posted Jul 27, 2008

Good comments Spleen and a few others, about the game and the ELVs. I do 100% agree that collapsing a maul should be a penalty, so don't agree with that one. Mind you I also think the maul is simply "organised crossing/obstruction just moving very slowly" - should be the bloke at the front has the ball or its a penalty!

And if the refs get thier fingers out and start carding players there will not be all these tap and goes - remember it only happens because someone has done something wrong...

anyway, next week should be excellent.

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posted Jul 27, 2008

Have to admit the quality of SH rugby is outstanding and NH is extremely poor.

Put it down to favourable weather, top form and exciting coaching and tactics at test level - would love to see full highlights but this will do from the excellent rugbydump.

http://rugbydump.com/

Hopefully Scotland vs England or the other NH sides can be as awesome but Scotland vs England hasn't seen a gripper like this since 1999.

The only NH side that can play rugby like this is Wales and possibly England and both of them are way off form.

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posted Jul 27, 2008

Vinotackler- it just seems to me that you (and allot of other, but not all, NH fans), have decided that the ELV's are part of a massive SH conspiracy and dont want to hear anything else.
The fact is, the game 'becoming bogged down in free kicks' is a total contradiction in terms! The last RWC showed how the game has become bogged down by full arm penalties-I'm a huge fan of the Dalaglios, Johnsons and Hills of English rugby but how many of those guys would really be proud of the fact England to did not score a try in the QF, SF and Final last year.
I really hope that more NH Rugby people will watch the Tri Nations under the ELV's objectively, otherwise I think Rugby Union as a whole will be the big loser.

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posted Jul 27, 2008

"High tackle on Giteau resulted in 10 mins yellow card and a penalty.
Tuqiri's hit may have been blown, but not dirty and resulted in a try for Aus."

Just because it resulted in a try doesnt mean it wasnt dirty. The point I am making is that both sides did things so you cant just look at one incident. Anyway as I said before it would have only reduced Australias winning margin.

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posted Jul 27, 2008

I think we're just a bit jealous up here that again the SH is leading the way. Even back to Graham Mourie's "rolling maul" which arrived in 1978 and destroyed us, we always seem to be lolloping along behind dreaming of glory under some "special method" of using whichever rules are prevalent at the time.

Let's be honest. Wales can play EVLs easily, and actually when they are on song their running/commiting/late pass game is beautifull, under any rules. It's not the rules. It's the style.

France should like them, Ireland could exploit them and the Scots finally have a way of avoiding too much contact giving them more of an opportunity to show their wares.

This means the real problem is will England stand up and just let go? Let it flow and see what happens?

Or will we stick to our analy retentive norm and try fo force the game our way?

Can't say. We'll see.

But yesterdays game was an excellent watch! I think both teams wound up going a bit further than they wanted, and that probably favoured Ozzie, but NZL had their chances.

Yes, maybe too many free kicks, but teams have to defend, it can't be that you let the team with the ball score just because they have the ball. That will sort itself as refs get more comfortable, EVLs are new for them too, and he seemed to reach for the acceptable solution all the time. Which was the correct thing to do, that match gives us a platform on which to build and assess these new ideas. I say well done to all of them Oz, NZL and refs.

Yes, a bit funny about the injury situation, but so what? The player was part of the team, it wasn't a very bad thing, just perhaps showing the pressure. I think we should let that go and concentrate on the Rugby stuff.

On the maul, yes and no, it was stopped collapsing on safety grounds; but equally, a team must be allowed to defend. Playing rugby, you get programmed to defend, it becomes automatic. I prefer the idea of no collapse, but front player must carry the ball. This gives "a little extra safety", allows teams that think they're just physically stronger to exploit their strength, but allows defenders to defend by staying up and going for the ball. Keeps the game in progress, although in the tight, invites defending forwards to go in an get that ball, making space.

Personally I think the "travelling maul" (oft used by England) where the front of the maul is about 10 metres ahead of the ball is a cowards game. If we're really so strong let's put the ball up front and prove it.

The "lineout" thing's a bit dodgy too, that's got to be "can't be thrown back if an oppostion player is in lineout (or beyond) position". Otherwise why not just wait till the opposition are forming and then chuck it to the half? Which nearly happened yesterday.

But a great game, EVLs are very young, let's see how they grow.

K

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posted Jul 27, 2008

ScottishNut, try www.justin.tv/uggla.

