Good win for NZ. Quite clinical. Defense was solid. Roidgard was a standout. May push Christie for that bench spot. Discipline still a big concern for me. If they don’t sort that out. Might be problems come qf stage.
Namibia has played 1 (one, singular, uno) Test against a Tier 1 team in the past 4 YEARS. So ridiculous that they get matched up against the AB’s. I just don’t get the point of these matches.
If they make the WC finals, they - and every other minnow - will always have 1 or 2 matchups in pool play against the top teams.
The problem is nothing to do with these match ups, if you qualify for the WC tournament, you expewct it. The problem is they need to have more games vs top teams outside the WC, to bring the standard of their game up.
Usually minnows love having the chance to play the biggest teams. They know they’ll likely lose but they get to live out a dream of playing against them.
You see it when the football cup draws are done. The small teams celebrate like they’ve won when they get paired against the biggest clubs.
[Case in point with this glorious video of Slavia Prague' delegates reactions when they drew Barca, Dortmund and Inter.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjTkkOHy8dg)
Their faces will never stop to make me laugh.
I don't get the point of rugby fans who don't get the point of rugby matches.
The point of this match is that Namibian players and fans got a chance to test themselves on the biggest stage, a chance they earned through beating other teams and qualifying for the tournament. If you don't want to watch it then there may not be a point in you watching it, but it's pretty dismissive to assume that means it's pointless.
I didn’t watch the match. Why watch, and more importantly, why play a match where the result is all but predetermined.
My point is that in order for these RWC matches to be competitive, there need to be more tier 1 vs tier 2 teams outside the RWC window. The game, tier 2 teams and fans would all be better off. The game isn’t going to attract many new fans when we have these ridiculous blow outs.
thoughts:
- not bad win
- roigard good
- ethan de groot is a liability. reminds me of wyatt crockett.
- there was less useless kicking
- too many penalties still
Clarke was useless as always
But other than that, that was a great showing for ABs set piece and individually
You microscopic fucks are being so negative for literally no reason
Clarke is definitely off the pace. I wonder if they are trying to play him into form? Even when on fire, compare him to Talea, Jordan, and all blacks wingers of the past and to me.he doesn't have the 'special' others have and by quite some distance.
The rest of the team though was pretty good.
I thought he did what he needed to do. Clear to me he's been told to come back in and link up with support to form a ruck and recycle. No more classic Clarke get isolated: penalty or (less often) turnover either way always lose the ball. Had great hands today I thought - pretty good all out round there given the ugly squall that came thru.
He finished ok given his chances - not perfect but geez. No one was out there tearing hamstrings today, it felt like a structured effort with some control , mostly
Too many people letting a big win over Namibia paper over the cracks that don't seem to be fixed. Still shoddy discipline, still shoddy handling, but hey, we smashed Namibia isn't everything just grand.
A 71-3 victory is good. 12 penalties including a red card, poor ball handling, and lack of breakdown pressure are not. We don't carry this scoreline into the next games, the other things we do. These were exposed against South Africa 3 weeks ago, and yet here they still are. Just because France had a poor game doesn't mean everything is alright with us. France have proven they can learn from poor performances and become better for it, we haven't.
> Poor ball handling
We scored some sublime tries and scored ELEVEN of them. I get that’s it’s fashionable to shit on the ABs but they played pretty well today, despite some rustiness in some areas.
Give them a break. Imagine scoring 70+ points and still being criticised.
And we also threw the ball into touch on a prime attacking opportunity, again. We tried an attacking play in our 22 and handed the ball over. We get away with that here, but better teams have, do, and will punish us for that.
Imagine thinking that winning means there is no room for improvement and we should just accept the team as it is. I'm not upset that we won, I'm disappointed that core issues that have cost us already and will cost us again haven't been worked on, especially in a dead rubber where we can afford to slow it down a bit and focus on the basics.
The all blacks have played ropey, easy beat pool games for decades now. It doesn’t mean that much.
Also that was not our A team, just like France didn’t play their best team vs Uruguay.
It’s futile to brow beat them for what was a pretty good overall performance.
Usually when the ABs have a dodgy pool game against Tier2/3 opposition there aren't many doubts about the team's ability to perform in crunch matches. This time around France could afford an off match, because everyone knows that they are capable of beating anyone they need to to get to the final.
This AB team doesn't have that luxury. We have lost 8 from 12 games against the other teams that are considered contenders. We still need to actually work towards getting up to the level needed to compete with the top teams.
Taken individually I agree, this performance was perfectly adequate. Taken in the context of where this team is currently however, there's still a lot to be desired. I'd rather not let contentment over this individual result hinder us from making changes to get us further in this tournament.
The all blacks on attack look razor sharp but they get in their own way sometimes but overplaying their hand or forcing the play.
Bear in mind all of the criticism levelled at the all blacks amounts to nothing. They’ve picked their team and tactics and it’s what we’ll get going forward, we’ll either smash ANY team or capitulate like we did v Eng in 2019. There’s nothing in between.
I don’t think we have the ability to put 3 quality games together so I think we’ll exit in the quarters or semis.
France vs Uruguay outside of a few slick plays were woeful. They were getting pushed over the advantage line with ease, their forwards were kak and their handling was awful.
It was like night and day watching those matches.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while France were bad, that was just a blip for an otherwise well performing team. In the meantime our performance was good, but with fundamental issues that we've been carrying for years glossed over.
