@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

@Victor-Meldrew said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

How was Alphonse been here the whole world cup and thinks Ngan-Woo is Nagawoo

She's awful isn't she? The Miles Harrison of Women's rugby.

The fucking flip flopping about how NZ don't do this and should do that then doing a 180 2 minutes later was doing my head in.

She was the celeb women's rugby player and became the token woman on commentary teams for the 6N IIRC. The other woman (Nooni?) was bloody good I thought

@Bones That is a lot of layers in photoshop and some beautiful masking, credit to the artist, that is a thing of beauty.

@nostrildamus said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

Either someone was playing very dangerously with fate, or NZR's art department are quick workers.

View image

Or just maybe they premade two options?

Shit no way I never thought of that.

@chimoaus said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

@Bones That is a lot of layers in photoshop and some beautiful masking, credit to the artist, that is a thing of beauty.

the player in the centre at the bottom of the poster (Cocksedge?) really does look like shouting "Are you not entertained?!"

@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

@nostrildamus said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

Either someone was playing very dangerously with fate, or NZR's art department are quick workers.

View image

Or just maybe they premade two options?

Shit no way I never thought of that.

British Airways plane being hastily shuffled into a hangar?

@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

Shit no way I never thought of that.

Subtlety bro, it's a thing.

@nostrildamus said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

Shit no way I never thought of that.

Subtlety bro, it's a thing.

I'll remember that next time a poster rejoicing in a world cup win is leaked and the win didn't happen. Subtle as!

That was worth every second of getting up early on a cold grey England morning. Well done BFs!! Challenge is now for NZ Rugby to put a decent comp in place befitting the womens game.

I believe that is two finals in a row Sarah Hunter has lost to the Ferns now?! At 37 I imagine she won't be tempted for another even if it is on home soil* but I imagine their coach Simon Middleton will re-sign?

*Only England, not the others?

A comp putting womens rugby front and centre with NH
Would love BFs to play France and England more.
Perhaps a swap where the BFs could join the Six Nations and a NH team could join the Tri Nations??

@Jailbreak7 There is no women's Tri Nations. There is the Pacific Four, with NZ, Oz, USA and Canada.

Someone probably posted this article earlier - but, some significant parallels with our '87 RWC team.

Lochore realised we couldn't muscle up against the big NH teams and so we ran them around.

@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

@NTA said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

Pretty odd England didn't take the 3 at the end and regroup. Arrogance eh...

Sarcasm?

They were basically mauling tries at will from the 22. Go for the win and don't risk bounce of the ball in 20 minutes of ET.

They made a really bad call on the throw and paid the price. The red card was almost irrelevant at that point.

Their lineout had been deteriorating, I guess maybe the lineout was the right option if they didn't go 2, but that hadn't worked for them in a loooong time.

Thier best bet was to play out for penalties imo.

It was really obvious for that last line out what England were going to do and NZ simply had to challenge. If you know where the ball is going, then is it too hard to challenge it. Totally worth risking a knock on for, given that time is up so a scrum will be end of the game.

Flatman (great pundit btw) pointed it out after the final whistle as well.

@chimoaus said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

Feel for the English players that have 2 silvers now.

Hunter and Scarratt did win in 2014.

Speaking of medals, Fluhler, Hirini and Woodman had won a silver and bronze at their two pinnacle events this year so they'll be happy to complete the set now.

@Bovidae Those girls have a huge collection of medals by now. Insane!

@Bones said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

Pretty odd England didn't take the 3 at the end and regroup. Arrogance eh...

I don't think that was the right move. Just running the numbers it's not the right move.

Assume she kicks it 80% of the time. Kicking 3 would only take it to extra time and (at best) a 50% chance to win*. That gives win equity of 40%.

On the other hand going for the line out drive had been very successful. Had to be a better than 40% chance they would score a try from the line out.

Going for the line was the correct play.

• if anything slightly lower because they looked out on their feet and might not have coped with another 20 minutes.

Haven't followed or read the thread.
But...
FUCK YEAH!

The ref allowed play to continue before going back to see Woodman. Yet when the English forward nosedived she stopped us as we were building our attack. That doesn't feel like consistency to me

@Damo I don't think she would have missed from in front and wasn't there still time after that? England then just needed to hold the ball and work their way up the field as they'd just done fairly easily. I don't think NZ would have challenged any lineouts unless 5m out.

@canefan said in WRWC Final - NZ Vs England:

The ref allowed play to continue before going back to see Woodman. Yet when the English forward nosedived she stopped us as we were building our attack. That doesn't feel like consistency to me

We can safely say that the Cup was poorly refereed due to the decision to use only female refs. The ref of the final has been a pro ref for a couple of years and only ever reffed women's matches of any significance. The only female ref with any real experience is English, and has reffed premiership, and men's internationals, I think. So it was a PC decision ahead of its time - the refs were not ready and were really poor. Admittedly they were part of how fast the game was, they let all sorts of shit go, but it really wasn't good enough. Rucks were a free for all with hands on the deck, and many of the calls were a lottery. But you can't say any team got it worse than any other because it was so random.

It detracted for the knowledgable but maybe was the best call for the game. Non-rugby nerds had no idea and were happy with what they saw.