[Closed] summer rugby

Oops!

citing at 15.40ish on timer 3mins on match clock, looks cynical but not brutal

Team to play Delve's welsh/aussie allstars
15. Rob Kearney (Leinster / Ireland)
14. Sean Maitland (Glasgow Warriors / Scotland)
13. Manu Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers / England)
12. Brad Barritt (Saracens / England)
11. Simon Zebo (Munster / Ireland)
10. Owen Farrell (Saracens / England)
9. Conor Murray (Munster / Ireland)
1. Ryan Grant (Glasgow Warriors / Scotland)
2. Richard Hibbard (Ospreys / Wales)
3. Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers / England)
4. Richie Gray (Scotland)
5. Geoff Parling (Leicester Tigers / England, captain)
6. Dan Lydiate (Dragons / Wales)
7. Sean O'Brien (Leinster / Ireland)
8. Toby Faletau (Dragons / Wales)
Replacements
16. Rory Best (Ulster / Ireland)
17. Makovina Vunipola (Saracens / England)
18. Matt Stevens (Saracens / England)
19. Ian Evans (Ospreys / Wales)
20. Justin Tipuric (Ospreys / Wales)
21. Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers / England)
22. Billy Twelvetrees (Gloucester / England)
23. Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors / Scotland)

looks like we a re doomed to the same backrow next saturday

Tipuric on the bench?!?!?

could be

[img] [/img]

As a recently ex ref; consistency is what each team wants; didn't happen.that is the nearest I get to slagging a ref. But what a game despite him. Warns did everything that the ref would let him and in my mind did a very good job of staying within Pollocks views on the breakdown. To use my phrase when talking about Scotland; "ye can only pish with the cock yiv got" both back rows were stifled by interp of breakdown

re watching the game sober... Croft was poor made some bad errors for both tries. On the first if your going to take a dummy so spectacularly at least take out the guy, then North wouldn't have been caught in two minds about which support runner to track. On the second he shoots out of the line and misses.
Youngs the hooker was immense. Corbisero who I have never watched much was very very good. The Aus fringe defence led by the excellent Mowen really did a number on Phillips who failed to respond. AW Jones was brilliant and POC wasn't far behind. Defence is a massive issue though, Lions lacked linespeed and organisation maybe Gatland should have taken Edwards over Farrel? Breakdown seemed OK once BOD and others adjusted to the ref, it was poor that they got pinged so much early on though seems to suggest a lack of preparation. Which is odd given the way they chose to use Warbs as a main tackler which suggests to me that they knew Pillock wouldn't allow a contest. It was certainly wise not to pick Tipuric if Pillock was the ref. Joubert next week will be similar at the breakdown but might give more pens at scrum time (assuming the Lions are not daft enough to take off Adam this time). Poite for the last test.

I thought Pollock was consistent. Almost always favoured the team with the ball. I thought when he did Genia right on the line as the Lions attacked he got it wrong though as I thought Genia was the tackler so could get up and play the ball without being offside.
Do you reckon captain Aus will play in the next game or is he likely to be banned. AW Jones was sporting some nasty stud marks to the face.

He should get a rest for that. Next week is jobbie...sorry joubert. He is even more pedantic than Pollock and favours the attacking side.

Dean Ryan

Well, it's a win, and it cannot be emphasised enough that that is the be-all and end-all for something as brief and intense as a Lions Test series. Get the win. Any way you can.

But the Lions got away with that, no question. There is a lot to work on. You could see Brian O'Driscoll in the huddle at the end making just that point to the group. It is so much easier, though, to work on putting things right when you've just won. That's why we should pause before reading on, just to celebrate that fact…

Right, now on to next week's to-do list. There were huge parts of the game that the Lions got taken out of. Australia, as we knew they would be, were so smart at removing threats from the Lions' game.

Take the lineout. Australia marked up the areas that might have given the Lions something to work with. Ben Mowen lurked at the back, while Kane Douglas stood in the middle with James Horwill, who jumped backwards and forwards. And they left the front completely open. Sure enough, time and again, the Lions threw short; time and again, they were able to do nothing with the ball. Stats-wise, I don't think the Lions missed a lineout, and if they're short-sighted they might be pleased about that.

But this is where the Australians are so smart. They don't care about lineout stats, they don't care about scrum stats. What they care about is what you can deliver off the back of them. The Lions were 100% at the lineout, but they were virtually all to the front.

This not the kind of ball a Warren Gatland side likes. It means Mike Phillips is not able to get his running game going. Instead, it forces him to pass long. And then the Lions are operating behind the gainline, and with*no Jamie Roberts to smash them back up over it they are immediately under pressure.