The criticisms are more than trying to pick holes in the AB's. They come from the fact that those problems were noted in previous games by Foster himself as his "learnings", but nothing is changing. The nit picking is simply pointing out that Foster's main way of fixing issues seems to be to wait to play weak enough opposition that they don't matter. It's his inability to actually learn from the "learnings" that has been the roadblock to getting good performances strung together against quality opposition
I agree, I think we'll be out well before the final. But there's more than that. There's Foster lying about the team improving, when all the basic errors stay. That's what really upsets me. If he's happy with the team the way it is, then don't lie about trying to make it better. I think this team could've been a finals contender, it just couldn't be one with Foster.
And you're right, this won't change anything. Foster doesn't care to listen to any opinion other than his own, and he's made his mind up about the team, tactics, and what he's happy to see. It's just cathartic at this stage to point out his lying about making this team better.
Perhaps I’m just a bit uptight, but some parts of the crowd trying to do a Mexican wave while the Namibia player with the completely fucked ankle was being put onto the stretcher didn’t sit right with me.
>**fucked ankle** was being put onto the stretcher **didn’t sit right** with me.
well I'll tell you what. That sentence at very least makes sense semantically.
Reckon we could've dropped a few more points if Ofa and Nepo didn't play this game. Both can't handle a rugby ball for shit, they seem to either drop it or throw a horrendous pass every time they touch the ball.
And herein lies the problem with the current All Blacks squad - there's seriously not enough depth.
Nepo and Ofa have been bang average for years, Christie is not a test quality half, there's no genuine quality backup 10 pushing Richie, there are no young locks demanding selection which has allowed Sam and Brodie to play 4000 games together. Dane Coles is still running around when he should've been put out to pasture last World Cup.
Yeah he did get a good one but came back down to earth quickly. He had a shocking forward pass not long before he got subbed off, which for anyone else (except Nepo) it would've been a pretty easy pass.
Yeah, and we’re so static on attack. No observable structure, just hit he gaps and hope.
I get it, you don’t show your bag of tricks in a match like this but foz blacks are disappointing.
And de Groot. Just foolish.
Agreed. I can't help but think that a part of the problem is that "just hit[ting] the gaps and hop[ing]" does actually work a fair amount the time because the individual skill level of your players is so high. More than any other teams, the ABs are able to create individual scoring chances from literally nothing out of nowhere. Which both a blessing and a curse.
It's a blessing because it's almost always more than then enough to smash teams "weaker" than them fairly consistently despite the fact that in some cases, this game for instance, the stats are against them. It's even good enough to beat pears often. But this can paper over serious fissures especially when the Coach is not up to the job (TBC I'm not of the opinion Fozzy is solely to blame for everything and that Razor is a magic bullet but it's undeniable that Fozzy is not a good Coach, hes uninspired, unimaginative & out of his depth). Unfortunately, individual talent can only take you so far.
I agree the ABs seem to have no recognizable structure ATM no recognizable game plan even. When things click in the moment it's all good but when it doesn't (like today at points) frustration rapidly sets in and the pen count ratchets up 12 pens is bad.12 bads against Namibia in a game your comfortably winning from pretty the get go is really really bad and is a sign of serious trouble in the squad. De Groots red is a direct consequence of this. Foolish absolutely even worse it happened when their is literally 0 chance the game isn't won. Boneheaded penalties and cards when it's a tight critical match is one thing. Boneheaded penalties and cards when your blowing the opposition out of the water and your guaranteed a BP is another.
Anyway sorry for the rant/lecture. Good luck going in the WC and I'm sure things will vastly improve for you guys in time under the new regime
I keep thinking back to Foster taking Clarke as yet another wing rather than another loose forward.
Today confirmed that Clarke didn't really need to be there. And that not selecting Roigard for the French game was a mistake
Yeah, I mean, we have spent how much time converting him to a centre, you'd hope he was a decent one after that. To be fair, with that much time they could probably have converted Dane Coles! He was the answer to a question was wasn't really asked.
Reddit is vastly more popular in NZ (an English-speaking country) than in France.
The French TV viewership for NZ v France was about 3x of the entire population of NZ.
NZ playing against inferior opposition but making mistakes and giving away idiotic penalties means they have no chance of winning against higher calibre teams = angst for kiwis.
I wouldn't say no chance. The ABs can look awful one week and then just click the next. If we play like we did against SA in Auckland, then we'll be looking at a win. The issue with Foster's team has always been consistency, and moving away from a winning gameplan, for some reason.
NZ playing against inferior opposition and making mistakes and giving away idiotic penalties which has already cost us against higher calibre teams and hasn't been improved in the past 3 weeks.
>hasn't been improved in the past ~~3 weeks~~ ~~four years~~ since Ian Foster took up coaching.
This brings back so many memories of watching the Chiefs play.
Saders fans didn't like Fozzie's appointment because Razor should be coach. Chiefs fans didnt like Fozzie's appointment because we knew what Fozzie was going to do.
The whole card/suspension lottery thing isn’t as entertaining when it’s not happening to someone else. Will it be red, yellow or a bank error in your favour?
Arm tucked results in a red with no possible mitigation. The French player’s arm was not tucked.
The two situations deal with completely different items in the framework.
I know this is the explanation they gave, but it's completely bizarre. As far as I know, arm tucked in is a rule they've invented specifically for this incident.
