Sandydragon wrote:
Oh hell yes, and of course 2007.
There was a sense that today’s game was a bit pre Gatland. Brave but outclassed Wales. But there were a lot of new faces today and a few players running on empty tanks.
As an aside, I hope we have a review of our conditioning plans, we have seemed to be heavy legged for a while now.
The scoreline was a very traditional pre-Gatland thrashing. It was not a good way to go out for the old coaching team.
Quite disappointing. I was wrong when I thought these thrashings were behind us.
If that had been our fully-fit 1st XXIII I'd agree. But it was nowhere near that, so... meh. England just got 20-pointed with only one man missing, and they won't be worrying about the scoreline. I think losing by a big score only matters when you were hoping to lose by a small one, not when you were serious about winning.
Sure, these are knockout matches, so the result is the main concern. The scoreline is a second-order issue: it only matters if you want to analyse the match.
For me, I had hoped that even this injury-forced selection could have pressured NZ more and contained them better. Hence, disappointment. But, the result, not exactly a shocker.
Graigwen wrote:I missed this game as I was down a hole in the ground near near Pontypool. Thanks to all who posted informative comments especially Sandy Dragon.
Sandydragon wrote:
Totally. The Bokke had worked out England and took away their power game.
I wonder what France might have done against SA
I wonder what France might have done against England. Or how we might have gotten on.
We will never know.
Playing the game of if and using it to set context remains highly scientific as an approach, and I did like picking the respective matches against SA rather than NZ to give an accurate base line.
I wonder what France might have done against England. Or how we might have gotten on.
We will never know.
Playing the game of if and using it to set context remains highly scientific as an approach, and I did like picking the respective matches against SA rather than NZ to give an accurate base line.
So if the Bokke are the baseline then we lost by 3 and you lost by 20. Frankly comparisons are horseshit as the spirts field isn’t a Petri dish but there you go.
Sandydragon wrote:
I wonder what France might have done against England. Or how we might have gotten on.
We will never know.
Playing the game of if and using it to set context remains highly scientific as an approach, and I did like picking the respective matches against SA rather than NZ to give an accurate base line.
So if the Bokke are the baseline then we lost by 3 and you lost by 20. Frankly comparisons are horseshit as the spirts field isn’t a Petri dish but there you go.