The uncommitted defenders at the tail of the Australia lineout are able to make straight for the Lions midfield. Then, if the Lions don't win that initial contest for the gainline – and the cards are stacked against them in this scenario – that race around the corner for the next phase is always in the defence's favour. This completely took Phillips out of the game. Mowen was able to mark him, and every time he tried to make a break the defence was on the front foot.

Occasionally, the Lions varied it by shortening the lineout, but this left them with a midfield stacked with forwards. I'm surprised they didn't drive it more, if throwing to the front was what they were intent on doing. They took all that front ball off the top. Then, when they did go long, they drove that. Also, they were very methodical – and slow – on their approach to the lineouts, whereas, on Australian ball, Horwill would just walk in and say "go".

Not that Australia had many lineouts, particularly in the first half, which is a tactic that I talked about in last week's column and one I really feel the Lions need to address. They just don't kick for touch. They prefer to feed the Australia back three with long box-kicks. And Australia's counter-attack is lethal.

Kurtley Beale's break towards the end of the first half came straight from such a kick, and Israel Folau's second try was worked a couple of phases after*one. The Lions defence is unstructured when facing a counter?attack like that, and no one seems to know who's marking who. That's a big concern for them.

Now, I'm surprised the Lions don't look for a different option, and I'm surprised they're worried about putting the Aussies into a lineout, where the defence is structured. And we saw what happened when Jonny Sexton sent up a high ball towards the end. Australia don't play with a sweeper and they weren't rock solid under the high ball. The Lions should look to contest more.

Just don't do it, necessarily, anywhere near Folau. George North and Folau*–*now, that's a heavyweight boxing contest. Unbelievable. We often say that Lions series are defined by exceptional moments. Well, North's try was one of those. And Folau's tries were defined by two people. Will Genia's speed of thought is so much further down the line than anyone else's. Folau, meanwhile, just looks like the next freak of nature who is 6ft 5in, sits on the wing and can do special things. It's becoming incredible. This bloke should be playing in the back row.

So, make no mistake. We're in a Test series here. The Lions should be very relieved to be one up.

How did they win it? Well, their scrum, for the first hour or so, was superior. More than that, though, Australia missed five kicks at goal. It is a problem for the Wallabies with no obvious solution, but the Lions cannot afford to rely on that particular advantage. There's much to address. At least they can do it with the momentum of a Test win behind them.

[i]I refer the thread contributors to this post.
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/summer-rugby/page/13?view=all#post-5064505
Last chance before I close it.[/i]

Cougar - Moderator
<mod>
Gentle warning to keep it civil, you two.

If there's one thing guaranteed to make me more vexed than having to pick the bones out of a he-said-she-said playground argument to work out who's at fault and whether warnings / bans are in order, it's having to read through a bloody sports thread in order to do it. If I have to start wading back through twelve pages of team selection arguing and post-match post-mortems in order to do so I'll have sense of humour failure in short order. So knock it off.
</mod>

Dear Mr. moderator,
Thank you for your time and attention.
Compared to any other 28 page debate on this forum, this one is sweetness and roses.
There has been a little nastiness, but the occasions are few and far between. When it happens, it's invariably self-moderated by other contributors anyway.
And the nature of the subject - an ongoing series, a sequence of many smaller debates that change focus on a daily and weekly time-scale - means the argument moves on quickly and new debates appear before issues get repetitive and sterile.

The threats of thread closure appear inconsistent and harsh when compared with the shenanigans that kick off in the political or philosophical threads.

If your problem with this thread is partly down to your dislike for the subject matter, "[i]a bloody sports thread[/i]", then why not let someone else cover the moderating of it. It doesn't need much, but probably seems more painful to someone who dislikes the subject.

The rest of us - cut it out.
And stay off the "report post" button please, it will end the thread.
If you don't like a post, ignore it. If you don't like a poster, ignore them. 😉

Whilst that may be true, my comments were based on the number of complaints this thread has generated, which is into double figures.

I'm aware that sports threads by their nature are mostly people passionately disagreeing with each other, and as a self-opinionated git myself I'm down with that, but when it descends into personal attacks it crosses the "acceptability" line.

Other than that, yes, well said.

Hope that clears things up.

Well said gents!

Anyway, I'm becoming quite a fanboi of Tom Youngs. I was quite critical of him after his first two tests last Autumn. Against the Aussies especially, he looked a little weak in the scrum.....I didn't realise that at this point he'd only played 9 times at hooker for Leicester!!! Quite astonishing that a year on he's a nailed on starter for the Lions and one of the players of the series so far! I know that he's being helped by having Corbs and Adam next to him, but it's still very impressive. Hopefully he can carry his for into next season.....Hartley will be a distant second choice by then for England and may have even fallen down behind Webber in the pecking order. Quite excited by the England pack if we can keep Corbs fit and settle on a back row.