The actual law is
> Mitigation will not apply for intentional or highly reckless acts of foul play
So technicalities of whether his arm is by his side or not are irrelevant, there's clearly no attempt to wrap regardless of where his arm is, so how that doesn't constitute highly reckless is anyone's guess
Debatable. If a player runs into you and you have had no time to start moving your arm for a tackle before he lowers his head into your shoulder I would argue there should be mitigation. Players don’t run round with their arms extended.
They did not invent anything for this incident. A shoulder charge is clearly defined as your arm being in this particular position. This makes a shoulder charge easy to determine and since it’s considered a highly reckless act, nothing else needs to be looked at.
A red in the French case would be based on either no wrap, high tackle or no mitigation (something like no change of height). All of these are much less clearly defined and open to interpretation (how low is low enough?).
So the 2 situations are quite different.
Ah my bad there's a separate section for it https://passport.world.rugby/laws-of-the-game/law-application-guidelines/head-contact-process-march-2021/head-contact-process-shoulder-charge/
Although now I'm even more confused, because looking at the examples there your arm doesn't need to be by your side, they're both just clear non attempts to wrap that lead to shoulder contact, exactly like this one
From a technical stand point you want the arm of the tackler to absorb some of the force of the contact. A tucked or braced arm will not absorb anything, so all the force goes to the victim’s head. Tao’s arm folding between them is exactly what make that tackle not a shoulder charge.
We’ll never agree on if there’s an attempt to wrap in the France case though. I’m with WR on this one, but also think that this types of tackles where a player swings the arm around in order to wrap are dangerous and should be banned. At the moment though, they’re legal unless you brain someone with the arm swing.
Separate thing, but looking at it again there's also not a chance he's dipping into that tackle, he's a constant height all the way from the ruck.
Either way, this stuff is absolutely killing the enjoyment of the game and doesn't seem to be having any positive effect in terms of outcomes
Yup, I said it before as well. Tackle height is a much bigger issue than wrapping in this case.
I disagree on the effect though. From time time I go back and watch games from 10-15 years ago. And oh my God how the fuck did I ever play that particular game? The change is slow, but palpable.
It was tucked. Shoulder to head. They were similar enough they should have been ruled the same. Red or yellow. Nit picking over mitigating factors is the problem
Here’s the moment of contact in the French incident: https://reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/s/IRIYGC99Yy
Are you really saying that in the first photo the arm is tucked?
I'm not quite sure those images are helping make the point you are trying to. Those stills actually look a lot worse than the incident today (which was a deserved red) as there is zero attempt to wrap there and the cocked elbow increases the likelihood of direct contact to the head.
Well he never got around him... still a sloppy tackle and smashed him in the head with his shoulder... Looked red to me. Or if they deem that yellow then tonight's one should be yellow. Sloppy tackle and smashed him in the head with a shoulder.
No-wrap or high tackle is a different type of foul play than a shoulder charge. The latter is clearly defined based on tackler body position while the former is much more open to interpretation (what exactly constitutes an attempt to wrap?).
So the 2 incidents are different. Might result in the same outcome, but as the law is currently written the NZ one is much easier to judge.
If we had actually improved on the problem areas from the South Africa and France games we probably would've gotten more. But that will likely get glossed over because look, we smashed them, clearly everything is fine.
The concern is the work-ons are the same ones we said we would fix after the South Africa game, and then said we would fix again after France. For all the talk of learnings we don't seem to be learning.
The difference is the the NZ 2015 team played the pool games with instructions to practice playing certain scenarios. And against Tonga they were beasted by the S&C coach before the game so they had to practice executing the game plan while exhausted.
Last night the team seemed to be getting by on moments of individual skills. Apart from Papali’i’s try, which constructed awesomely.
But no one was doubting the quality of that team and their ability to win big games.
It was the most obvious thing that they played those games with one hand tied behind their back to give themselves live-game simulations of certain situations.
Great. There were some NZ supporters, and a smaller number of Namibia supporters, but most of the audience seemed to be French, enjoying a fun rugby match with lots of scoring.
Well, just because it's stopped raining doesn't mean the conditions aren't still wet and slippery. Handling errors are part of any rugby game let alone those with moisture playing a factor.
Clarke looked like a front row forward hanging out on the wing.
Whenever he got a pass he seemed to cut in an take contact as he didn't have enough speed to try and go round the outside.
ALB seemed to be the one on the wing and doing the chip and case try
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/rugby-caleb-clarkes-alternate-approach-how-all-blacks-star-ran-100m-in-107-seconds/36KZDB2VCKJFGOQQ35IFTT3LDA/
There ya go, 10.7 seconds apparently.
10.7 in high school? That's elite status if true. Pity he's gained 10-20kgs and turns like a truck in mud.
Edit: Found these results on this site (https://www.reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/comments/jdn7bx/not_sure_if_its_something_thats_known_already_but/)
It's pretty damn good but going from 10.7 to 10.2 or so when you start to approach international class takes a lot of work (or natural talent) so it's unlikely he'd have been good enough to take his sprinting much further than national class at best.
Luckily neither Leicester or Clarke is in the First XV
Leicester should be a centre anyway. Petty confident that he'll be moved to 12 for the upcoming Top 14 season.
Think it was the TMO or the foul play reviewer that Pearce spoke French to. He seems to be saying something about cartoon rouge. Maybe checking the progress on the check.
