Why this feels different...

Like others, I'm way more disappointed in the way we lost rather than the loss itself. We were dominant for so long, because we always seemed to be innovating, changing course when necessary, building pressure, exploiting strengths. The guys knew where the other guys were, that there would always be someone at his shoulder. The backline was well-marshalled, the loosies annoying the shit out of the other team, the forwards setting a solid platform.

But we've been missing that edge in the past few years, and I think a couple of good wins painted over the cracks of decline. I just hope they do a full clean out of the coaching box, sort out a new senior leadership team that can calm and steer and refocus the young guys on the pitch if things start turning to custard. Individual moments of brilliance are great and all, but if the team is in the situation of relying on them with not much else, we will get owned again in future.

I have lived in Australia for just under 7 years. So perhaps I'm numb'er than I would have been had I have still been living in NZ. But I don't think it's that.

Rugby is going through some serious changes. Safety-wise good. As a spectator sport not so good.

And as a spectator, I'm over the lack of commonsense refereeing. If there is accidental head contact either call as such or penalise the player. But carding a tackler for being unable to pull out of a tackle, that would have been fair that the attacking not dropped in position is fucked. It's not preventative discipline in any way shape or form. That tackler is going to continue to make solid, safe contact in the next game. It's just a freak accident.

The TMO can't go altogether but that maul knock-on was a disgrace. If the on-field referee doesn't call for the TMO to look at a handling error then the TMO should not intervene. If it's foul play then all good. But if a knock on is missed by the main ref then it's force majeure. Whatever will be will be. The biproduct of less TMO intervention is a more astute onfield official.

Lastly and as some have said. The game can not grow with one team dominating the WC. It would have become boring for everyone even NZers.

And of course, we can not get better without fucking up.

If we had played at the top of our game, do we think we would have won?

England were just that much stronger and harder. The main thing I noticed is that on just about all 50/50 plays, England came up trumps. I'm not talking about ref calls, I'm talking about loose balls, untaken kicks offs, poor passes to nobody etc. Every single time, England had the men in the right place to get the ball / turnover / retain posession.

Everytime we broke out (and we did break out), the player would find themselves in a position of 1-2 All Blacks and 5-6 Poms. Hence, loads of turnovers.

For these, and other reasons, I firmly believe we could not have won regardless on the weekend. The fact we were within one score at the 60 minute mark was purely due to how good we actually are, and a pretty dubious TMO call.

If I want to be a real shit loser, the only thing I could possibly say is that I felt the cancelled games were better for England than us - we needed that game, and with them being so big / strong, an extra week to freshen up really helped their cause.

But I don't think it affected things that much. They were better.

Fair play, move on.

Blame Foster.

@MajorRage I tend to agree. They were dominant. I think although we beat SA I think the boks played a stupid game. When they played in the forwards they also dominated. Without our moments of magic that game could have gone the other way. Our forwards have been weak for a while and they have been showed up this year including against Oz. I can not think of any other players that could have improved on what we had.

@Tim Amazing that Scott McLeod did nothing to close that gap.

Krusty knew it was there, Cueball knew it was there, Eddie knew it was there, the whole Rugby World knew it was there.

Looks like they successfully targeted Reece for intercepts of off-loads, and for being out of position to receive kicks. Experience, or the lack there of.

@Tim They also targeted Beauden for the same thing which was equally successful.

@Canerbry said in Why this feels different...:

@Tim They also targeted Beauden for the same thing which was equally successful.

Neither Richie M, nor Beauden Barrett has good games on defence.

Suspect that was a lot to do with problems in the defensive pattern and the fact we got spanked at the breakdown.

@sparky The Dogroll selection was a howler.

@Canerbry The RFU millions have bought them George Smith as a specialist breakdown coach.

Mourie, Ice, the GOAT or Razor could have done that role for the ABs. I wonder if they were even asked.

@ACT-Crusader said in Why this feels different...:

What doesn’t feel different are the “reasons” for the loss being made on this forum.

Rewind 12 years ago and you could replay many of the same tag lines being put out last night and today with those following the France loss.

Forward pass aside, our tactics in the 2nd half in 07 were baffling and frustrating. Heard that today.

We missed experience - tick.

Leadership went missing and not just from the captain - tick.

Arrogance from coaches - I recall many saying Henry was so focused on the 2 AB XVs in 2006 that we never settled on one.

Strange selections leading in - Nonu and Weepu missing, Toeava in.

But Ritchie was at the START of his AB captaincy...