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posted Jul 27, 2008

Good post KensonG. Your comment about the travelling maul is spot on. It's the only reason that I advocate pulling the maul down legally.
The fact that teams such as England travel with the ball in that position so be changed. The ball carrier should always be at the front.

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posted Jul 28, 2008

As a neutral observer i would make the following points.Great game, well played both sides.Good win for Aus.As I have written before in these threads Aus in Aus is difficult for any side,even THE BEST ALL BLACK SIDE LOST Twice in last 3 years.These things go in cycles SA and Aus are currently now complete sides,most of current Aus side was inherited by Deans.Aus,have always had great locks,back row and backs,Deans has added Crusader style defence,and territorial style game.The All Blacks were in a state of crisis after RWC,the media on there back etc.The NZRFU were faced with 2 candidates for head coach,a highly successful S14 coach but no inter national experience,and a coach that had lost only 6 times in 4 years,and an unbeaten home record of 26 wins.Who would you choose, the All Black sides this year have a few seasoned per formers,and a lot of people not yet up to speed with the AB set up.Now to the match,Great win by better team on the day.Sivivatu,possible penalty try,and yellow card for professional foul.Blood bin substituation, Ellis already of injured,then Cowans sustaining a broken nose, and medial ligament damage [a broken nose without blood ?].Given that the ABs were only 6 points adrift a SH playing at the hobble is not going to help.I see on an Australian board Horwell,is claiming his game smanship earned his side a try[standing backwards in AB defensive line shouting to AB defender about to tackle ball carrier "leave him he `s mine etc,]This AB side has lost so many world class players at the same time ANY COACH EVEN R.DEANS would struggle.In last 4 years,the SH pecking order was roughly Kelleher.Weepu,Devine[whatever happened to him]Leonard.Ellis,Cowans in roughly that order.This is 2004 all over again,yes the ABs will lose more matches this year,lose 3Ns,fall in world rankings,lose Bledisloe cup.Yes the NZ media will bay for blood.But by the end of the year the ABs will be more settled battle hardened team and [i do not need to tell you what happened after2004 do i]The sun will rise to morrow and so eventually will the ABs.

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posted Jul 30, 2008

If I was a kiwi I would just smile stay quiet and hope for once that they might be getting the timing right and peak in 2011

Seriously you are on a hiding to nothing if you play that pr+ck Brad Thorn - he makes Grewcock look like a blo+dy brain surgeon!

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posted Jul 31, 2008

I'm rather sad that there was so little response to Mark's comment early on in this batch. I think he is quite right: tactical kicking made an important difference in the game. There was a clear lack of the intelligence and vision which makes the sport great, despite the obvious and undeniably Herculean endeavours of the players noted by many other commentators. Just as, in my view, a few well-placed touch-finders would have helped NZ to beat France during the World Cup quarter-finals, at least by ensuring that more of their breaks and drives actually threatened the French line and that less of their effort went into scurrying around (however aggressively) in aimless broken play, but were not forthcoming then, so they needed some good tactical kicking to make their ball-in-hand efforts more worthwhile against Aus, but AGAIN none was forthcoming. I cannot think that a few eye-catching but ultimately unproductive line-breaks are a sufficient return on a fly-half who with suicidal predictability eschews touch-line yardage and indeed does not reliably find touch from his own twenty-two area. The tactics of NZ's own pivot seem to me often to be the reason the NZ side gets into spells of energy-sapping stampeding while in possession and often end up seeming to have defeated themselves.

Mark notes that the Australians by contrast kicked very astutely. Just so, but they are, I suggest, astute in the matter of kicking on an even grander scale. Aus commentators not only gave us the curious parlance of "long-arm penalties" and "short-arm penalties" for penalties and free kicks respectively, borrowed from "footie", which evidently rejoices in mutant umpires; it was they who added the perjorative preposition "away" to any reference to kicking the ball. Well, NZ have evidently fallen for the jape while in the last test Giteau clinically picked his spots, relieved the pressure, and kept his opposite number not quite weaving through the heavy traffic miles away from where much damage could result.

Hope NZ review their tactics for Eden Park, if only to rebut comments about rugger-buggers being thick. Just two additional closing remarks on that:

1. To my mind, Giteau has already moved to the top of the international fly-half pile.

2. Aus aren't going to find RSA as gullible on the matter of tactical kicking as poor old NZ.

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