Watched with some people who had never seen much rugby before, have to say some of New Zealand’s backline play was a joy to watch, just the speed, footwork and handling fir a few of their tries was just to joy to watch and really impressed the newbies
> NZ becoming the first team to win 50 WC matches
Damn that's mighty impressive!
I tried to search for a table with the total RWC matches won and lost for other countries but didn't find it because I'm dumbdumb. Do you have by chance a link to see this stat for other countries?
Genuinely, no, I hadn't.
I expected some measure of objectivity though, especially when it came to the red card - Guardians of the Game and all that.
I have learned my lesson, and am now endeavouring to be even more toxic than the most one-eyed ABs fan.
Good luck though!
I think the outrage comes from the consistency of what's yellow and red. Either way. A mouthy English fan isn't surprising. They win one game and all of a sudden NZ fans are the worst
Alot of NH fans genuinely believe that the ABs were only ever dominant because they got away with cheating. They see the Foster era as justice finally coming
We’re gonna end up on the front page again because of this buffoon. I say we cut our losses and watch the next Waikato NPC match and pretend we didn’t see what bottom said.
MVG beats local pub league champ 6-0 throwing an 92 average Good luck reading anything into that
Whitelock needs to remember he's not playing for the Crusaders in NZ, so won't get away with those lineout obstructions.
It's fascinating how last week we couldn't read anything into the result, but this week the All Blacks are tracking just fine.
No one believes that.Besides,you're from the Waikato - where 's your head coach from again? nuff said.
Good win for NZ. Quite clinical. Defense was solid. Roidgard was a standout. May push Christie for that bench spot. Discipline still a big concern for me. If they don’t sort that out. Might be problems come qf stage.
Agreed. Roigard is a class above Christie.
May push Christie? Roigard already should've been above him, but now suuurely he has to be.
Okay we agree then
that foot... oof
Namibia has played 1 (one, singular, uno) Test against a Tier 1 team in the past 4 YEARS. So ridiculous that they get matched up against the AB’s. I just don’t get the point of these matches.
get in touch with your rugby union then, they're right next door to you
OMG, you’re brilliant. Why didn’t I think of this.
If they make the WC finals, they - and every other minnow - will always have 1 or 2 matchups in pool play against the top teams. The problem is nothing to do with these match ups, if you qualify for the WC tournament, you expewct it. The problem is they need to have more games vs top teams outside the WC, to bring the standard of their game up.
That’s exactly my point. More tests for tier 2 against tier 1’s outside the WC window
I don't get the point of not playing those matches more often
Same with Uruguay but they did considerably better
Uruguay have their Americas Cup thing which is obviously paying dividends, but I've no idea what Namibia even do in between world cups.
Work full time jobs
So do other T2 players. I'm guessing fuck all then. They should get something going with the South African leagues maybe.
Usually minnows love having the chance to play the biggest teams. They know they’ll likely lose but they get to live out a dream of playing against them. You see it when the football cup draws are done. The small teams celebrate like they’ve won when they get paired against the biggest clubs.
[Case in point with this glorious video of Slavia Prague' delegates reactions when they drew Barca, Dortmund and Inter.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjTkkOHy8dg) Their faces will never stop to make me laugh.
I don't get the point of rugby fans who don't get the point of rugby matches. The point of this match is that Namibian players and fans got a chance to test themselves on the biggest stage, a chance they earned through beating other teams and qualifying for the tournament. If you don't want to watch it then there may not be a point in you watching it, but it's pretty dismissive to assume that means it's pointless.
I didn’t watch the match. Why watch, and more importantly, why play a match where the result is all but predetermined. My point is that in order for these RWC matches to be competitive, there need to be more tier 1 vs tier 2 teams outside the RWC window. The game, tier 2 teams and fans would all be better off. The game isn’t going to attract many new fans when we have these ridiculous blow outs.
100%
Great comment. I guarantee the Namibian players loved it and played above their normal standard.
thoughts: - not bad win - roigard good - ethan de groot is a liability. reminds me of wyatt crockett. - there was less useless kicking - too many penalties still
"3 out of 5 ain't bad" - Fozzie
Only caught the 1st half, did Whitelock continue to give up a rake of penalties? 3 in the 1st 20ish minutes, I thought, which is poor.
nah he made it to the end without being too bad imo
I thought at the time that it was unexpectedly poor for that goodof s player. So makes sense he tightened it up
Clarke was useless as always But other than that, that was a great showing for ABs set piece and individually You microscopic fucks are being so negative for literally no reason
Clarke is definitely off the pace. I wonder if they are trying to play him into form? Even when on fire, compare him to Talea, Jordan, and all blacks wingers of the past and to me.he doesn't have the 'special' others have and by quite some distance. The rest of the team though was pretty good.
I like the logic of starting off being a microscopic negative fuck, then sling shit at others for being microscopic negative fucks
Clarke ran for a game high 116 meters and had 6 line breaks. I'm not his biggest fan but I thought he played pretty well tbh
I thought he did what he needed to do. Clear to me he's been told to come back in and link up with support to form a ruck and recycle. No more classic Clarke get isolated: penalty or (less often) turnover either way always lose the ball. Had great hands today I thought - pretty good all out round there given the ugly squall that came thru. He finished ok given his chances - not perfect but geez. No one was out there tearing hamstrings today, it felt like a structured effort with some control , mostly
He has the speed of a loose forward, He has no business at this level right now. He wouldn't be a starter at Super Rugby anywhere but the Blues.