@canefan said in Why this feels different...:

@Bones said in Why this feels different...:

@canefan it was basically anti game plan. I think the state of the lineout is probably an apt description for the performance. Pathetic execution and appalling accuracy.

The plan was there, the selection was fine.

It was like all of the lessons we learned from 2007, with the senior player group and shared responsibility, were ignored. When the game went against us we couldn't right the ship

What usually happens is the guys who learned the lessons retire and the next generation need to learn them for themselves. Just wish it didn't have to be in RWC knock outs!

@Canerbry said in Why this feels different...:

Blame Foster.

Piss off. I blame Deans.

2007 hurt a lot more. We had an absolutely superb set of players in the squad that year:

@sparky said in Why this feels different...:

2007 hurt a lot more. We had an absolutely superb set of players in the squad that year:

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If there was a squad that was a lay down misère to win the RWC, it was that. Easily the most skillful squad I've seen assembled at a RWC. The rugby they played from France in 2004 to the tournament was a joy to watch.

This is not even in the same universe as those losses. ‘95 - 2007 losses were devestating , all of them, never saw them coming. Even in hindsight the French losses still feel awful. ‘91 the previous games were underwhelming and injuries/selections in the backs definitely put a question mark pre game. This one hurt mainly because there generally seemed to be a real turn going on with selections and wins particularly over Australia/SA/ Ireland and that really built my hopes up perhaps a little like 2003 but it was always clear that this England team posed a real threat. Looking at the whole picture when you consider the loss of our legends in 2015 and the continuing player and coach drain New Zealand still punches massively above its weight, but with each success it only raises the expectation ever higher which is probably where I was, but never the gut punch of those other losses.

For me personally, it feels different because I always suspected it could happen.

Going into this world cup I felt any of SA, England, Ireland Wales or NZ could take this. On their day any of those teams could beat any of the others. We just have not had the consistency in our performances of late.

I won't deny the way we took care of Ireland gave me hope. But after the first 20 minutes against England I had already come back down to earth and realised that while we have a good team. We are not as totally dominant as we once were.

And you know what? I am okay with that. No one stays at the top forever. We went 24 years between drinks with the world cup. We will be back.

From a football angle, this one feels so much like 03 to me ,

Before the tournament starts there were hints we might be a bit flaky ,

Seemed to be an over emphasis on Attack and a lack on forward play ,

A convincing quarter final made us feel at ease,

then comes the semi where we get smashed in the forwards and our attack barely gets going due to it

@gt12 Fantastic post. Your pain is evident, but your analysis is crystal clear. Kudos

I'm all chill about the result. It appears a lot of people are. No one really talking about it in the office.

I think I needed this result as Rugby was starting to get a bit blah for me with a turgid Super Rugby, a rubbish NPC format and us mostly winning all the time.

I said at the beginning of the year I would have a Cricket WC over a Rugby WC. The Cricket WC stung while I haven't really given this a second thought.

Will I watch the 3rd playoff? Prolly not. Will I watch the final? Prolly not too.

I am amped for the England cricket tour though!

The more I think about it, the more I think I’m cool with it as we still did better than Oz ....

@MajorRage said in Why this feels different...:

The more I think about it, the more I think I’m cool with it as we still did better than Oz ....

and Ireland

@Tim in that article:

Perhaps the quality of the New Zealand performance against Ireland ultimately contributed to their demise by highlighting the critical component parts of New Zealand's game that England would need to match. They certainly met the challenge with a clarity that stunned.

I think alot of the good we did against Ireland was missing v England, and nor just because they didnt allow it, was more we appeared to change the point of attack from the success v Ireland.

V Ireland we had runners take it up and pop to a runner right there (as England did duccessfully to us) which was in part a way to blunt the effectiveness of the rush defence.

V England, as pointed out by others, we rarely did this, we had the pop runner there but instead we passed behind him to another ball runner who was deeper, and England seemed to know it was coming (perfect example was Underhill on Read) catching us well behind the mainline.

I joined the fern back in 2004 IIRC or just before the Lions 2005 series..the years blur together now. Comparing the Fern after the 2007 and now in my memory is fairly illuminating. When I joined the Fern, 2003 was still raw, but 2007 still resonated right up until after 2011 and even then the embers weren't fully expunged until the 2015 QF. I think losing to a very good team (potentially the champions) in a Semi-Final that was always going to be a close call in regards to the outcome makes it less catastrophic although the way we were dominated and outplayed across the park does evoke certain aspects of previous campaigns where on field leadership and initiative seemed bereft.

