VOTE: DIY Wallabies player ratings vs the All Blacks - Bledisloe 1

Definitely too harsh, you are right. I wonder too whether some of those TOs were cause Rennie was wanting all his forwards to be active as ball runners. And prioritizing that. The only forwards who didn't ddo much of that were Hooper and FF. Hooper definitely pulled his weight otherwise though

If disagree it's only very marginally then, Peter. :thumbup: on rewatching the first half I did wonder a bit where Aaron Smith was defensively. Not often he's outplayed. But White does sta'dout even more on the re-watch.

I hope for next week the Wallabies make some changes. The coach has been on the record saying he will reward players in form. He needs to do that. There must of been a number of close calls in terms of selection and I would honestly like to see those guys that just missed out given the chance. Reward everyones SR season, and not just the first team picked based on one result. That being said I'd like to see Irae Simone come in, he must of been the best 12 in SR, but misses out to a guy that played 10, and was probably only the 3rd (maybe 4th best 10) in the comp. Along with Tom Wright for Koroibete, we know what he has to offer, give someone else a run to see what they bring to the party. In the forwards a change in Hooker, and AAA in for TT. There are other guys that this is also the case for, give them a run, but not at the expense of someone with less than 10 caps that played well.

I gave Uelese an 8. Why? 11 tackles made in the 20 odd minutes he had with no misses. He was especially prominent in shutting down on the gaol line at the death. One line out throw was fine. scrums went a bit awry once the front row changed - but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt as who knows whose fault that was

Still. Only. One. Example. I'm not defending the penalty. But its ridiculous to say someone had a good or bad game on the basis of one error. There were 20 penalties in the game, multiple of which led to points. Why is this one sacrilege?

In 10 minutes on the pitch, he gave away a schoolboy penalty which gave away our lead. This is magnified by the game situation. I'm not sure how, or why, you can defend that. Your comparison to Banks isn't remotely equal.

No I wouldn't say the winger had a shocker, I'd say he dropped one ball. If you judge a players performance by one mistake then you are gonna be disappointed with most of the team. Did Banks have a shocker? He didn't find touch which resulted in the first try... He also carried 15 times for 50+ meters and diffused the ABs kicking game, but he made one mistake so by your rules he had a shocker. You and James are yet to point to one other bad thing Simmons did... If he had a 'shocker' surely it was more than one error?

So lets put it another way. If a winger came on with 10 to go, took a highball with no problem but then a few minutes later dropped an easy pass two meters out from an open try line….and if that score would have put us in front with 1 minute to go….I reckon we’d say he had a shocker. Simmons was called to pull out by the ref in a zone and match situation that requires cool heads…he ignored the ref and kept playing for the ball…absolute shocker.

It was noticeable that coach Rennie subbed a tired blindside H.Wilson with the lock R.Simmons rather than a straight swap with R.Valentini. Obviously this was to repair the lineout bleeding of possession. Once Simmons was on, the WB started to seriously contest the AB throws also. In general play (am trying to be nice here), well Simmons was Simmons and gets a rotten tomato. But he fixed the lineouts so I gave him an addition 3 points to a total of 5. The RA website gave F.Daugunu a 10 and N.White a 9.5 while JOC got an 8. I disagree there, JOC got a 9 from me. He was a menace to the AB defence, kicked well in open play and refused to allow ABs to slide past him. At times M.Toomua was at 1st receiver but often kicked behind the AB line to keep them honest. Daugunu got an 8½ as his early forays with H.Wilson down the rhs had some AB fans (and their players) gasping in shock. N.White got a 8, he did his designated job very well. H.Paisami was quite good although I noticed he shot out and hit R.Mounga a mite late at least once. Paisami likely will now be Man of Glass J.Petaia's backup but you would have to keep R.Hodge as bench all-purpose reserve. If Petaia is fully fit, bring him on, otherwise keep Paisami. I can only see two swaps for Auckland's match. (a) P.Samu out and start N.Hannigan at #6 and move H.Wilson to #8. Keep R.Valentini as reserve backrower. Ned played a very good SR2020 as a lock, I don't consider him as an international class lock but at #6 and LO merchant he is very effective. This beefs up the lineouts, mauls and scrums while my view is NedH and PeteS are about the same in ruck cleanouts. Samu is a better breakdown jackal out wide but his job in the WB set-up is closer to the middle. (b) R.Simmons replaced on the bench by a better lock in T.Hosea, the future with a HUGE motor. To be honest I'm still in a state of shock that C.Neville (and in a lesser degree A.Blyth) missed out of the WB squad. Either would be mighty handy now. Neville is a beast in mauls.