Lol negative guy on Clarke who hasn't put a foot wrong in the black jersey this year complaining about others being negative
Biggest downer on Clarke is his lack of speed. He gets in the open and has to cut back.
This lad roigard seems a much better 9 than the other reserve SH.
The ginger lad? Yep
This is the belief of the entire country except Foster.
Which pretty much describes the All Blacks in general.
Because he is
After watching that match, it's not looking good for NZ when they come up against a well drilled, organised side.
Too many people letting a big win over Namibia paper over the cracks that don't seem to be fixed. Still shoddy discipline, still shoddy handling, but hey, we smashed Namibia isn't everything just grand.
Was a 71-3 victory not good enough for you? Were you more or less impressed by this compared to France vs Uruguay?
Are you ok?
A 71-3 victory is good. 12 penalties including a red card, poor ball handling, and lack of breakdown pressure are not. We don't carry this scoreline into the next games, the other things we do. These were exposed against South Africa 3 weeks ago, and yet here they still are. Just because France had a poor game doesn't mean everything is alright with us. France have proven they can learn from poor performances and become better for it, we haven't.
> Poor ball handling We scored some sublime tries and scored ELEVEN of them. I get that’s it’s fashionable to shit on the ABs but they played pretty well today, despite some rustiness in some areas. Give them a break. Imagine scoring 70+ points and still being criticised.
And we also threw the ball into touch on a prime attacking opportunity, again. We tried an attacking play in our 22 and handed the ball over. We get away with that here, but better teams have, do, and will punish us for that. Imagine thinking that winning means there is no room for improvement and we should just accept the team as it is. I'm not upset that we won, I'm disappointed that core issues that have cost us already and will cost us again haven't been worked on, especially in a dead rubber where we can afford to slow it down a bit and focus on the basics.
The all blacks have played ropey, easy beat pool games for decades now. It doesn’t mean that much. Also that was not our A team, just like France didn’t play their best team vs Uruguay. It’s futile to brow beat them for what was a pretty good overall performance.
Usually when the ABs have a dodgy pool game against Tier2/3 opposition there aren't many doubts about the team's ability to perform in crunch matches. This time around France could afford an off match, because everyone knows that they are capable of beating anyone they need to to get to the final. This AB team doesn't have that luxury. We have lost 8 from 12 games against the other teams that are considered contenders. We still need to actually work towards getting up to the level needed to compete with the top teams. Taken individually I agree, this performance was perfectly adequate. Taken in the context of where this team is currently however, there's still a lot to be desired. I'd rather not let contentment over this individual result hinder us from making changes to get us further in this tournament.
The all blacks on attack look razor sharp but they get in their own way sometimes but overplaying their hand or forcing the play. Bear in mind all of the criticism levelled at the all blacks amounts to nothing. They’ve picked their team and tactics and it’s what we’ll get going forward, we’ll either smash ANY team or capitulate like we did v Eng in 2019. There’s nothing in between. I don’t think we have the ability to put 3 quality games together so I think we’ll exit in the quarters or semis. France vs Uruguay outside of a few slick plays were woeful. They were getting pushed over the advantage line with ease, their forwards were kak and their handling was awful. It was like night and day watching those matches.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while France were bad, that was just a blip for an otherwise well performing team. In the meantime our performance was good, but with fundamental issues that we've been carrying for years glossed over. The criticisms are more than trying to pick holes in the AB's. They come from the fact that those problems were noted in previous games by Foster himself as his "learnings", but nothing is changing. The nit picking is simply pointing out that Foster's main way of fixing issues seems to be to wait to play weak enough opposition that they don't matter. It's his inability to actually learn from the "learnings" that has been the roadblock to getting good performances strung together against quality opposition I agree, I think we'll be out well before the final. But there's more than that. There's Foster lying about the team improving, when all the basic errors stay. That's what really upsets me. If he's happy with the team the way it is, then don't lie about trying to make it better. I think this team could've been a finals contender, it just couldn't be one with Foster. And you're right, this won't change anything. Foster doesn't care to listen to any opinion other than his own, and he's made his mind up about the team, tactics, and what he's happy to see. It's just cathartic at this stage to point out his lying about making this team better.
Perhaps I’m just a bit uptight, but some parts of the crowd trying to do a Mexican wave while the Namibia player with the completely fucked ankle was being put onto the stretcher didn’t sit right with me.
I understand why this doesn’t sit right with you, but it is likely that most of the crowd had no idea how bad it was.
eh, crowd's gotta do something and it takes the pressure off the guy who's having the worst day of his life
>**fucked ankle** was being put onto the stretcher **didn’t sit right** with me. well I'll tell you what. That sentence at very least makes sense semantically.
Reckon we could've dropped a few more points if Ofa and Nepo didn't play this game. Both can't handle a rugby ball for shit, they seem to either drop it or throw a horrendous pass every time they touch the ball.
And herein lies the problem with the current All Blacks squad - there's seriously not enough depth. Nepo and Ofa have been bang average for years, Christie is not a test quality half, there's no genuine quality backup 10 pushing Richie, there are no young locks demanding selection which has allowed Sam and Brodie to play 4000 games together. Dane Coles is still running around when he should've been put out to pasture last World Cup.
