They've won 47 consecutive matches at home, so any win down there is a huge, huge result.
They've won 47 consecutive matches at home, so any win down there is a huge, huge result.
They had fourteen men for an hour, and the Lions are meant to be the best that the combined strength of three leading test nations and Scotland can offer. If you lose the series you lose the series, even if you lose every game; but losing today would have been embarrassing for the sport as a whole.
It was though. You could see the touch judge's arse fall out when the ref said it was a red. The rest of them just stood there and you could see they were thinking "is he really going to do this".Originally Posted by Disco
Fairly sure the TMO wanted Vunipola off in the second half to even it up but Monsieur Le Frog wasn't having any of it.
In fairness though, if you were picking a Southern Hemisphere combined XV, you'd probably just go with the All Blacks, wouldn't you?
The ruthless efficiency of modern professional sides has scuppered the concept of the Lions to a large extent (as it has even more markedly to the Barbarians). Put England against New Zealand today and they (England) would have won comfortably with the man advantage for so long.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/...nd-new-zealand
Incidentally, what's the rule when you knock the ball forward, but before it hits the ground it hits another player's foot? I know when it's you own foot it's not a knock on, but does that hold for another foot as well? I'd always thought not, but Smith did it at the back of a scrum (lost if forward and recovered it off his own player's foot) and no one seemed to bat an eyelid. Is that legit?
I don't disagree that they 'needed' to win today after the sending off, but you can't overstate the achievement of beating New Zealand away in any match. Since 1994, only England (once, at the peak of SIR CLIVE) and the French (once) have actually won in New Zealand coming from the northern hemisphere.
Huge result regardless of circumstance.
I'm sure the TMO was shitting himself as well, kept trying to catch his attention and get it downgraded to yellow, but good old Jerome wasn't having any of it.It was though. You could see the touch judge's arse fall out when the ref said it was a red. The rest of them just stood there and you could see they were thinking "is he really going to do this".
Fairly sure the TMO wanted Vunipola off in the second half to even it up but Monsieur Le Frog wasn't having any of it.
Garces said he thought it was a red pretty much straight off, didn't he?
I thought it sounded like one of the times the TMO mentioned 'red' during the Vunipola one he was talking about his recommendation for a card rather than a shirt colour as well but that might have been my imagination.
Every sensible Kiwi I know have said straight red.
It really is stupid just how much that country depends on rugby in its national psyche. They're probably worse than Indians/cricket, all things considered.
They really are the worst at this stage especially the ones who aren't old enough to remember the late nineties and early 2000's. That lot are so aggressive in their opinions. Kinda like Australians were before 2005.
Hey @Lewis Jamie Acton will now have his own statue outside Lang Park.
His story is that he was checking on him, got told to 'Fuck off', so left him alone. I would consider that believable. And speaking of Lang Park, it was good of the power brokers there to get Ben Hunt a Queensland call-up as some sort of joke/freebie for New South Wales.
Makes no sense at all.
Makes no sense at all.
I like the idea that 'DCE' has been blackballed for what he did to the Gold Coast by a leadership group consisting mostly of salary cap cheats. Grow up, lads. He's the form player in the competition. We should make another England approach.
Utter insanity. The QLD players must absolutely hate him.
Apparently Cooper Cronk and James Maloney really don't like each other. Which could be funny when they're paired in the halves for Australia at the end of the season.
Most accounts seem to paint him as being a bit of a cold fish, which apparently rubs everyone in the game up the wrong way (that and forcing a couple of has-beens out at Manly when he first wanted more money); but that just sounds like code for him being a bit too middle class and/or nice to fit in properly. Feuding with James Maloney though. He seems like the least dislikeable person in the sport. He doesn't even tackle. That's how inoffensive he is.
I reckon DCE will be starting next year.
A man with that name sounds like he should be the village loony, shouting at kangaroos and licking redbacks for larks.
Weirdly, he's probably the most boring man in Australia. You get the feeling he collects paperclips.
And let's be honest, Australia has its share of redback lickers.
If Queensland are losing both of their halves for next year (depending on what Cooper Cronk ends up doing) they might as well jump to Anthony Milford and Ash Taylor and suck up a couple of transition series. In fact, I reckon 'DCE' would actually be worth a go at thirteen whilst their forwards are crap.
All the effort hyping up the third test on Saturday will definitely be worth it once the ABs beat us 42-3.
He has to be there somewhere but don't you reckon his tackling will leave us exposed if packs down at 13? I completely forgot about Ash Taylor which to makes Mitch Pearce's existence even more lol.
They don't have Richie sweeping the sheds keeping them all humble. This is brand knew territory for this New Zealand team.
He's a great defender (twenty-four tackles a game from seven in a team near the top of the league is pretty remarkable), and it would free up Josh McGuire to play prop and get Tim Glasby off the interchange. Imagine him coming round the back on both sides of the ruck against New South Wales' defensively crap centres. Chaos.
That's a great point. I'll be using that next league chat at the dog park.
It's Cameron Munster at six (good idea), Ben Hunt on the bench, and Michael Morgan at centre. That is a bit you wot mate on its own terms, but I'm struggling to think of an obvious replacement. There really isn't much depth in the outside backs there at the moment. You need more islanders.
It's Ben Hunt on the bench that has me fucked. And you are right it's down to us not having a good enough centre which is strange for Queensland.
Cameron Munster was sensational on the weekend. Of course he'd be a Queenslander.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/40497672
This is seriously small time behaviour. Perhaps you should be less shit at the sport, then, lads.
Hogg would probably have made the test squad had he not got injured, who else does he think should be there on merit?
Hogg would probably have started. You could make a somewhat strained argument for one of the Scottish wingers to be in the test squad, but then are they materially better than Daly or Watson that it makes their exclusion an outrage? Hardly.
I don't pay full attention to non-England games unless they promise to actually be really good. But Scotland did come above Wales. Once you get past the few obvious Welshmen are they individually better than the Scots / were the Scots just a better 'unit'?
I don't see that after Hogg you'd have argued for any of them starting but surely you'd have a few more in the squad if Gatland didn't just prefer to pick the players he personally knows where possible?
Is the Pro 12 ready for the Kings and Cheetahs?
There should have been more Scots in the party. They're just out on a limb a bit these days as a rugby nation having been so shit for so long. Plus they only have two teams in the Pro12 or whatever it's called which hampers them.
No, they'll absolutely demolish all of them.
I think the Cheetahs could be top two but the Kings are absolutely dogshit being a race/political sports team.
The state of this kicker.
That was a deeply irritating try to concede. We've been hopeless near the line far too often.
Fortunately so have they. Is it 33-13 without crap execution?
Farm strength on display.
That was the least forward pass today.
Winning with just pens is the dream here.
I swear NZ are offside for everyone of their kick offs.
There is no offside line in Eden Park, they took it out.
Will they break off diplomatic relations with France straight away, or try to pin it on something else?
Getting a bit fucking tense now. And @Disco has it. All the kicks, please.
You're right. I meant more in the series as a whole but yeah, they'd have fucked us today if they hadn't fluffed their lines where they don't usually.
Er, might have to be careful what I've wished for there....
Reply With Quote
