Wales vs BaaBaas

[Feicarsinn]

Isa Nacewa = Sexy Beast

 

[dangandan]

Damn Fiji definitely gona miss a player like Nacewa, what a try!

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Got to say, Mason looked very good today - look a little lost when he got tackled and took the ball to ground, but his strength and offloading is a real asset

 

[jim546]

I think after that Faletau has proven he should have a place in the World Cup squad, maybe more. That game also showed me that Knoyle and Stoddart should start and Gatland should get rid of Phillips and Byrne (well, bench them). Brew had a good game except for the deserved card, the scrum was OK and JD worked well at 13. North didn't feature much, maybe the ball just didn't reach his wing? Henson has blown his opportunity, although he could show us something in the two England games. They shouldn't beat themselves up over the loss though.
For the Babarians, Felise, Mason, Basteraud and Nacewa stood out and the scrum was superb. Why isn't Nacewa being picked by Fiji?

 

[m0rris]

Agreed Olyy, now the only thing standing between him and union success is his attitude.

I was also impressed with Faletau and the young scrum/fly halves for Wales, but Gav didn't do a thing! (Apart from the forward pass)

m0rris

 

[Draggs]

I'll post a bit more once the Sharks match is over, but for not can I just say that Bennett and Phillips are ****?
Faletau had a pretty good match. A few mistakes but not bad for a first cap. I think he will be a good one.

Knoyle surprised me today, good service, much improved since the Six Nations.
Gav is short on match time and shows it. Foxy had a few decent moves but not a great match. Brew was decent, nothing special. North hardly saw the ball but did well for his try. Stoddart was pretty good as well. Slipped off a few tackles but much improved.

Not a great performance at all, poor handling and stupid mistakes, but I wouldn't read into it too much.

 

[psychic duck]

I'll post a bit more once the Sharks match is over, but for not can I just say that Bennett and Phillips are ****?
Faletau had a pretty good match. A few mistakes but not bad for a first cap. I think he will be a good one.

Knoyle surprised me today, good service, much improved since the Six Nations.
Gav is short on match time and shows it. Foxy had a few decent moves but not a great match. Brew was decent, nothing special. North hardly saw the ball but did well for his try. Stoddart was pretty good as well. Slipped off a few tackles but much improved.

Not a great performance at all, poor handling and stupid mistakes, but I wouldn't read into it too much.

Stoddart's tackling is atrocious I'm afraid, he was scared of Nacewa, and although Nacewa is a class player, he's hardly the biggest and strongest, and Stoddart held an arm out like he's Jonah Lomu

 

[dullonien]

Mixed game from a Wales perspective. I thought there were some real stand-out performances from individuals, but there was also some negatives.

First, the positives. I thought our backrow played superbly well. Faletau started nervously with a couple of knock ons, but as the game wore on he came more and more into it. Great debut by him. Lydiate and Warbs were superb imo. Warburton was everywhere, carried well and forced a few turnovers, glad to see the captaincy didn't have a negative impact on his game like it can to some players. Lydiate once again tackled everything that moved, and carried quite well in the tight. I was pleasantly surprised by Mike Phillips. He had a solid game, one or two silly things such as kicking the ball away after a quick penalty tap, but his distribution was generally quick and crisp. Stephen Jones was solid and depandable as always. I thought Brew was very good apart from his yellow card. He went looking for the ball, made some powerful runs, scored a try, and defended extremely well, including counter-rucking. Finally, I've gotta say that Stoddart was also excellent. Showed excellent pace to score, but also showed some lovely hands on occasion (that pass off the floor was a thing of beauty), and some great strength to bounce off a few tackles. His defensive problems weren't that obvious today, although he could have done better for the Baabaa's final try where he got caught in no-mans land a little allowing Nacewa to step inside.

Now for the negatives. Well as expected Bennett was poor. His lineout throwing was all over the place as always, and he didn't really offer much around the park. Hopefully that will be the end of him! Bevington struggled at scrum time, but to be fair he was prominent in the loose putting in some big hits. I though Charteris was below par aswell. Very careless with the ball at a couple of lineouts, and didn't challenge the opposition throws atall really. Ryan Jones was ok I suppose, but I don't get why he stops before going into contact. He took a couple of quick taps and didn't know what to do after taking them. Carried well in the first quarter, then went missing to some extent. Finally I thought the midfield didn't go that well, Henson started brightly with a nice pass to North, I know it was forward, but it showed how well he can delay the pass to tie in the denfenders. After that though, his decision making was poor and he simply kicked too much ball away. He was honest after the match,in that it wasn't a great return for him. Jon Davies again showed flashes of what he can do, but again final passes etc. didn't go to hand. Expected more from both of them, especially in defense where both were guilty of poor positioning on occasion to allow Basteraud through.

The replacements were a mixed bag. Wasn't impressed atall with Scott Andrews who went backwards in the scrum and gave away countless penalties at ruck time. Lloyd Burns didn't really bring much to the plate either. Alun-Wyn, Turnbull and Priestland were ok, but didn't have a huge impact. Knoyle was there or therabouts, decent showing. However Scott Williams had a massive impact, really livened things up in midfield with some great runs and good straight running when required. Showed some good speed with his first touch of the ball.