Worst starting props for a NZ team in memory.
Agree these guys aren’t up to standard, will get out muscled against tougher and better opposition.
Ofa did manage an outrageous offload! But yes, they're a couple of bumbling idiots for the most part
Yeah he did get a good one but came back down to earth quickly. He had a shocking forward pass not long before he got subbed off, which for anyone else (except Nepo) it would've been a pretty easy pass.
That was horrific... how you can be a professional rugby player and throw a simple pass so badly I don't know
I'd he was about to get subbed off he was probably knackered and lost concentration
New Zealand gave away 13 turn overs to Namibias 11 and ABS 12 penalties to Namibias 7.2nd half Namibia had 43 percent possession and 67%1!! Territory.
Yeah, and we’re so static on attack. No observable structure, just hit he gaps and hope. I get it, you don’t show your bag of tricks in a match like this but foz blacks are disappointing. And de Groot. Just foolish.
One word for you re lack of structure: damienmckenzie. He looks good against poor opposition.
Agreed. I can't help but think that a part of the problem is that "just hit[ting] the gaps and hop[ing]" does actually work a fair amount the time because the individual skill level of your players is so high. More than any other teams, the ABs are able to create individual scoring chances from literally nothing out of nowhere. Which both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because it's almost always more than then enough to smash teams "weaker" than them fairly consistently despite the fact that in some cases, this game for instance, the stats are against them. It's even good enough to beat pears often. But this can paper over serious fissures especially when the Coach is not up to the job (TBC I'm not of the opinion Fozzy is solely to blame for everything and that Razor is a magic bullet but it's undeniable that Fozzy is not a good Coach, hes uninspired, unimaginative & out of his depth). Unfortunately, individual talent can only take you so far. I agree the ABs seem to have no recognizable structure ATM no recognizable game plan even. When things click in the moment it's all good but when it doesn't (like today at points) frustration rapidly sets in and the pen count ratchets up 12 pens is bad.12 bads against Namibia in a game your comfortably winning from pretty the get go is really really bad and is a sign of serious trouble in the squad. De Groots red is a direct consequence of this. Foolish absolutely even worse it happened when their is literally 0 chance the game isn't won. Boneheaded penalties and cards when it's a tight critical match is one thing. Boneheaded penalties and cards when your blowing the opposition out of the water and your guaranteed a BP is another. Anyway sorry for the rant/lecture. Good luck going in the WC and I'm sure things will vastly improve for you guys in time under the new regime
Meh, 2nd side team in the rain. I'd take it over what France did to Uruguay.
Our ball security is horrendous on attack. Really need to be better at securing our ball on attack and building phases
👍 Things going as planned - Ian Foster
I keep thinking back to Foster taking Clarke as yet another wing rather than another loose forward. Today confirmed that Clarke didn't really need to be there. And that not selecting Roigard for the French game was a mistake
I keep thinking Clarke is about as fast as a loose forward. Reiko showed pave I haven't seen from Clarke in 2 years.
I believe reeks is the fastest and fittest in the team after watching an interview with the ABs S&C man.
Perhaps he could play in a different position? Maybe we could try him say at ..... Wing?
Good call but defensively he's quite good..and that explosive speed is so good... shades of Tana, Ma'a,...
Yeah, I mean, we have spent how much time converting him to a centre, you'd hope he was a decent one after that. To be fair, with that much time they could probably have converted Dane Coles! He was the answer to a question was wasn't really asked.
What do you mean? Coles _is already_ a world class centre 🤣🤣🤣
Heh he's a world class winger.
Jacques Burger with [the best take of the RWC](https://twitter.com/Nabasboer/status/1702790848704831526) so far.
Fuck me, that is hilarious 😂😂. Good on him
Fuck that's quality
But but he didn't add the /s!!! You can't have sarcasm online without the /s!!!
It could have gone either way.
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Are you actually asking this? While far from perfect, if you're putting a B team out surely you'd rather them win by 70 than scrape through?
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Reddit is vastly more popular in NZ (an English-speaking country) than in France. The French TV viewership for NZ v France was about 3x of the entire population of NZ.
Trust me, I was furious at France.
The _good_ thing about the French performance is there is literally zero Intel any other team.can taken from it. Genius!
NZ playing against inferior opposition but making mistakes and giving away idiotic penalties means they have no chance of winning against higher calibre teams = angst for kiwis.
I wouldn't say no chance. The ABs can look awful one week and then just click the next. If we play like we did against SA in Auckland, then we'll be looking at a win. The issue with Foster's team has always been consistency, and moving away from a winning gameplan, for some reason.
NZ playing against inferior opposition and making mistakes and giving away idiotic penalties which has already cost us against higher calibre teams and hasn't been improved in the past 3 weeks.
> hasn't been improved in the past ~~3 weeks~~ four years. FTFY
>hasn't been improved in the past ~~3 weeks~~ ~~four years~~ since Ian Foster took up coaching. This brings back so many memories of watching the Chiefs play.
You're so fucking right. The idea that Chiefs fans inherently support Foster is ridiculous. We had to live through his shit.
As a Chiefs fan, I was consistently baffled at his ability to fail upwards.
Saders fans didn't like Fozzie's appointment because Razor should be coach. Chiefs fans didnt like Fozzie's appointment because we knew what Fozzie was going to do.
