Team for All Blacks

[Sandydragon]

That's so poor from mcnicholl
How can a professional not have the ball in 2 hands

Desperation rugby.

[Sandydragon]

That was a second half horror show.

Not sure what the positives were. Basham I suppose and the return of Priestland.

[Lizard]

Still a competitive game at 55 mins. Just.

But I feel the ABs are about to take the piss

Accurate

Your bench is a lot stronger.

Yes. A shame this was played outside the test window.

[Sandydragon]

Accurate

Your bench is a lot stronger.

Yes. A shame this was played outside the test window.

Yeah. Hope the money was worth it WRU?!

[normanski]

Holmes has to be in for McNicholl if Liam isn’t yet ready. Can’t see the Boks letting us off so easily. We’re in for a rough Autumn.

[Sandydragon]

McMicholls looks exciting when he spots space but for everything he does ok he also makes a mistake. Not an international class full back.

Most of our players looked second best today. Notable exception was Basham.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Prediction:
Wales 17 - 35 New Zealand

Optimist !

.

Too right, well optimistic. I reckoned without a collapse in the last quarter.

That wasn't much fun after the first 20 minutes. By the end it was embarrassing. Yeah, I really enjoyed Will Jordan running through our 'defence' every time he had the ball.

What the fuck was going on with those overthrown lineouts, was it like four in a row??? Total shit.

However several of our guys played well, particularly the back row. Apart from his last action I thought McNicholl had a good game, but I guess he couldn't resist the symmetry of the game starting and finishing with one of our Kiwis handing Beauden Barrett an interception try. If he'd been an All Black it would have been a brilliant offload, but for Wales just another stupid pass to the opposition.

[Graigwen]

This is what you have to expect if you put a weakened team out against the All Blacks. They were faster, more precise and had better tactical vision. I don't think any of that was a surprise.

Most of our failings were predictable. Line out throwing was just plain mad. Even when we have better sides, the long line out throw is usually badly executed and possession lost. We have been doing this for years. If we can't execute it well, there is no need to do it.

I still dream that one day Carre will be a good international prop, but progress seems to be very slow...or non-existent. Dillon Lewis is good, except at the highest level. I see no evidence that his failings in the tight are significanly outweighed by anything else.

Our deliberate policy of kicking long out of hand and keeping the ball on the pitch has, sort of, worked OK in the past. We could exploit superior fitness - but we don't have that now. What we call box kicks are usually far too long and we don't contest the catch.

We seem to be starting to let tackled opponents retain the ball and get up to run again.

"No look" passes should not be attempted unless we know what we are doing. The balance of risk compared to possible benefit is too high.

It still looks like we need a lot of practice at basic skills.

Things I don't complain about:
Anscombe was not ready for a game like this, but there was no better alternative.
Ben Thomas got a bit of an education, it will do him good.

It could have been a lot worse.

.

[francoisfou]

I wonder who was responsible for organizing this game when a lot of first choice players were unavailable? A strange decision.

[whatisthejava]

I wonder who was responsible for organizing this game when a lot of first choice players were unavailable? A strange decision.

The guy who made 4 million (I saw this number somewhere) for the WRU

It was a drubbing but the WRU won’t complain as they made a load of cash

[francoisfou]

I wonder who was responsible for organizing this game when a lot of first choice players were unavailable? A strange decision.

The guy who made 4 million (I saw this number somewhere) for the WRU

It was a drubbing but the WRU won’t complain as they made a load of cash

4 million! Money talks. I just hope that this was a one-off, never to be repeated, as it shows a lack of respect for arguably the best side in world rugby.

The Boks next Saturday with hopefully a full-strength Welsh team. C'mon, Wales!

[Son of Mathonwy]

We always play one match outside the window, so that's nothing new but IIRC it's usually the last match, so at least our team is up to speed at that point and usually our opposition are tiring at the end of their season. So it's not normally such a mismatch.

[Cameo]

Pity about the weakened team as 6N winner against Rugby Championship winner should be the biggest match of the month.

