@Gunner said in Blues vs Stormers:

@infidel said in Blues vs Stormers:

Why is it that the maul is pretty much anathema to NZ Super rugby and All Black teams.

Down there with the drop goal.

ABs have never been good at the maul.

I love a good maul, an art form, very hard to stop when done well.

Not sure I agree that the ABs have never been good at the maul. We’ve scored our fair amount of tries from it.

Doesn’t take away from the fact I fucking hate them as it goes against the principles of rugby.
Let’s just re-name it legal obstruction.

First bold: back! (said derisively with spit)

Second bold: you sound Australian. I must disagree strenuously. A maul is about strength and unity. It's about teamwork in it's purest sense. The whole forward pack is combining together to get the ball going forward. It creates space for backlines as it drags in defenders. It is the essence of the principles of rugby. As suggested if you believe that the only way of promoting the ball forward is passing and catching there is this incredibly boring game that is quite popular in North Eastern Australia ... one concept ... all the time ...

@Gunner said in Blues vs Stormers:

@infidel said in Blues vs Stormers:

Why is it that the maul is pretty much anathema to NZ Super rugby and All Black teams.

Down there with the drop goal.

ABs have never been good at the maul.

I love a good maul, an art form, very hard to stop when done well.

Not sure I agree that the ABs have never been good at the maul. We’ve scored our fair amount of tries from it.

Doesn’t take away from the fact I fucking hate them as it goes against the principles of rugby.
Let’s just re-name it legal obstruction.

I love me a good maul, but not the ones we have at the moment. Mauls used to be real risk/reward - if you took it in, you better get ground immediately, and get the ball back. Now you can fark around, form a string of players out the back who aren't bound, stop, start, go sideways and backwards, and then eventually wander up the field. Modern mauls I don't like.

You see more mauls from tacklers holding up players, which is a response to not being able to contest the ball on the ground unless you can clamp within a nanosecond of the runner hitting the deck of happen to wear a 7 on your back.

Bah, bloody humbug. Also - we can't change the laws, so get better at them. That's the solution; score a shedload of one dimensional Brumby style tries, and see whether the maul laws just get left alone.

@infidel said in Blues vs Stormers:

Why is it that the maul is pretty much anathema to NZ Super rugby and All Black teams.

Down there with the drop goal.

ABs have never been good at the maul.

I love a good maul, an art form, very hard to stop when done well.

you obviously dont watch the Crusaders play

Auckland's maul defense in the NPC was extremely good. Lemalu and Whetton shut down every maul they came up against.

No reason that those practices can't become a discipline of NZ rugby.

@Tim Except in NPC there are no big Saffas running around.

@Canes4life said in Blues vs Stormers:

Except in NPC there are no big Saffas running around.

No, there's big Kiwis running around

The big Saffa's thing is a bit of a myth. There's plenty of large Kiwis running around, they just don't play for the Canes.
Romano is a big lump, talented and experienced. Auckland had to cope with him a couple of times in the NPC.

@Tim said in Blues vs Stormers:

Auckland's maul defense in the NPC was extremely good. Lemalu and Whetton shut down every maul they came up against.

I've never seen an NZ side spend as much time on the maul during warmup (although it was mostly attacking setup)
It was clearly a focus.

@Duluth I was meaning more around the fact that they live and breath mauling. Kiwis aren't conditioned to it as much because we like to play an expansive game. As a result when we come up against Safas in Super Rugby they are very difficult to stop because they spend so much time perfecting the art.

@Canes4life

I don't think they are any better than Canterbury's NPC side. When the backs screw up, Canterbury changes gear and mauls teams to death. Ta$man aren't bad at it either.

@Duluth They are probably an exception to the rule because of their gnarliness, overall though you would have to say South Africans love the maul more than Kiwis hence why the majority of our Kiwi sides struggle. On the other hand it really limits their style of rugby because they have little else in their arsenal - case in point being the Canes game on Saturday.

@Canes4life said in Blues vs Stormers:

you would have to say South Africans love the maul more than Kiwis hence why the majority of our Kiwi sides struggle.

Other NZ sides struggle against Canterbury. The maul is a large part of their string of titles. It's worth noting when an NZ side manages to negate it.

@Duluth Yeah but Canterbury are an exception. They have always played a very structured style of rugby which is bread into them from a young age - they master the basics of rugby really well hence why they win more often than not in playoff footy.

In contrast for example, the Canes and Wellington sides might not be good at maul play etc, but they are renowned for their ability to rip teams apart even when their forwards are back peddling because they have always had x factor loosies and great backs to do that.

Tbh i'm glad most teams in NZ don't focus too much on the maul. It might be a safe option in finals footy etc but as a spectacle it is a bloody bore to watch. We need variety in the game so I guess our teams will always be fairly poor at stopping the maul.

Match Blues v Stormers
Kick-off 19:35 local
Referee Nick Briant
AR1 Glen Jackson
AR2 Federico Anselmi
TMO Ben Skeen

@KiwiMurph Looking forward to this match!

@nzzp said in Blues vs Stormers:

Now you can fark around, form a string of players out the back who aren't bound, stop, start, go sideways and backwards, and then eventually wander up the field. Modern mauls I don't like.

This is the main issue with mauls these days. The stop and go is bollocks and just leads to another level of differing interpretation. We have situations where a maul is going backwards but is allowed to stop and then power up field. It's is straight up stupid.

Just make it so a maul can move once and if it moves sideways or backwards that counts as the once.

@Nepia said in Blues vs Stormers:

@nzzp said in Blues vs Stormers:

Now you can fark around, form a string of players out the back who aren't bound, stop, start, go sideways and backwards, and then eventually wander up the field. Modern mauls I don't like.

This is the main issue with mauls these days. The stop and go is bollocks and just leads to another level of differing interpretation. We have situations where a maul is going backwards but is allowed to stop and then power up field. It's is straight up stupid.

Just make it so a maul can move once and if it moves sideways or backwards that counts as the once.

disagree. But i feel like we have this discussion every year.

Not sure you have noticed, but the refs are way less lenient on them now, and the snake mauls have gone as well. Having to move the ball rather than the man backwards has changed a lot of the maul dynamic, for the better IMO.

@mariner4life said in Blues vs Stormers:

disagree. But i feel like we have this discussion every year.

but, but I love a good whinge every year:

@mariner4life Yeah would have to agree there the Mauls are more defined and the Refs I think have controlled them well, Much better than the moving players backwards bullshit we had before, That was a mess.

@Chris said in Blues vs Stormers:

@mariner4life Yeah would have to agree there the Mauls are more defined and the Refs I think have controlled them well, Much better than the moving players backwards bullshit we had before, That was a mess.

real good as a player if you drilled your pack how to do it well, and you could just grind teams in to the dust. But yea, it's better with the balance we have now

@mariner4life Being an ex mid field back not my favourite part of the game,But its what we have in the game so better now than before