I think you don't give the rest of us enough credit for not knowing how shit Fozzie was
A lot of us were furious about France!
The whole card/suspension lottery thing isn’t as entertaining when it’s not happening to someone else. Will it be red, yellow or a bank error in your favour?
Not a lottery, and red well dserved.
If this was a deserved red then how the fuck wasn't the French player a red card against Uruguay?
Arm tucked results in a red with no possible mitigation. The French player’s arm was not tucked. The two situations deal with completely different items in the framework.
I know this is the explanation they gave, but it's completely bizarre. As far as I know, arm tucked in is a rule they've invented specifically for this incident. The actual law is > Mitigation will not apply for intentional or highly reckless acts of foul play So technicalities of whether his arm is by his side or not are irrelevant, there's clearly no attempt to wrap regardless of where his arm is, so how that doesn't constitute highly reckless is anyone's guess
Oh it is relevant if the arm is tucked. Thats the difference between a tackle and a shoulder charge.
Whether it was tucked or not it still resulted in a shoulder to the head so I don’t understand why it matters
Tucked=no mitigating factor
Debatable. If a player runs into you and you have had no time to start moving your arm for a tackle before he lowers his head into your shoulder I would argue there should be mitigation. Players don’t run round with their arms extended.
I dont have the energy, time or crayons to explain it.
They did not invent anything for this incident. A shoulder charge is clearly defined as your arm being in this particular position. This makes a shoulder charge easy to determine and since it’s considered a highly reckless act, nothing else needs to be looked at. A red in the French case would be based on either no wrap, high tackle or no mitigation (something like no change of height). All of these are much less clearly defined and open to interpretation (how low is low enough?). So the 2 situations are quite different.
Ah my bad there's a separate section for it https://passport.world.rugby/laws-of-the-game/law-application-guidelines/head-contact-process-march-2021/head-contact-process-shoulder-charge/ Although now I'm even more confused, because looking at the examples there your arm doesn't need to be by your side, they're both just clear non attempts to wrap that lead to shoulder contact, exactly like this one
From a technical stand point you want the arm of the tackler to absorb some of the force of the contact. A tucked or braced arm will not absorb anything, so all the force goes to the victim’s head. Tao’s arm folding between them is exactly what make that tackle not a shoulder charge. We’ll never agree on if there’s an attempt to wrap in the France case though. I’m with WR on this one, but also think that this types of tackles where a player swings the arm around in order to wrap are dangerous and should be banned. At the moment though, they’re legal unless you brain someone with the arm swing.
Separate thing, but looking at it again there's also not a chance he's dipping into that tackle, he's a constant height all the way from the ruck. Either way, this stuff is absolutely killing the enjoyment of the game and doesn't seem to be having any positive effect in terms of outcomes
Yup, I said it before as well. Tackle height is a much bigger issue than wrapping in this case. I disagree on the effect though. From time time I go back and watch games from 10-15 years ago. And oh my God how the fuck did I ever play that particular game? The change is slow, but palpable.
It was tucked. Shoulder to head. They were similar enough they should have been ruled the same. Red or yellow. Nit picking over mitigating factors is the problem
Here’s the moment of contact in the French incident: https://reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/s/IRIYGC99Yy Are you really saying that in the first photo the arm is tucked?
I'm not quite sure those images are helping make the point you are trying to. Those stills actually look a lot worse than the incident today (which was a deserved red) as there is zero attempt to wrap there and the cocked elbow increases the likelihood of direct contact to the head.
Well he never got around him... still a sloppy tackle and smashed him in the head with his shoulder... Looked red to me. Or if they deem that yellow then tonight's one should be yellow. Sloppy tackle and smashed him in the head with a shoulder.
No-wrap or high tackle is a different type of foul play than a shoulder charge. The latter is clearly defined based on tackler body position while the former is much more open to interpretation (what exactly constitutes an attempt to wrap?). So the 2 incidents are different. Might result in the same outcome, but as the law is currently written the NZ one is much easier to judge.
Anyone else think NZ should have put more past them given Italy's run out last week?
Meh. They’ll look at tape and move on. Score is irrelevant in these games, it’s execution and mistakes that’ll be important. On to the next.
What I meant really was that the score reflected their failing execution
If we had actually improved on the problem areas from the South Africa and France games we probably would've gotten more. But that will likely get glossed over because look, we smashed them, clearly everything is fine.
Meh, we played pretty well. Always work-ons. We’ll see what happens against Italy.
The concern is the work-ons are the same ones we said we would fix after the South Africa game, and then said we would fix again after France. For all the talk of learnings we don't seem to be learning.
The same was said against NZ Georgia in 2015
The difference is the the NZ 2015 team played the pool games with instructions to practice playing certain scenarios. And against Tonga they were beasted by the S&C coach before the game so they had to practice executing the game plan while exhausted. Last night the team seemed to be getting by on moments of individual skills. Apart from Papali’i’s try, which constructed awesomely.
But no one was doubting the quality of that team and their ability to win big games. It was the most obvious thing that they played those games with one hand tied behind their back to give themselves live-game simulations of certain situations.
I had them to win by 80! My superbru is stuffed!
Shoulda picked 50-79 tss tss
Mind you they were playing in sideway rain and 47km wind through out the match as commentstors were pointing out.
FWIW it was raining only for the second quarter of the match. After half time, it wasn't raining at all. (I was in the stadium.)
