Been thinking about Christie and the comments on here.

4th choice in most people's estimation.

As others have mentioned - and which I agree with - he's massively over performing until he doesn't. And his drop off is due to him 'playing up'. He's exhasuted mentally and that's when the mistakes happen. He needs to be subbed earlier.

It's quite obvious that Razor wants Roigard at 9 and BB at 10.

But without Roigard at 9 and his ability to inject pace off the back of the scrum/ruck and keep defences guessing then it becomes very easy for the defence to 'guess' what BB version 2025 is going to do once he gets the ball.

He's going to shovel on or kick most of the time because he's the 2025 version and the speed of delivery from Christie is slower than Roigard.

This gives the AB midfield limited time and space to do anything significant hence the propensity for crossfield dinks or miss two passes from BB.

In Roigard's absence perhaps Christie and Dmac - who will take the ball to the line and commit defenders - are a better combo.

Reflecting on last 12, possibly our weakest period.

Parker off, Wally off. Holland on, Kirifi on, RD to 8.

Did that add much? Or detract?

Of course, RD did get that marquee steal from 8, and maybe Wally wouldn't have. We'll never know.

With hindsight, I think we'd have been better to bring Holland on for Scooter.

As far as Kirifi for Wally, for me the jury's out.

@pakman Yeah JB is fine, I was more referring to Christie trying to box kick us out of the 22, he rarely made much distance past our 22. If you look at the kick offs, SA always got the ball back near our 22. If that was Ireland, SA we would get the ball back closer to the 50m line.

The AB's have to figure out how to exit to at least the 40-50m line. Giving the opposition the ball 20-30m out is simply a fail to exit. Ireland use their wingers all the time, SA 9 can box kick to half way almost. We have JB so its strange they keep going for 9. It just confuses me as they must have the stats and skills to exit, yet we simply can't which just puts pressure on us.

I think this is saying SA only had 30% of possession in their half and 70% in our half. Where as we spent 49% in our half and 51% in theirs. That makes it pretty obvious we struggle to exit our half.

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

If WR wants to make the game more appealing then they have to stop protecting the scrum half

Soon as they get hands on they should be fair game

And allowed to be absolutely mullered

agreed, in general there should be less rules stopping players having to "get better"....your halfback needs protections...then protect him

anyway...havent read the whole thread, watched at the pub, great mix of Aussies, Saffas and kiwis, good chat and hand shakes all around

all in all a good game and nice to be reminded the south africans you met in real life arn't the trolls you find on line, they critique their team as much as we do, they dont understand a lot of Rassies decisions either, and were happy to congratulate us

what do i expect razor to do?...the players with big quesiton marks like BB, scooter and Christie....their safe...they guys that stood out like parker and vaai....will get dropped or at best moved to other positions

I noticed on at least one occasion when the Boks kicked off they kicked high to Jordie, meaning he was caught with the ball and in the ensuing ruck. Not sure if this was by design or accident, but with the rest of the team being unable to kick further than a primary school kid, I would be positioning Jordie so the other team can't find him when restarting.

@Goffman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

I noticed on at least one occasion when the Boks kicked off they kicked high to Jordie, meaning he was caught with the ball and in the ensuing ruck. Not sure if this was by design or accident, but with the rest of the team being unable to kick further than a primary school kid, I would be positioning Jordie so the other team can't find him when restarting.

That would be very smart if they did that and strange the AB's don't have JB in a different position setup to clear.

One tactic i highly enjoyed was our aggressive counter rucking. We blew over a fair number of rucks, as well as giving Williamse massive issues trying to get quick/tidy ball. The impressive thing was that the saffas had often actually committed a couple of forwards, but we still were able to get in there and disrupt. This was particularly targeted at the first or second ruck after a boxie. A tactic that came off well

@DurryMexted said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

One tactic i highly enjoyed was our aggressive counter rucking. We blew over a fair number of rucks, as well as giving Williamse massive issues trying to get quick/tidy ball.

Especially important given the conditions - at the presser they were talking about how greasy the ball was. Put a bit of doubt in the mind of the scrumhalf as to how quickly he's going to get the ball away.

On attack was very noticeable the ABs trying to hit the edges over the rush defence.

Scrum battle was weird - at times both sides looked very shaky. Bok reserve bench particularly noticeable under pressure.

Regarding that shitty scrum, was Vaai still on at the time? I recall he went down injured shortly before and because that scrum was such an aberration I am wondering if somebody was not at full strength for it. I noticed shortly after that Vaai had been replaced.