The ABs are class though. Once you are on the back foot they can tear you to shreds better than any other. Early on their forwards did well in tight too, although Wales clung on.

[Sandydragon]

Pity about the weakened team as 6N winner against Rugby Championship winner should be the biggest match of the month.

The ABs are class though. Once you are on the back foot they can tear you to shreds better than any other. Early on their forwards did well in tight too, although Wales clung on.

Totally agree. What should have been a competitive game completely devalued by the scheduling.

[normanski]

I wonder who was responsible for organizing this game when a lot of first choice players were unavailable? A strange decision.

The guy who made 4 million (I saw this number somewhere) for the WRU

It was a drubbing but the WRU won’t complain as they made a load of cash

4 million! Money talks. I just hope that this was a one-off, never to be repeated, as it shows a lack of respect for arguably the best side in world rugby.

The Boks next Saturday with hopefully a full-strength Welsh team. C'mon, Wales!

We always have a slow start to tournaments but even your gee up isn’t going to save us from another drubbing next week.

We really needed someone like Sean Edwards back to organise our poor defence. Gethin seems to have slipped back in my view.

[Numbers]

I wonder who was responsible for organizing this game when a lot of first choice players were unavailable? A strange decision.

What annoys me is that surely we could schedule the Pacific Island team for the fixture outside the test window as we would be playing a few development players in that game anyway, like Scotland sensibly did.

[Numbers]

Learnings from Saturday

Positives:

Basham is International quality and will be knocking on the door of a starting spot come the 6 Nations.

Wainwright has made a good conversion to 8, he looks dyanmic from the base of the scrum.

Priestland looks in confident form.

Anscombe came through it unscathed and will keep improving the more games he has.

Tomos Williams looked lively.

McNichol very good under the high ball was our most dangerous back and other than the desperate offload at the end had a solid game.


Negatives:

Elias's throwing (again).

The Scrum, tho the NZ tighthead did seem to be driving in on the angle, the French ref makes up his mind who to penalise for the whole match at the first scrum, we've fallen foul of this on many an occassion (our scrum was a match for the SA scrum at the last WC with the same personnell so I don't see how it can have eroded quite so much.

Seb Davies isn't a 6 by any strectch of the imagination, I suspect a real 6 wold have got much closer to tackling Jordan than Davies did, he looks lumbering for a backrower, if we want a big 6 then Will Griffiths should be in the squad.

Moriarty looks like he has a serious injury and he was looking well up for the battle.


My general thoughts on this game were if we could have cut down on silly errors and gained parity in the set piece we could have been more competitive, the fact we were in the just about in the game after 60 minutes, despite suffering in the set piece, was actually commendable.

[Sandydragon]

I’d agree with much of that Numbers (now my blood pressure has subsided a bit).

Basham has huge potential. Hopefully he gets a few more opportunities although going for 80 mins needs to be a development goal for him.

Wainwright did pretty well and I feel number 8 is better for him than blind side.

Moriarty has being a pain until his injury. Real shame it looks likely to be a lengthy one.

Tomos Williams was alright and needs a run of games without being messed about. Gareth Davies did little to impress when he came on so let’s give Tomos a run into the 6 nations to gain confidence.

Priestland was good when he came on. Surely he must be pushing to start next week. Anscombe looked rusty which I’ll forgive as he has hardly played. Considering his limited game time he actually performed above expectations for me.

The second row were OK without being brilliant. Beard is very good defensively and Rowlands takes a bit of tackling. They were up against two very good locks. I’d like them to start next week.

Wyn Jone and Francis maintained their standards and I felt got some harsh calls from the ref.

Adams was busy and didn’t do anything wrong that I could see and McNicholl was OK. I’m still not totally sold on him at international level so if Liam returns I’ll be fine with that.

Not so great.

Seb Davies is not a blindside. I hoped he would at least improve our line out but we risk ruining a promising player with this experiment.

Lineout throwing was horrible. It’s not just the hookers but accuracy was a genuine problem for them both.

Defence was questionable. We failed to deal with their big carriers who seemed able to make ground easily and frequently.