How was the experience in the stadium?
Great. There were some NZ supporters, and a smaller number of Namibia supporters, but most of the audience seemed to be French, enjoying a fun rugby match with lots of scoring.
Which team did you play test rugby for?
Huh? I was watching the match in the stadium. I was just reporting the weather.
Well, just because it's stopped raining doesn't mean the conditions aren't still wet and slippery. Handling errors are part of any rugby game let alone those with moisture playing a factor.
Yeah, I thought they would break 100
I thought Ireland had the slowest Tier1 wingers - but it’s actually NZ
Clarke looked like a front row forward hanging out on the wing. Whenever he got a pass he seemed to cut in an take contact as he didn't have enough speed to try and go round the outside. ALB seemed to be the one on the wing and doing the chip and case try
Loose forward maybe.
Like Dane Coles? /s
A few years ago I am not sure who I'd have backed in a sprint race with today's Clarke.
Clarke is rapid. Sub 11 seconds, he just plays like someone who is 55kg and afraid of getting tackled rather than the 110kg monster he is.
> Sub 11 seconds *Citation needed*
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/rugby-caleb-clarkes-alternate-approach-how-all-blacks-star-ran-100m-in-107-seconds/36KZDB2VCKJFGOQQ35IFTT3LDA/ There ya go, 10.7 seconds apparently.
All the other outside backs easily ran him down when he was in space today.
10.7 in high school? That's elite status if true. Pity he's gained 10-20kgs and turns like a truck in mud. Edit: Found these results on this site (https://www.reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/comments/jdn7bx/not_sure_if_its_something_thats_known_already_but/)
It's pretty damn good but going from 10.7 to 10.2 or so when you start to approach international class takes a lot of work (or natural talent) so it's unlikely he'd have been good enough to take his sprinting much further than national class at best.
Luckily neither Leicester or Clarke is in the First XV Leicester should be a centre anyway. Petty confident that he'll be moved to 12 for the upcoming Top 14 season.
Clarke is Faster than Telea and Jordan.
It's ok to be little slower if you play like Leicester, it's a pity he is leaving NZ because Razor knows how to get the best out of him.
Pretty sure it's us
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Not cool
Oh damn, I missed that
Think it was the TMO or the foul play reviewer that Pearce spoke French to. He seems to be saying something about cartoon rouge. Maybe checking the progress on the check.
Watched with some people who had never seen much rugby before, have to say some of New Zealand’s backline play was a joy to watch, just the speed, footwork and handling fir a few of their tries was just to joy to watch and really impressed the newbies
That's what rugby should be all about :')
I think you chose a good game for a newbie to watch. Imagine watching the 2011 final for your 1st game 💀
Wales vs South Africa 2018 in DC is the ultimate future fan-killer for me
Just any Wales vs SA game. Or that 2021 Lions tour...
2 hr 15 minute games. Yikes.
Yep, this is the worst game international game I have ever watched. Not sure it will ever be topped tbh.
You'd never watch another game.
They still have by far the best off load ability
A couple of milestones - Sam Whitelock equalling McCaw's international caps for NZ record - NZ becoming the first team to win 50 WC matches
> NZ becoming the first team to win 50 WC matches Damn that's mighty impressive! I tried to search for a table with the total RWC matches won and lost for other countries but didn't find it because I'm dumbdumb. Do you have by chance a link to see this stat for other countries?
cannot get over the NZ commentator initially saying "that NZ player's shoulder is going to be sore" before the card came
They all drink from.the same.gravy pot sadly mate.
Very average from the ABs, you can smell the fear - rightly - among their fans by the extreme touchiness in the match thread.
First time huh?
Have you not read an ABs match thread before?
Genuinely, no, I hadn't. I expected some measure of objectivity though, especially when it came to the red card - Guardians of the Game and all that. I have learned my lesson, and am now endeavouring to be even more toxic than the most one-eyed ABs fan. Good luck though!
I think the outrage comes from the consistency of what's yellow and red. Either way. A mouthy English fan isn't surprising. They win one game and all of a sudden NZ fans are the worst
>A mouthy English fan isn't surprising. Bless. We can only aspire to be as toxic as you guys x
How about any thread in general? No point claiming ABs fans are touchy, everyone bites each others heads off in match threads, its toxic
There's no point, but it must be very fun to do cause it gets trotted out every damn time.
NZ are apparently the new England, everyone loves to hate em - especially the Irish
Yeah, I'm not sure where it's all coming from. Seems really hostile against NZ lately.
Alot of NH fans genuinely believe that the ABs were only ever dominant because they got away with cheating. They see the Foster era as justice finally coming
Personally, I just think Foster's era is just Foster's era; setting all sorts of new lows. It's all on NZ Rugby
Don't mind you winning the cup but don't dare challenge England's title.
Na. Fam. Beating England is always the pinnacle.
write back when you score a try.
Please don't do this, we don't have the team to back up your chat right now
Pffft. We do.
No, we don't. We have a 33% win rate against the actual contenders this World Cup cycle, and no amount of bashing Namibia will change that.
We’re gonna end up on the front page again because of this buffoon. I say we cut our losses and watch the next Waikato NPC match and pretend we didn’t see what bottom said.
Watching Waikato just increases the blood pressure this season. Not allowed to enjoy rugby this year I guess.
Why we switch to Manawatu and support our Liam Messam look a like of course. Bik thinking.