@Cougar thanks for your consideration, wed like to keepmthe thread open and hopefully we can "play nice" from now on

Agreed with a number of prior posts

We played to the ref very poorly exaggerated by playing too much of the game in our half.
However overall we had the best of the refs decisions, had the Aussies run a block on BOD for a try there would be pages of protest here.
I think the Aussies had worked on defending Phillips, he didn't have a great game but would still be my first choice
Halfpenny was world class
North outstanding and only 21
Adam Jones came off too early, he's the sort of player the opposition are happy to see go off

Poor Aussie kicking lost them a match they should have won, had they gone 6-0 up early I think the Lions confidence would have been severely tested. As Barnes said with kickers reversed it could have been 20-5 to Autralia before half time.

The Lions looked a bit naive in playing high pressure rugby and will need to be better next week

@a_a thanks for the clip. Yup that's a deliberate raked boot to the head of a player unable to protect himself and with the ball nowhere in sight on the opposite side to the ref (so imo very cynical) series ending ban I think 3 weeks min

I thought when he did Genia right on the line as the Lions attacked he got it wrong though as I thought Genia was the tackler so could get up and play the ball without being offside.

AA - it wasn't Genia he penalised, it was the next 2-3 aussies driving through the ruck that failed to stay on their feet - they had hands all over the deck. Agree with the majority of the rest of your comments particularly Youngs excellent performance.

On second watching Philips defence for the first try was poor - he was way too hesitant backing off Genia and gave him way too much room.

Interesting to see the boot/head up there. Did it make the British broadcast? The Green & Gold lenses down here didn't pick it up at all.
Agree that kicking killed the Wallabies, but will be interesting to see who comes back from the head injuries after some pressure not to rush people back over here in other sports.
Lions need to watch that game a few times and put some good planning/moves together and just gel a little more.
As for the Ref the most annoying bit was the hesitation with the Scrum calling, as if he wanted them to infringe. Keep it a bit more RL for them up there.
The pitch didn't look up to any serious beating either, seemed to be a few slips and divots pulling out not helping a few things (and helping one right at the end)

The biggest plus for the Lions is that nobody went off on a stretcher, hopefully those involved Wednesday with plans for the next 2 tests stay safe.

Still 1-0 with 2 to play, see how the Wallabies cope with must win pressure in Docklands.

jambalaya - Member

However overall we had the best of the refs decisions, had the Aussies run a block on BOD for a try there would be pages of protest here.

It wasn't a block. The ball was passed behind the player, yes, but at no time did a ball carrier pass behind the 'blocker'. It was simply a successful decoy and poor defending. The Australian didn't need to defend against a player who very obviously didn't have the ball in his hands.

If we are going to feel guilty about it why not talk about the blatant forward pass that led to a Folau try. Lets not have rubbish about the passer's hands moving backwards* 🙄 - the ball went forward. The lines on the pitch showed that. So they scored a try which in other circumstances would have been disallowed. 😉

* as the commentators were talking about. And let's face it, if the ball had been passed forward over the midway line, for instance, the pass would have been ruled forward regardless of where the passer's hands were moving.

Aussies used lots of [s]blockers[/s], sorry dummy runners themselves, so there can be little complaint with BOD. That was mild compared what goes on the whole time in most senior rugby. Indeed before that BOD was blocked by two/three Aussie dummy runners. Perhaps officials need to look at blocking a bit more, be it dummy runners or people blocking runners chasing high kicks etc. The All Blacks are past masters at this and "creating" gaps in the oppo!

Interesting article posted above, not sure how much is written with benefit of hindsight. But if the Aussies ran that game plan, and nullified Phillips then that was pretty smart. I was more relieved that we actually won the line out ball even if the throws were hardly down the middle!

Duckman - as a ref, what did you make of the time taken to set the scrums. Isn't almost impossible to hold that long without someone engaging? Still seems he was looking to ping, rather than looking for successful scrums?

Nasty stamp that - hard to see how that can be anything other than a ban? Amazed Spikey missed that in front of him. Obviously calmed down since Ellis Park final test!!!!

Cougar, is the main culprit having "some quiet time to think'?

If we are going to feel guilty about it why not talk about the blatant forward pass that led to a Folau try. Lets not have rubbish about the passer's hands moving backwards* - the ball went forward. The lines on the pitch showed that. So they scored a try which in other circumstances would have been disallowed.

Anyway forgot to say cheers to Cougar (I'm sure he's still reading along - if not someone report this post to let him know) for reffing this thread like a rugby game lots of warnings and chances before the yellowbanhammercard comes out and explaining his thinking.

Pass to Folou wasn't forward even though it went forward. See here for the explanation.

