over a personal agenda.

I don't think any referee is keen on dealing with Moore. He is a fine player but he has a pugnacious look about him which is hardly his fault and probably serves him well in the business of front row activity however he is often a little too confrontational with referees especially when his charges are on the back foot. You just can't come across like that and hope to get any joy and the reverse is of course a possibility.
Respect towards referees is a contextual requirement.
Even when you feel the rub of the green is going against you.
I often wondered if Richie McCaw was winding up Wayne Barnes because of some of the decisions he couldn't fathom but to be fair I couldn't see it in his behaviour toward the ref.
If he didn't like something he wouldn't pull faces and start arguing like Moore has on too many occasions.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Australia: 15 Israel Folau, 14 Dane Haylett-Petty, 13 Samu Kerevi, 12 Reece Hodge, 11 Henry Speight, 10 Bernard Foley, 9 Nick Phipps, 8 Lopeti Timani, 7 Michael Hooper, 6 Dean Mumm, 5 Adam Coleman, 4 Rory Arnold, 3 Sekope Kepu, 2 Stephen Moore (c), 1 Scott Sio

Replacements: 16 James Hanson, 17 Tom Robertson, 18 Allan Ala’alatoa, 19 Rob Simmons, 20 David Pocock, 21 Nick Frisby, 22 Quade Cooper, 23 Sefa Naivalu

 

[The Jones Boy]

Wow some big changes there, it could run well for the Wallabies

 

[smartcooky]

Really sad not to see Naholo - the guy is phenomenal. I respect Hansen's choice, though, because the guy is beyond genius.

Elsewhere - Todd I agree with - need a fetching 7 to compete with Pooper, and he is a tenacious defender. Not sure why Cruden is getting game time. Fekitoa getting a right of reply, and Moala didn't do a lot last week.

There are ways of dealing with a fetcher (some legal, some not) that don't necessarily require us have have a fetcher of our own. In both of the last two RWC games we have played against the Wallabies (2011 Semi and 2015 Final) we dealt with the threat Pocock posed very effectively. Of course, its not possible to completely shut a player out of the game; the idea is to minimise his opportunities, and to reduce the advantage they gain from what opportunities he does get. We did this by...

1. Knowing which side of the ruck he was standing, and taking play the other way. Where we couldn't do this (near a touchline for example) we made sure we had one or two big guys following up close behind the ball carrier to clean Pocock out.

2. Trying to avoid being tackled by him by running a line to deliberately be tackled by another player. This meant that Pocock was an "other player" (Law 15.6) meaning he would have to go around and enter through the gate.

3. Where possible, avoid going to ground under his feet. That made it too easy for him to pilfer the ball

4. When it was obvious that Pocock had his hands on the ball and was likely to win it.....

a . if we were in their half or out of goal-kicking range, don't release it so that they don't have turnover ball to counter-attack with. We would have time to set the defence before the referee pinged us so a quick tap would not be very effective either.

b. if we were in our half or within goal kicking range, don't try to compete. Let him have the ball, and line the defensive trenches so to make any counter attack diffcult.
​

5. Any time Pocock ended up off his feet at a ruck, one of us would sneakily grab his jersey or a leg and keep him from getting up and joining play. (This as a case of using the Wallabies own tactics on them... they used to do this all the time to McCaw)

(4 and 5 are, of course illegal, but are commonly used by most teams.)


* * * * *


I really hope that, if the Wallabies bring the same round of dirty play and cheap shots they brought to the Wellington game, that we completely ignore them, simply dragging our own players away from any trouble. Make sure the referee, ARs and TMO get to see what they are doing without the confusion of our players getting in the way.

 

[The Jones Boy]

Game on at the Garden.
Cheika is trying a whole new approach with this new look team.
Fair play to him he has had the time to ruminate on his defeats and now he is cooking up something fresh to see how it will run out against the in form team at this time.
Playing at the garden will be hard because it is a graveyard for opposition but if you want to break the hoodoo you have to go into the Lions den and win.

 

[TheOvalBall]

aaaaaaaannnnndddd..... it's already boring. And the match has hardly started.

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

Looks like it may not be a walk over for the All Blacks. Wallabies playing well so far. Hodge at 12 seems to be working, and having a more balanced back row does too.

