@antipodean said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

@Tordah for me it will come down to the fitness of Skelton and Valentini, with the admission of Schmidt he needs Salakaia-Loto on the bench.

That alone will determine if the Wallabies can compete for 80mins.

The biggest concern is if Farrell Snr is smart enough to let the better players in the squad have an opportunity. As I see it a fit Wallaby squad can take this Irish Invitational - if Farrell mistakenly selects on form, then they're destined to win 3-0.

Who would you bring in on form?

Morgan, Pollock are probably the two obvious ones. Go back to Tuipulotu in the midfield maybe? Freeman wasn't great on Saturday but has been in good form, Lowe is a little bit of the reverse.

Don't think any of the above changes would make a big difference though.

@Mr-Fish I'd remove Lowe who is shithouse. JGP isn't playing as well as Mitchell has on the tour. Aki is a shadow of his former self and clearly second rate compared to Sione Tuipulotu. I think Porter and Conan are bang average.

@antipodean said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

@Mr-Fish I'd remove Lowe who is shithouse. JGP isn't playing as well as Mitchell has on the tour. Aki is a shadow of his former self and clearly second rate compared to Sione Tuipulotu. I think Porter and Conan are bang average.

Agree re Lowe and I'd like to see Kinghorn there. JGP was pretty damn good for 40 minutes in the first test and IMO has done enough to keep his starting spot. Aki - agree. The benching of Genge baffled me in the last test. Yes he is a good impact player but he is currently superior to Porter in most facets and you'd think you would want your best player having the most minutes in the game. Conan does the grunt work well without getting much of a highlights reel and he is the only genuine 8 in the squad, so I guess he stays and I'd be happy with that.

Aidan Ross has been brought into the Wallaby squad.

Would have thought Porter had been penalised out of the game by now. Genge is also dodgy af at scrum time

After two pathetically amateur and frankly boring test 23 naming pressers it would be great if Farrell did this for the 3rd Test

@brodean said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

Would have thought Porter had been penalised out of the game by now. Genge is also dodgy af at scrum time

Porter is always on the angle and i don't know how he gets away with it, feels weird him playing for my team and me having to pretend not to see it, or at least, not scream at the screen that the cheating fuck is boring in.

As for Genge, I think he's a better scrummager, and whilst I would probably have given a couple of pens against him for hinging, you could argue that the Aussie wasn't chasing his feet and was dropping it (I would only argue that because I'm a Lions fan though I suspect)

Weather looks like shit across Sydney for Saturday BTW. No club rugby for me so might head west of the mountains and go camping

@NTA said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

Weather looks like shit across Sydney for Saturday.

Scottish, Irish, Welsh and the boys from the North of England will feel right at home then.

@pakman

Difficult to see really whether that collapse was caused by hinging or the Aussie prop losing his footing.

An interesting aside, something someone posted prior to the last test was that this Italian ref likes to re-set and gives very few scrum penalties. If that is well known then of course ALL props are going to push things.

If it works out, well... why not?

Apparently these guys have the sauce

Can’t see it myself

I’m thinking

Genge, Sheehan, Furlong
Itoje, McCarthy (if fit) / Chessum
Beirne, Curry, Conan

JGP, Russell
Tuipolotu, Ringrose
Lowe, Keenan, Freeman

Replacements

LCD, Porter, Stuart
Chessum/Ryan, Morgan

Mitchell, Farrell, Kinghorn

His focus now that he’s won the series is to include as many Irish in the match day 23 and if they get the whitewash Ireland have momentum going into the Autumn tests

Tough schedule

01 Nov v NZ in Chicago
08 Nov v Japan in Dublin
15 Nov v Australia in Dublin
22 Nov v S Africa in Dublin

If Pollock isn’t in the 23 then he shouldn’t have been on the tour.

Lads made every appearance a winner

Surely Farrell has to find a way to get van der Flier and a few other Irish into the 23.

I'd be surprised if Morgan isn't starting and Pollock isn't in the 23.

Who does Mitchell have to root to get into the team? What a waste

Alaalatoa ruled out with a shoulder injury

@sparky said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

@NTA said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

Weather looks like shit across Sydney for Saturday.

Scottish, Irish, Welsh and the boys from the North of England will feel right at home then.

Like... really shit....

I'd say it's more to do with the second row bind and Wilson's failure to pull them in tight.

Look at the huge gap behind the hooker - Alaatoa's early hit is a consequence, not a cause IMHO

@NTA said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

Alaatoa's early hit is a consequence, not a cause IMHO

I'd agree with that. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the timing and togetherness of the Wallaby pack as a whole was off, rather than just pointing the finger at Porter for angling in.

I don't understand enough of the mechanics of the scrum to really pinpoint a single point of origin, so I'll leave that to the expertise of others.