You tell me, you were the one who made up your mind on how poor he played despite presenting next to zero evidence.

Easily the best in my view. I have sympathy for Christian Leileifano as he was cruelly prevented from realising his full potential through his illness before he was given his opportunity as for Foley he was good but never great. He had his moments but way to far and few between for an international 10

1-1?

No not sticking with it but with developing it. If a player tough drops in form or doesn't develop his weak areas then he too gets dropped. I would not stick with a player just for cohesion. If they don't perform or develop get another player who will. Sticking for the sake of it means complacency sets in.

PeterK, Rennie especially said pre-game that defence against the AB's was the key factor in winning. On that charge alone, Toomua at 12 was a success. He is a smart footballer, he just needs a decent go. He has been stuffed around for years with inconsistent selection and game-time. I think he is valuable, but we also need to be blooding in the next crop of players too so he may only have 1-2 years left in him at this level.

PK riddled throughout your comment is the idea of picking a good team, and sticking with it. Sounds like cohesion to me. I have never said that Rennie should have picked a high cohesion team btw, I said it is a good indicator of successful/non successful teams. I think Rennie should have largely picked the team/squad he did. My point would be now to STICK with it for the next 2+ years with the smart intro of the likes of Lolesio etc over time. I'll also note that much of the WBs threats in attack included JOC, Paisami, Daugunu, Wilson and even Thor linking up together on the fly. Note that NZ also played poorly, which could be down to the lack of combinations and cohesion relative to their usual 15. It'll be interesting to see if they revert to ALB at 12, Goodhue 13 and BB at 15 and whether or not they improve.

once again I have never said cohesion doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t improve the team. I say it is over rated. Wllabies had only 1 combination, ONE, slipper and faingaa that had played together. Yet they still played very well. Of course there is room for improvement. But what this game should show and obviously DR also thinks so is that cohesion is not the be all. He seems to follow what I think that you select the best players to be able to execute the game plan AND then you develop them rather than select for cohesion. Coehsion will improve naturally as time goes on, lack of talent doesn’t improve. Pick a team for cohesion but limited talent it has little upside. Pick a team for talent but little cohesion you can really improve the cohesion so it has a lot of upside but starts off at a good level, the end product will be better than the other way around.

So that was it, one penalty was his only error? Simmons played poor because he made ONE mistake. What about when he regathered the kick restart to give the WBs a chance to win it?

OOP I think you're right and wrong. I agree the WBs were better at the breakdown then they have been, but they turned the ball over via penalties (almost all at the b/down) something like double the rate of the kiwis. So, either the WBs need to contest more defensively, or secure ruck better in attack.

Obviously the cleanout/support should improve. But, another issue I noticed was how the ball carrier presented the ball and played it on the ground. I think they could've done better to avoid the jackal and/or get the ball to present to White better. Multiple times WBs turned the ball over due to it being fumbled at the base. Need to work on how tacklers fall and position themselves on the ground, or just fight that second longer to stay on their feet.

Yeah if he was 120kg he'd be in prison for putting blokes in the morgue! His 'lack' of size definitely isn't an issue, he has power in spades and that's all that matters. He played very well, I would just like to see his ball skills improve a little to make him more dynamic.