All I'm going to say is Zac Guildford confirmed why he is an average winger. Never hit the line with any pace, didn't throw a single good pass, got fended by a lock and beated to the try line from 40-50m out and missed crucial tackles.
I agree Guildford had a poor game - he himself is the first to
admit that too. His game wasn't quite as bad as many have suggested: I certainly didn't remember him missing any crucial tackles, indeed I thought he had a very strong defensive game. He only missed two tackles during the match, the one on Horwill (which was a bad miss), and could have been crucial had the whistle not been blown a few seconds before, and one when Quade Cooper stepped him when he chased through too quickly after a kick. He actually made a number of crucial tackles throughout the game; game stats (
www.foxsports.com.au) suggest he made 6 tackles and missed only 1 (I'm assume the one on Cooper, as the Horwill missed tackle wouldn't have been included). Compared to some of the other Crusaders outside backs (Fruean made 5, missed 5; Maitland made 2, missed 3) it makes Guildford look pretty good! Guildford also saved the Crusaders a couple of times under pressure in the right hand corner after kicks through by the Reds - on one occasion he put in a huge touch finder from inside his 22 that went out <10m from the Reds goal-line. Again I'm not suggesting he had anything other than a poor game, but playing a poor game in the final does not take much away from the outstanding season he has had.
Onto the game itself. Congrats to the Reds - I felt they thoroughly deserved the win. As expected they struggled at the scrum, but did well to negate the Crusaders dominance for a lot of the match by getting the ball quickly out the back of the scrum, though they struggled more as the match went on. I thought Ben Daley and Saia Faingaa both were very strong around the field. The Reds dominated he lineout (though this was helped by Flynn's poor throwing), Horwill in particular stood out. The loose-trio again had strong games. Higginbotham has some fantastic skills for a loose-forward; it will be interesting to see whether Deans finds a place for him in the Wallaby 22.
Genia scored a brilliant individual try, but struggled to distribute behind a pack going backwards. I also thought he box-kicked far too often on turnover ball, as at times it looked like the Crusaders would have been stretched had the ball been spread wide. Cooper was reasonably quiet, but I thought the centre pairing of Tapuai and Faingaa probably got the best of SBW and Fruean, largely due to their strong defense. I thought Tapaui looked particularly dangerous with the ball in hand too, at times I thought it was Ioane was with the ball such was the danger he was posing! Davies looked good in space, but he did lose the ball in contact a couple of times, and missed a few tackles. I very impressed with Lance, particularly his strong physical running. Ioane had a very mixed game; he looked great with the ball in hand and scored a great individual try, but he looked very shaky under the high ball, and collecting the loose-ball - I'm Henry and co. will have taken notice of this....
Flynn had a bit of a shocker for the Crusaders at lineout time, which was strange as he's actually been pretty accurate all year. The Crusaders props again had strong games, but neither of the locks stood-out in this game. I felt Thorn blew a try too when he went himself despite having about a 5 on 1 overlap outside him. McCaw's lack of form still worries me - he was largely ineffective at the breakdown, and his handling let him down a number of times. Hopefully it is just a lack of gametime that McCaw is suffering from. Keiran Read was the pick of the loose-trio, though even he wasn't as effective as he has been in recent weeks. Ellis and Carter were ok, as was SBW, though again I think he forced the offloads far too often. Fruean again showed why he is not ready for the AB's, continously running out of the line and missing tackles or leaving huge gaps in the Crusaders defence. As mentioned before Guildford was poor, but Maitland was equally poor; he struggled to tackle Ioane, knocked on (an admittedly difficult) pass with the try line open, and failing to prevent Genia from scoring despite Genia clearly being his man.