Overall, dissapointing we lost, but Barbarians games are notoriously easy to loose when there's so little structure to the game and no penalty kicking at goal. Good to see a couple of impressive debuts and some good performances from individuals. Doesn't look like we're any closer to sorting out our midfield problems though!

 

[Draggs]

I think Stoddart suited this game, but I wouldn't start him at fullback for a proper match.
Scott Williams will be a very important player for the Scarlets next season.

Though Lydiate had a very good game. Tackled well and while not the quickest, he makes his presence known.
Charteris was not great. Tackled well sometimes, but was invisible at other times. What I would give for a 2008 Ian Evans.

 

[lynam1104]

In the last minuet I was thinking the only player out there I saw getting a try was Necewa, only saw the 2nd half based on that Wales should have own. Mike Phillips is well crap he was outstanding for the Loins but he is awful now time to move on, Ireland have the same problme with TOL. Wales should use either Knoyle (sp?) or Peel (not sure how Peel is playing but can't be worse then Phillips).

 

[DuncTheDoodle]

Stoddart and Faletau really stood out, both working very well going forward, and managing to cover well in defence as well. Toby made quite a few little mistakes, but that was to be expected on his first cap, and Stoddart, defensivly, was a huge improvement, although he made one or two howlers. (Including missing the iniital tackle on Nacewa that cost Wales the game) Scott Williams and Tavis Knoyle made a huge impact off the bench. The fact that the Cross Keys hooker did more right in 15 minutes than 30-cap Huw Bennett did in 65 says a lot about him, though! To be fair to Burns, he has been in form, and should definatly be above Bennett in the pecking order. Phillips wasn't as bad as usual, but still not great.

I was also really impressed by Bevington, whose head I expected to go down after conceeding a penalty at the first three scrums, but he went on to begin to hold his own, as well as making some great tackles and carries.

 

[coonor]

I agree with you Dullonien that The Warburton and Lydiate were good and I was also impressed with Faletu but I thought Phillips was very poor. Now I didn't get to watch the second half but in the first half he made poor decisions and kicked very badly. Not to mention the pass that got intercepted. It is amazing to think he was so good on the Lions tour but now he is just trying to literally muscle his way into the team and that is fine if you play flanker but not at scrum half. I also think the welsh lineout was a shambles and how anyone can play Bennet at this level now is beyond me.

 

[dullonien]

I agree with you Dullonien that The Warburton and Lydiate were good and I was also impressed with Faletu but I thought Phillips was very poor. Now I didn't get to watch the second half but in the first half he made poor decisions and kicked very badly. Not to mention the pass that got intercepted. It is amazing to think he was so good on the Lions tour but now he is just trying to literally muscle his way into the team and that is fine if you play flanker but not at scrum half. I also think the welsh lineout was a shambles and how anyone can play Bennet at this level now is beyond me.

Good point, I completely forgot about the intercept pass Phillips gave! Ok, he wasn't great then. His service was generally better than it has been of late, but plenty of errors from him again then. Put him in the meh pile then along with quite a few other players. He and Henson could still come good by the WC with gametime, but I'm not sure we've got the time to possibly waste if they don't. We may be better off building new combinations than hoping that these work. Look at how well an entirely new back-row (compared to 18 months ago) is now going. Tough decisions up ahead for Gatland.

 

[TVH11]

Right okay, was I the only one that thought Stoddard was Junk today. Took his try well, and had one or two little breaks, but his defence is a huge huge huge letdown. You can't be an international fullback and not be able to tackle. I thought all the dragons boys took their chances well, Falatau looked very comfortable Back row functioned well, should be interesting to see that combo develop Few positives overall, foundations to improve on

 

[dullonien]

Right okay, was I the only one that thought Stoddard was Junk today. Took his try well, and had one or two little breaks, but his defence is a huge huge huge letdown. You can't be an international fullback and not be able to tackle. I thought all the dragons boys took their chances well, Falatau looked very comfortable Back row functioned well, should be interesting to see that combo develop Few positives overall, foundations to improve on

Stoddarts defense for the final try was poor, but I didn't notice any other real howlers. He didn't stop Parisse for his try, but then very few backs would have! Put in quite a few good tackles in today I thought. He also did well with quite a few poor passes that went his way, including man and ball on a few occasions which he managed to bump off and continue the move. The bigger problems were inside him imo.

 

[TVH11]

yer true, centres didn't really click together. Nice forward pass by Gav for opening try, showed some nice touches but overall he looked rusty. I still think he'll be in warm up games, gatland and co really want him to play, sooooo much i hope he re-pays them for the faith their showing him. Bring on the warm ups

 

[lynam1104]

This dosen't count as a warm up, i know it's early but I woulda thought it did.

 

[TRF_Cymro]

I wondered if I watched the same game with cyRil as some people here watched. Unreal.

 

[lucky number 7]

How did Gav fare?

 

[TRF_Cymro]

How did Gav fare?

So-so

He did something's really nicely and was poor in other things. He showed nice touches with the ball but defensively was not good.

He also took a shed load of off the ball stuff which was not stopped by Rolland and his assistance.