But unlike 2007, I'm not feeling physically ill at the shock because in 2007 I was as confident as all get out that we would progress, whereas this year, it seemd a lot tighter, especially as the games played out and we saw the strength of the final four.

I'm going to watch with interest how things develop from now on, but in my heart lays a nagging suspicion that we will never see another AB era like 2004-2019 again

@SynicBast said in Why this feels different...:

I joined the fern back in 2004 IIRC or just before the Lions 2005 series..the years blur together now. Comparing the Fern after the 2007 and now in my memory is fairly illuminating. When I joined the Fern, 2003 was still raw, but 2007 still resonated right up until after 2011 and even then the embers weren't fully expunged until the 2015 QF. I think losing to a very good team (potentially the champions) in a Semi-Final that was always going to be a close call in regards to the outcome makes it less catastrophic although the way we were dominated and outplayed across the park does evoke certain aspects of previous campaigns where on field leadership and initiative seemed bereft.

But unlike 2007, I'm not feeling physically ill at the shock because in 2007 I was as confident as all get out that we would progress, whereas this year, it seemd a lot tighter, especially as the games played out and we saw the strength of the final four.

I'm going to watch with interest how things develop from now on, but in my heart lays a nagging suspicion that we will never see another AB era like 2004-2019 again

The sad thing to contemplate is that the way money is influencing things a combination of NH getting its player base together and the increasing player drain is making staying near the top an incredible challenge.

@pakman said in Why this feels different...:

@SynicBast said in Why this feels different...:

I joined the fern back in 2004 IIRC or just before the Lions 2005 series..the years blur together now. Comparing the Fern after the 2007 and now in my memory is fairly illuminating. When I joined the Fern, 2003 was still raw, but 2007 still resonated right up until after 2011 and even then the embers weren't fully expunged until the 2015 QF. I think losing to a very good team (potentially the champions) in a Semi-Final that was always going to be a close call in regards to the outcome makes it less catastrophic although the way we were dominated and outplayed across the park does evoke certain aspects of previous campaigns where on field leadership and initiative seemed bereft.

But unlike 2007, I'm not feeling physically ill at the shock because in 2007 I was as confident as all get out that we would progress, whereas this year, it seemd a lot tighter, especially as the games played out and we saw the strength of the final four.

I'm going to watch with interest how things develop from now on, but in my heart lays a nagging suspicion that we will never see another AB era like 2004-2019 again

The sad thing to contemplate is that the way money is influencing things a combination of NH getting its player base together and the increasing player drain is making staying near the top an incredible challenge.

After all of that we weren't that far off. As myself and others have said, keep the Irish game plan which meant tighter and narrower early, wear them down then see if we could get wide, who knows? Oh and it might have been good for the D coaches to fix the yawning hole that the aussies found in Perth in time to face England. It's not like they didn't have any time

@pakman said in Why this feels different...:

The sad thing to contemplate is that the way money is influencing things a combination of NH getting its player base together and the increasing player drain is making staying near the top an incredible challenge.

It's ironic though, the drain is supposedly much worse now but the second gut punch in 2007 was realizing that McAlister, Hayman, Mauger, Howlett, Jack, Masoe, Kelleher etc had all played their last test (at least for a while); and over the next few months Collins and Evans firmed up as leaving too.

This time only Read from the starting side is off and it would be hard to argue Smith or SBW left too many test in the tank either.

@rotated said in Why this feels different...:

@pakman said in Why this feels different...:

The sad thing to contemplate is that the way money is influencing things a combination of NH getting its player base together and the increasing player drain is making staying near the top an incredible challenge.

It's ironic though, the drain is supposedly much worse now but the second gut punch in 2007 was realizing that McAlister, Hayman, Mauger, Howlett, Jack, Masoe, Kelleher etc had all played their last test (at least for a while); and over the next few months Collins and Evans firmed up as leaving too.

This time only Read from the starting side is off and it would be hard to argue Smith or SBW left too many test in the tank either.

One thing which really upset me about 2007 was that we were by far away the best team there.

In 91 and 99 Oz were tops. In 2003 England was no 1, just. Being at Ellis Park in 95 and seeing what it meant for the nation was the ONLY time I've ever watched the ABs and thought, 'It wouldn't be so bad if we lost this', and after all it was a draw by normal standards.

Saturday for me felt as though we played the final a week early. That said, no guarantee Poms will get up this week.