@NTA said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

I'd say it's more to do with the second row bind and Wilson's failure to pull them in tight.

Look at the huge gap behind the hooker - Alaatoa's early hit is a consequence, not a cause IMHO

From the overhead it doesn't even look like Wilson has a shoulder driving through the arse of the locks.

Doesn't help that Porter still clearly drives through on the angle.

Two observations from me.

1. As I’ve noticed in a few other overhead shots form game, Porter hardly has Chessum’s left shoulder on his huge arse, but Beirne’s right one is rammed in hard. There is no attempt to scrum straight so penalty for me. Vincent Koch is quite similar at TH;
2. Other thing which strikes me is that Sheehan has Porter shoulders behind his armpits, so his shoulders may be 6 inches ahead. When AAA engages there is nothing for his right shoulder to contact so he inevitably shoots forward on the hit, which seems to disrupt his connection with Porecki and also Skelton’s by the look of it.
   No idea of the legality of Lions approach in this aspect.

Interesting that overhead shot, whole Wallaby pack seem to be going to right trying to wheel scrum? Wilson is pushing Skelton's arse out, causing whole scrum to twist(I suspect to take Lions hooker away from ball?). And other Wallaby lock is turning hooker almost sideways, not sure why. Porter also ends up going in as well, whether to follow Aus tighthead or not is beyond me. Very interesting to see, and gives idea how scrum try and manipulate each other.

@pakman

They're fucked then, aren't they?

@gt12 I can hear We Shagged Mathilda being rehearsed.

Nic White has announced he's retiring from international Rugby after Saturday. He's been around since 2013 and I guess scoring in Wallabies wins agains the All Blacks in 2015 in Sydney and in 2019 in Perth will be the standouts.

Some interesting selections and omissions

No Lowe or Tuipolotu
Hansen hasn’t made an appearance after a solid start
McCarthy must still be injured

Ryan straight in over Chessum

They’ll be looking for Earl, Genge & Mitchell to bring dynamism in the final quarter

Tupou and Porter will be binding at right angles.

Is Tupou the Valetini replacement? Trying to bolster their ball carrying?

Hope his form turns around.

can't say i think that is the best available XV, on reflection throughout the tests, i'm a bit disappointed by the shoe horning in of Irish players. Genge is better than Porter, not sure what Ryan's done to deserve a spot, think Conan is lucky.

Think the bench is mental, Farrell covers 10 and 12, Earl covers back row and 12 but there's a dramatic lack of cover for the other backline positions. Think Marcus should be on the bench instead of Farrell.

@Dodge said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

can't say i think that is the best available XV, on reflection throughout the tests, i'm a bit disappointed by the shoe horning in of Irish players. Genge is better than Porter, not sure what Ryan's done to deserve a spot, think Conan is lucky.

Think the bench is mental, Farrell covers 10 and 12, Earl covers back row and 12 but there's a dramatic lack of cover for the other backline positions. Think Marcus should be on the bench instead of Farrell.

Jones can cover wing, Kinghorn can cover fullback. Don't think Smith's utility value should be enough to see him getting selected over Farrell (though you could argue he's simply a better player).

@Mr-Fish said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

@Dodge said in Wallabies vs Lions III:

can't say i think that is the best available XV, on reflection throughout the tests, i'm a bit disappointed by the shoe horning in of Irish players. Genge is better than Porter, not sure what Ryan's done to deserve a spot, think Conan is lucky.

Think the bench is mental, Farrell covers 10 and 12, Earl covers back row and 12 but there's a dramatic lack of cover for the other backline positions. Think Marcus should be on the bench instead of Farrell.

Jones can cover wing, Kinghorn can cover fullback. Don't think Smith's utility value should be enough to see him getting selected over Farrell (though you could argue he's simply a better player).

I would argue that he's a better player, i would also argue he provides more utility value.

I said above that if Pollock wasn't given a run then he shouldn't have been selected.

I might have to soften that stance a bit, as he's unfortunately been behind Curry (who has smashed the tests to pieces) and Morgan, who hasn't done anything worthy of being dropped. Tough call on Pollock, but I can make peace with it.

Otherwise, agree with everything that Dodge says (first time for everything).

I watched the first test and some of the second in a pub in Portugal that was full of Irish rugby supporters. Honestly speaking, there isn't a lot to like about them. Couple of the brits I was with were rather pissed off as well. Basically it went something like this

Ireland player does something good: "Awesome, he's been doing that for years, pure class"
Non Irish player does something good: ""
Irish player does something shit: "Your better than that, come on pick yourself up and go again"
Non Irish player doe something shit: "Fookin useless coont, fucking Farrell only select on the fooking paymasters, fooking hell, no way should have been ahead of <insert Irish players name here>"

Not generally a an of the Irish rugby supporters, but to add balance, I rarely hear anything bad from those who go to Dublin to watch consistently.