Attack felt a bit predictable too. That suffered as a result of mistakes but it felt like we were trying to go wide too early at times and just throw the ball about for the sake of it. We gave away a few too many turnovers as a result.

Silly mistakes; there were loads. Our handling skills weren’t up to the job. And giving away that penalty from the restart was just idiotic. Our composure seemed lacking at times and non existent in. The last 20.

We were in the game at the 60 minute point and then we fell apart. Fitness was definitely an issue and the Blacks bench made an impact. Ours not so much (Priestland aside).

[Numbers]

I’d agree with much of that Numbers (now my blood pressure has subsided a bit).

Basham has huge potential. Hopefully he gets a few more opportunities although going for 80 mins needs to be a development goal for him.

Wainwright did pretty well and I feel number 8 is better for him than blind side.

Moriarty has being a pain until his injury. Real shame it looks likely to be a lengthy one.

Tomos Williams was alright and needs a run of games without being messed about. Gareth Davies did little to impress when he came on so let’s give Tomos a run into the 6 nations to gain confidence.

Priestland was good when he came on. Surely he must be pushing to start next week. Anscombe looked rusty which I’ll forgive as he has hardly played. Considering his limited game time he actually performed above expectations for me.

The second row were OK without being brilliant. Beard is very good defensively and Rowlands takes a bit of tackling. They were up against two very good locks. I’d like them to start next week.

Wyn Jone and Francis maintained their standards and I felt got some harsh calls from the ref.

Adams was busy and didn’t do anything wrong that I could see and McNicholl was OK. I’m still not totally sold on him at international level so if Liam returns I’ll be fine with that.

Not so great.

Seb Davies is not a blindside. I hoped he would at least improve our line out but we risk ruining a promising player with this experiment.

Lineout throwing was horrible. It’s not just the hookers but accuracy was a genuine problem for them both.

Defence was questionable. We failed to deal with their big carriers who seemed able to make ground easily and frequently.

Attack felt a bit predictable too. That suffered as a result of mistakes but it felt like we were trying to go wide too early at times and just throw the ball about for the sake of it. We gave away a few too many turnovers as a result.

Silly mistakes; there were loads. Our handling skills weren’t up to the job. And giving away that penalty from the restart was just idiotic. Our composure seemed lacking at times and non existent in. The last 20.

We were in the game at the 60 minute point and then we fell apart. Fitness was definitely an issue and the Blacks bench made an impact. Ours not so much (Priestland aside).

That was very frustrating, what I don't understand about the decision is Preistland actually kicked the ball directly into touch and no quick throw was taken so surely the offiside player(s) aren't having an effect on play?

[Sandydragon]

It’s a technical penalty and I would agree that it’s a harsh one in the circumstances. Fair enough if the kick remains infield but totally academic as the ball was very safely in touch and a quick lineout wasn’t an option.

[Sandydragon]

But ref also warned Carre to get back inside so regardless you can’t argue if a clear warning has been given.

[Numbers]

But ref also warned Carre to get back inside so regardless you can’t argue if a clear warning has been given.

Fair enough I missed that

[Son of Mathonwy]

Ireland beat NZ again.

What are we missing?? The Irish seem to have this physicality, this go-forward we just can't produce. What is it? It's not like they're actually bigger than us. Do they just not feel pain?

[Zhivago]

Ireland beat NZ again.

What are we missing?? The Irish seem to have this physicality, this go-forward we just can't produce. What is it? It's not like they're actually bigger than us. Do they just not feel pain?

We should play NZ last, after they lose their star player.

[Sandydragon]

Ireland beat NZ again.

What are we missing?? The Irish seem to have this physicality, this go-forward we just can't produce. What is it? It's not like they're actually bigger than us. Do they just not feel pain?

Aside from about 20 first choice players?

Ireland have got the monkey off their back. They had numerous close chances before and somehow ended up losing until they finally win that game in Chicago. Now the All Blacks are just another team, albeit a very good one.

For us to win we need a full strength 23 and for us to play composed and accurate rugby for the whole game. We can do it but it feels like every time we don’t, it becomes a harder task to achieve at all.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk