[ITM Cup] Round 2

[nickdnz]

Ughh.

I will point out once again that Chris Boyd is going to be the Hurricanes coach next year. For ***** sake.

I prefer to watch other teams than Wellington play these days. Waikato, Northland and Canterbury are playing some pretty exciting rugby at the moment, some great young players around.

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Ughh.

I will point out once again that Chris Boyd is going to be the Hurricanes coach next year. For ***** sake.

I prefer to watch other teams than Wellington play these days. Waikato, Northland and Canterbury are playing some pretty exciting rugby at the moment, some great young players around.

In Wellington's defence, something like half of their squad are out injured which means their preseason has been pretty poor. Missing guys like Vito, Savea, Toomaga-Allen and Flutey will be having a big effect.

 

[ABs2011]

Ughh.

I will point out once again that Chris Boyd is going to be the Hurricanes coach next year. For ***** sake.

I prefer to watch other teams than Wellington play these days. Waikato, Northland and Canterbury are playing some pretty exciting rugby at the moment, some great young players around.

Yup, I didn't mention it in my post, but the coaching of the Wellington side should come in for criticsm after that game. They changed absolutely nothing from the first half to the second and things clearly weren't working. They looked like a very poorly coached side!!

Fish makes a good point, yes they are severely hampered with injuries, BUT, they should be doing a lot lot better than todays performance!!

 

[ABs2011]

Baden Kerr injured so not playing today. I think Otago will win it now.

Yeah I was a bit concerned when I saw Baden was out, but they seem to be going OK without him...What's wrong with Kerr? I think Couties are a better side with him on the field, it gives them that bit more structure to then be able to play their unstructured style of game

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Ranfurly Shield match just got interesting. Counties up by 6 with seven minutes to go.

 

[Darwin]

Oh well, we got close. I only got to watch the last 10 minutes and we scored two tries (one from another good set piece move) - if I had watched the whole game we may well have won

 

[dasNdanger]

Just watched the Hawke's Bay/Taranaki match - wow, very exciting! Great end to the game, too.

Missed the Canterbury match because my tv channel messed up and didn't air it (or, didn't air it at the right time, on the right station - who knows...for some reason I now have THREE rugby channels, and all have screwed up scheduling).

das

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Looks like Auckland thumped Manawatu earlier today. Tasman and BoP are currently involved in quite an exciting match - Tasman are running out comfortable winners but there have been some great tries from birth sides.

Having seen the last two rounds I think Tasman will be the only team capable of pushing Canterbury in the Premiership. They've got class all over the park.

 

[ABs2011]

Harbour @ $2.45
Canterbury @ $1.25
HB @ $1.62
Wellington @ $1.16
Counties @ $1.45
Auckland @ $1.27
Tasman @ $1.37

Pretty average week for me - -picked 5/7 but pretty much ended up even money....

Running total + $266

 

[ABs2011]

By the way that Tasman BOP game was a good one to watch if you wanted to see some tries! Tasman can sure run them in! Looks to me like they will push the top teams this year and could well find themselves in the semis (maybe even the final). Currently I'd have them as the 2nd form team of the comp after Canterbury right now!

Auckland beat the Turbos pretty comfortably, but I have to say I wasnt all that impressed with Auckland. A lot of errors and wasted opportunities. Im not sure they are a particularly good side this year, but who knows, maybe they will improve as the season goes on. Manawatu toughed it out for a while but in general they were a level below in most facets (as the score line suggested).

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

And for what it's worth this is the most posts a thread in the ITM Cup subforum has had since July 2012 ("Otago 2012 ITM Squad"). Otherwise you have to go all the way back to 2010 where "2010 ITM Cup ... Fixtures" had 77 posts and "Sonny Bill Williams News + Progress in ITM Cup" had a whopping 552 posts

 

[donmcdazzle]

Just going to say, the ref Mike Fraser is so horrible. Manawatu were outclassed and the ref didn't decide the outcome but holy hell he was terrible. I remember him reffing club rugby in Wellington and he was useless then, just used to talk louder and give out more cards than other refs. He was so bad today, even the Auckland players were laughing about how biased he was after the match.. Makes a tough game for us even worse. Knowing our luck he'll ref us next week.

it frustrates me as a Manawatu supporter watching Tasman go so well. There's no reason we can't be as good as them, we must have a similar catchment area.

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Just going to say, the ref Mike Fraser is so horrible. Manawatu were outclassed and the ref didn't decide the outcome but holy hell he was terrible. I remember him reffing club rugby in Wellington and he was useless then, just used to talk louder and give out more cards than other refs. He was so bad today, even the Auckland players were laughing about how biased he was after the match.. Makes a tough game for us even worse. Knowing our luck he'll ref us next week.

it frustrates me as a Manawatu supporter watching Tasman go so well. There's no reason we can't be as good as them, we must have a similar catchment area.

Were you at the game, Don?

 

[donmcdazzle]

Were you at the game, Don?

Nope, I live in Auckland now so don't get the chance for many home games. But I have a few mates who went and know a few of the a turbos and Auckland guys.

 

[Muzzy]

Saw the highlights for Northland vs Wellington, that Jone Macilai looks pretty good and Dan Pryor is so underrated I hope he gets a super rugby contract next year, otherwise it will be another good player the Blues miss out on

Michael Stanley looked real good for Counties too when he came on

 

[donmcdazzle]

Macilai was good in round one too, he is super elusive.

 

[Darwin]

And for what it's worth this is the most posts a thread in the ITM Cup subforum has had since July 2012 ("Otago 2012 ITM Squad"). Otherwise you have to go all the way back to 2010 where "2010 ITM Cup ... Fixtures" had 77 posts and "Sonny Bill Williams News + Progress in ITM Cup" had a whopping 552 posts

I can understand why we got so many posts there - it sounds like a fantastic thread!

Macilai was good in round one too, he is super elusive.

I've heard the Blues management have big wraps on this guy. I expect we will see him in the Blues squad this season, but I do think he would be better off going somewhere without such an abundance of outside backs talent (the Highlanders perhaps ).

Just going to say, the ref Mike Fraser is so horrible. Manawatu were outclassed and the ref didn't decide the outcome but holy hell he was terrible. I remember him reffing club rugby in Wellington and he was useless then, just used to talk louder and give out more cards than other refs. He was so bad today, even the Auckland players were laughing about how biased he was after the match.. Makes a tough game for us even worse. Knowing our luck he'll ref us next week.

it frustrates me as a Manawatu supporter watching Tasman go so well. There's no reason we can't be as good as them, we must have a similar catchment area.

I have always found Fraser a very inconsistent referee. At times he looks pretty good IMO, but at other times he does seem to only focus on one side, and does seem to enjoy his own authority. He seems to be pretty highly rated by the referees bosses in NZ though, so he must be doing something right!

 

[Draggs]

Going to have to ask for Anscombe reports every week! Saw he scored a try for Auckland, how was his performance overall?

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Going to have to ask for Anscombe reports every week! Saw he scored a try for Auckland, how was his performance overall?

He had a good game, but Manawatu tend to give the opposition team quite a lot of space and time, so it's probably not a very assessment. I'd expect most decent first fives to play as well as he did given the dominance his team had.

 

[donmcdazzle]

I can understand why we got so many posts there - it sounds like a fantastic thread!



I've heard the Blues management have big wraps on this guy. I expect we will see him in the Blues squad this season, but I do think he would be better off going somewhere without such an abundance of outside backs talent (the Highlanders perhaps ).



I have always found Fraser a very inconsistent referee. At times he looks pretty good IMO, but at other times he does seem to only focus on one side, and does seem to enjoy his own authority. He seems to be pretty highly rated by the referees bosses in NZ though, so he must be doing something right!

Macilai seems a ready made replacement for Tikoirotuma at the chiefs - sharpen up his defensive game and he'll be great there at the end of that backline.

Yeah he certainly got the fast track to reffing Super rugby and things which I find interesting after seeing him operate in club rugby (where comments were never that favourable from players).