Well done for picking up the actual stamping incident - AA?
Don't think they will ban the Australian captain - probably a warning or inconclusive evidence - remember NZ 05?
I'm a big fan of JD but we need some go forward in the midfield so either JR or Tuilagi back in the centre with BOD.
I would replace Phillips and the back row needs to be changed - replace Croft unless we intend to start throwing to the back.
I would bring in SOB and Faletau, assuming they keep Warburton.
Otherwise same team, except possibly Bowe for Cuthbert.

Well done for picking up the actual stamping incident - AA?

I nick all the gifs from gwladrugby.com

Good clip that AA, thanks.

the ****tersphere reporting that POC has broken his hand and is going home and Court has been called up as cover for Corbisero 😥

What's the range of punishment for that kind of offence? Would be a bit of a shocker if it gets withdrawn for inconclusive evidence. To me it looks like he lines it up then practically crosses his legs trying to put the boot in. Maybe retaliation for the 1st minute injury?

the ****tersphere reporting that POC has broken his hand and is going home and Court has been called up as cover for Corbisero

Really hope that's not true......POC is a massive loss but also Corbs as we need a decent scrummaging loose head. I hope that Grant is as good as some people have been making out

"Over there my boy"

[img] [/img]

doesn't look like POc is worried about his hand here! Poor old Beale
[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]
If Croft had taken out O'Conner I think it is then North wouldn't have tracked him inside. Genia does Phillips like a kipper but Genia is bloody amazing in open play.
Here Croft wanders out of the line and does nothing, doesn't lay a hand on anyone and leaves North all at sea.
[img] [/img]

Maybe retaliation for the 1st minute injury?

retaliation for Lealifano being shit at tackling?

What about the "chase" from Phillips - he's strolling at the half way line. You're number 1 priority is your opposite number and Phillips just lets him go. If you roll it back to the infringement Phillips is waving his arms trying to get a decision and just looks half asleep when Genia takes the tap.

Would be sad If POC's out.
But no surprise if he played on with a broken hand, saying nothing.

Read something similar about Ashley-Cooper. Reports say he dislocated his shoulder.
10 minutes before he went off.

Ben tapui, jesse mogg and George Smith called up.

A-a, you are crediting a forward with the ability to link two events together and come to a conclusion. I am gambling that Horwills thought process was more like:

Ozzie down!!!! Me kick Lion head!!!

Did anyone else notice in the post-match interviews that Will Greenwood seemed to be taller than both George North and Cuthbert?

Just looked up Greenwood on wiki and he is supposedly 6ft4", whereas I'm sure that I saw a stat early in the match saying that Cuthbert was 6ft6"!

Attack didn't look too dangerous either. Perhaps we should have taken a different coach?

Horwill cleared! FFs!

The citing official must have looked at a different tape. I find that a very odd decision from the clip AA posted. He would be advised not to linger too long at the bottom of a ruck in the 2nd test (not that I would condone violence).

Just watched it. Didn't think that Croft was great, thought that Warns and Heaslip were good. Thought that BOD was pretty good too daft couple of early pens though.

Wasn't blown away by Sexton tbh, good kicking game-the Aussies aren't great under a high ball are they!, but didn't think that he helped out the backs when he'd got ball in hand....that said, Spike probably didn't help matters either......Young's and Farrell to start next week anyone 🙂

Shame to hear about POC.

"After hearing all the evidence I could not find that when James Horwill's right foot came into glancing contact with Alun Wyn Jones' face, that he Horwill was acting recklessly," said Judicial Officer, Nigel Hampton QC.

"I found that I could not reject as being implausible or improbable Horwill's explanation that as he was driving forward with his right leg raised he was spun off balance through the impact of Lions players entering the ruck from the opposite side.

"In an endeavour to regain his balance Horwill brought his right leg to the ground unknowing that Alun Wyn Jones' head was in that area, due to having his sight impeded by the presence of Michael Hooper and Tom Croft who were beneath him and over the top of Alun Wyn Jones. Due to these reasons I cannot uphold the citing."

[img] [/img]

no one regains their balance by bringing their feet closer together!

Attack didn't look too dangerous either. Perhaps we should have taken a different coach?

almost certainly, Howlers is shite!
Its been quite noticeable on re-watching that the ref totally gave up on pinging the early engage after the first few scrums. Adam wasn't bothered he conceded the hit and then drove over his man. Cole however lost the hits and was always going backwards from there.

Madness that explanation, it's like he hasn't looked at the tape. If you are going to accept the excuse irrespective of the damming evidence what's the point!

@brianmoore666 
Horwill - to the judicial officer, Nigel Hampton, who ruled Horwill was trying to regain his feet, not stamp - You are a ****ing idiot.

wonder who will replace POC? Parling or Evans judging by who is playing tuesday.