@chimoaus said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@pakman Yeah JB is fine, I was more referring to Christie trying to box kick us out of the 22, he rarely made much distance past our 22. If you look at the kick offs, SA always got the ball back near our 22. If that was Ireland, SA we would get the ball back closer to the 50m line.

The AB's have to figure out how to exit to at least the 40-50m line. Giving the opposition the ball 20-30m out is simply a fail to exit. Ireland use their wingers all the time, SA 9 can box kick to half way almost. We have JB so its strange they keep going for 9. It just confuses me as they must have the stats and skills to exit, yet we simply can't which just puts pressure on us.

I think this is saying SA only had 30% of possession in their half and 70% in our half. Where as we spent 49% in our half and 51% in theirs. That makes it pretty obvious we struggle to exit our half.

View image

A million times yes! An exit is a fail if you're not comfortably outside your 22 at the bare minimum. This is so crucial in dictating the next stanza of play. Especially in such a tight game.

Multiple times we had the initial ruck somewhere around the middle of our 22 and the goal-line. Christie's box kick would then get literally 8 - 12 metres and just heap the pressure right back on us. No wonder we couldn't get out of our half. It's just not good enough to get that distance. His exits were tolerable in the first half, so fatigue probably an issue but it just handed SA the momentum.

@DurryMexted said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

One tactic i highly enjoyed was our aggressive counter rucking. We blew over a fair number of rucks, as well as giving Williamse massive issues trying to get quick/tidy ball. The impressive thing was that the saffas had often actually committed a couple of forwards, but we still were able to get in there and disrupt. This was particularly targeted at the first or second ruck after a boxie. A tactic that came off well

Loved this. Compared to the NH teams (Ireland in particular), we rarely focus on this so was great to see it applied effectively. It's a simple effort play but had a noticeable impact - slowed the ruck speed, caused them to send an extra fattie in and got the halfback thinking twice.

Pretty big shift from Savea, be nice to see what he could do from seven with better loose forwards next to him. Sititi, Kirifi and Parker all very average to anonymous.

Vaai has been good at six, and was excellent again at lock. Leave him at six as much as possible and get a bigger eight/seven on the bench.

You can't have Savea and Kirifi on at the same time.

For the backs, Christie was huge and played great wet weather football. Proctor is utter, utter shit. Tried and failed, move on.

Felt sorry for Nawera, he made something magic out of a small chance.

Jordan keeps scoring trys, would prefer him on the wing if he's going to drop high balls at fullback.

Time to start seeing what we can get out of Love.

Oh, and Reiko's defence may have save the game!

@NTA said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Scrum battle was weird - at times both sides looked very shaky. Bok reserve bench particularly noticeable under pressure.

Could it have been the grass?

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Been thinking about Christie and the comments on here.

4th choice in most people's estimation.

As others have mentioned - and which I agree with - he's massively over performing until he doesn't. And his drop off is due to him 'playing up'. He's exhasuted mentally and that's when the mistakes happen. He needs to be subbed earlier.

It's quite obvious that Razor wants Roigard at 9 and BB at 10.

But without Roigard at 9 and his ability to inject pace off the back of the scrum/ruck and keep defences guessing then it becomes very easy for the defence to 'guess' what BB version 2025 is going to do once he gets the ball.

He's going to shovel on or kick most of the time because he's the 2025 version and the speed of delivery from Christie is slower than Roigard.

This gives the AB midfield limited time and space to do anything significant hence the propensity for crossfield dinks or miss two passes from BB.

In Roigard's absence perhaps Christie and Dmac - who will take the ball to the line and commit defenders - are a better combo.

IMO Christie can play solidly and dutifully, no one doubts his commitment, but once he starts dropping off, making bad decisions or just being indecisive, he seems to have trouble recovering. And his worst mistakes, the most glaringly slow passes, seem to be at key times and stand out like dogs' balls. Not sure why. Maybe it just appears that way to me, being a Blues supporter.

one of the biggest problems when reviewing players is the extreme language people use

"the bokke are playing abysmally! and the AB's are outstanding"....when there is like a 7 point difference

or someone will be verbally flayed as the worst in the position to ever play....and they're having a 6-7 out of 10 game

christie...yes...very slow pass and i dont like him with BB as hes also a bit slow with the pass....and he made some suspect decisions...but also was pretty solid, got around the park and put up a lot of kick for them to deal with in wet weather...6.5/10...hardly deserving of the harsh critiques or praise

@nostrildamus said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@NTA said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Scrum battle was weird - at times both sides looked very shaky. Bok reserve bench particularly noticeable under pressure.