 

[TheOvalBall]

There was NOTHING in that. That was a try.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

That is a ****ing terrible call

 

[RoosTah]

Wow... that's potentially the worst call I've seen in a League or Union match for a while. People bag the bunking in the NRL, but that little jostle having that try recalled is about the worst call I've seen in either code in maybe 5 years.

 

[Aristodemus]

That was incredibly harsh. I'm surprised Owens allowed the TMO to make that call.

 

[RoosTah]

And the refs don't check the trip. **** this, I'm not even going to bother watching the rest. It's hard enough to beat the All Blacks without having an extra man on the field and another in the box.

 

[james5000]

You can't deviate off your line and shoulder blokes, he's lucky he didn't spend 10 in the bin.

Look at Foley holding Coles arm, should have been a penalty try and a yellow

 

[RoosTah]

You can't deviate off your line and shoulder blokes, he's lucky he didn't spend 10 in the bin.

Look at Foley holding Coles arm, should have been a penalty try and a yellow

You're allowed to jostle and he it was 5-10 metres from play - it wasn't going to affect the outcome. Even if you can argue an extremely pedantic technical angle, it's a classic case of a decision that offends common sense.

As for 10 in the bin - seriously I can't stand that about the game now... they send players off for everything. it's one of the reasons I watch way more NRL now.

 

[james5000]

You're allowed to jostle and he it was 5-10 metres from play - it wasn't going to affect the outcome. Even if you can argue an extremely pedantic technical angle, it's a classic case of a decision that offends common sense.

As for 10 in the bin - seriously I can't stand that about the game now... they send players off for everything. it's one of the reasons I watch way more NRL now.

I know league players rarely go to the bin, but league players are penalised far stricter in regard to infringements like off the ball play like that and sheparding

 

[RoosTah]

I know league players rarely go to the bin, but league players are penalised far stricter in regard to infringements like off the ball play like that and sheparding

They did in the first half of the year - there were some absolutely ridiculous calls (none as silly as in this match though), but they seemed to work out that it was against the spirit of the game to be so pedantic and destroy the flow and merit of expansive play, so they calmed well down by the end of the year.

 

[nzlizard]

Savea was never going to catch him regardless of the action he was behind the ball the whole time, Aus #14 was a ******** for even doing that, he didn't need to do it and he cost his team a try, all he managed to do was draw the refs attention.

Foley at the other end was lucky not to give away a penalty try, again just dumb ****.

At the end of the day neither of these 2 single moments would have changed the outcome of the game had they gone the other way, the AB's would still have won.

 

[RoosTah]

Savea was never going to catch him regardless of the action he was behind the ball the whole time, Aus #14 was a ******** for even doing that, he didn't need to do it and he cost his team a try, all he managed to do was draw the refs attention.

Foley at the other end was lucky not to give away a penalty try, again just dumb ****.

At the end of the day neither of these 2 single moments would have changed the outcome of the game had they gone the other way, the AB's would still have won.

Most likely (hard to know the morale effect, but agree the ABs have a tendancy of steamrolling everyone in the last 20), but that's kinda what made it so frustrating at the time; beating the ABs already requires teams to produce their absolute best possible performance, so it's frustrating when fair tries are taken away through stupid and pedantic calls.

 

[smartcooky]

Savea was never going to catch him regardless of the action he was behind the ball the whole time, Aus #14 was a ******** for even doing that, he didn't need to do it and he cost his team a try, all he managed to do was draw the refs attention.

Materiality doesn't matter when there is foul play.

Foul play trumps everything, including the try

Foley at the other end was lucky not to give away a penalty try, again just dumb ****.

Probably should have been a penalty try.

At the end of the day neither of these 2 single moments would have changed the outcome of the game had they gone the other way, the AB's would still have won.

Thing that is heartening for me is that the Wallabies played out of their skins tonight, while the ABs were well below par for all but the first ten minutes and the ten minutes between the 60th & 70th minutes, yet they still managed notch up six tries and win by 27 points. But for poor goal kicking by Barrett and Owens' incorrect decision to disallow the last try for a forward pass that was not forward, they could have racked up another fifty-pointer tonight.