Could it have been the grass?

Maybe, but if so the props should have used longer studs

From the Boks pov: Marx was very ordinary, and really has been during TRC in general. Does not have the presence about him of past years, when he had the benefit of coming off the bench with the bomb squad.

Lot of mistakes which is usually OK playing clatterball but things out in the open were their undoing IMHO.

Le Roux missing the tackle for the first try was laughable. Almost as laughable as his faux-confused look whenever he does something wrong like give away a penalty.

There is still a lot of talent there, and it would be unwise to write them off, but they're not getting any younger and RWC is over 2 years away.

@Goffman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

I noticed on at least one occasion when the Boks kicked off they kicked high to Jordie, meaning he was caught with the ball and in the ensuing ruck. Not sure if this was by design or accident, but with the rest of the team being unable to kick further than a primary school kid, I would be positioning Jordie so the other team can't find him when restarting.

If he's not catching it, he's often asked to carry.

Just managed to login.
Well done AB's - well deserved victory.
The Boks.... eish.
We have some work to do. Way too many facets of the game where we are not at our best. Most of them in fact.
Hoping for a better performance in game 2.

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

@Bones Any aping of Maro Itoje is to be discouraged.

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

View embedded content

Was he wrong in his observation?

@MiketheSnow He looks right on the lineout. However, all good teams play to the ref. I also think that Boks, by having a pow wow 2m away and then coming in, open themselves up to this. If they stand 0.5m from line of touch from beginning then ABs kept honest.
IMO one or two times Nche could have been pinged for shenanigans. Conditions didn't help.

@NTA said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@nostrildamus said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@NTA said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Scrum battle was weird - at times both sides looked very shaky. Bok reserve bench particularly noticeable under pressure.

Could it have been the grass?

Maybe, but if so the props should have used longer studs

I thought that. It was very noticeable that before scrum set the Boks loosies were kicking their toes (and thereby studs) into the turf to get set. Not the ABs.
I'd have thought a day for the gnarliest studs allowed.

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

View embedded content

Was he wrong in his observation?

Probably got a fair point or two.

Now let's open the other eye and analyse South Africa ...

Oops, sorry, they were 100% squeaky clean and did not transgress any laws.

@booboo said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

View embedded content

Was he wrong in his observation?

Probably got a fair point or two.

Now let's open the other eye and analyse South Africa ...

Oops, sorry, they were 100% squeaky clean and did not transgress any laws.

What, no screenshots, arrows and lines showing the SA jumper at the lineout between our jumper and our halfback?

That video takes me back to Green and Gold Rugby, circles and arrows.

Love a good whinge.

@Bones said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@booboo said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

View embedded content

Was he wrong in his observation?

Probably got a fair point or two.

Now let's open the other eye and analyse South Africa ...

Oops, sorry, they were 100% squeaky clean and did not transgress any laws.

What, no screenshots, arrows and lines showing the SA jumper at the lineout between our jumper and our halfback?

Ha. #booboo. But only just.

@booboo To be fair he did reference the abnormally high Boks error rate. My hunch is that rain was a big factor.

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@booboo To be fair he did reference the abnormally high Boks error rate. My hunch is that rain was a big factor.

It will likely be a dry track on Saturday

@Bones said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@Billy-Webb hopefully you don't need therapy fella.

:beaming_face_with_smiling_eyes:
I am at that age where very many things could (should) be cause for therapy, but sport is no longer one of them.

@canefan Wind?

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@canefan Wind?

Bound to be

It’s what it says on the Caketin.

@booboo said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

View embedded content

Was he wrong in his observation?

Probably got a fair point or two.

Now let's open the other eye and analyse South Africa ...

Oops, sorry, they were 100% squeaky clean and did not transgress any laws.

Didn’t say they were

Just commenting on this particular video

@MiketheSnow

Fuck I hate pro refs.

They're like democracy; fuckin shit; but no one has come up with a better idea.

One thing I sure as hell aint doin, is wastin my time dissecting the performance of some little cnt who didn't get bullied nearly nuff at school.

Now, dissecting what some one like, say, Jorja gets up to on a rugby field, fuck yeah!

@Billy-Webb said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Just managed to login.
Well done AB's - well deserved victory.
The Boks.... eish.
We have some work to do. Way too many facets of the game where we are not at our best. Most of them in fact.
Hoping for a better performance in game 2.

Whisper it quietly Billy, but might the issue be that the Japanese Boks are a bit underdone? The Japanese sojourn is great for extending their careers, but at what cost?