Wallabies DIY player ratings from the second Pumas Test: The results

Totally agree Tony. Marika and Kellaway are not cut from the same cloth.

There are many aspects to BPA's game that I like. He is very busy around the park in general play. His accuracy in that activity is not as consistent as it needs to be. His scrummaging is good and is obviously better when his tight side is being held up by his Red's colleague. His lineout work is not as consistent as it needs to be. In general, I think 2 is our least settled position and definitely our poorest quality of options. None of those given a chance have owned it. I feel like the whole front row is not settled. In my mind Nella is the definite tight head starter. For a long time I have felt that AAA is not the right player for the 3 jersey. I agree with Nick Bishop that AAA could very well be an excellent loose head. Bell is too young yet, so my opinion is reserved and I don't think he should be playing test rugby. I would start Slipper and Nella every test as this is our best pairing. Robertson is the size of a school boy 1st XV prop. Actually he is probably too small for that also so I strongly disagree with Rennie having him in the squad.

Mostly agree Rob, but I wouldn't say that Marika could slot into 15 - and I wouldn't want him too

The chaos at the end of the game was in a large part down to Gordron not marshalling his forwards correctly, being slow to rucks, and passing like he was a fat armchair critic from The Roar.

Yet ANOTHER Career ruined by Cheika.

Mr Strategist, What category do you put the dropped BPA in?

Thanks, it had to be said.

Super Rugby is what made Quade. That and a good coach.

Super didn’t do much for Quade this season

We’ve seen from Super Rugby what Gordon can do. Now he needs to do it with less time and space at Test level where he’s had fairly limited opportunities so far.

Coleman - a career destroyed by Cheika. Ordered to be an enforcer when that was not his natural game and he's been written off by those half dozen showings. A decent coach and he'll step up to the right level.

Yeah PS but Swain may get there. He's young enough to improve and like Banks has some nice tools but as you say like Banks he's not there yet. Hodge / Kellaway are more valuable at 15 than Banks for mine. I reckon a fit Adam Coleman under Rennie rather than Cheika would have been excellent. All that mongrel and second efforts with less penalties.

Jake Gordon has been with the tahs for 7 years, how long will it take him to learn how to pass?

I think it would be interesting to see the Roar Experts give their own personal ratings (evaluated before other Roarers public ratings, AND published AFTER the Roarers one) to add Experts perspective. Just a thought.

JC, it's not just his pass. Its using up the available time with his skips and a few steps so cuttings down the time available to the receiver to make his play.

Yeah, a good question to ask is whether another winger wouldn't have scored those three tries. Kellaway is a good player in career-best form but a hat trick doesn't necessarily grant MoM status

I continue to note a significant difference between marks allocated to our forwards and backs. And yet we have bested a Bok and Argie pack that both rate very highly. The best try of the game was essentially made by the forwards and handed to Kellaway. Ignoring the bench scores because I think they are incorrectly marked lower, the average forward score was 6.62 (propped up by high scores for Hooper and Valentini) and the average back score was 7.10 (way lower due to the inexplicable low marking for Petaia and, more understandably, Hodge). I'm pretty sure the backs are scoring well because the forwards are doing their jobs well. And yet the scores don't reflect that at all. Are we predisposed to think our tight 5 are average unless it's Tupou having an occasional blinder? Rodda scored 6.12 and worked the pants of every other lock on the field And I think we need to reset expectations of how we score the bench. Bell has been outstanding in every match with his core tight skills and the other nice to have stuff (his passing and catching skills are so much better but way less showy than Tupou) and yet consistently scores < 6.

100 + test lock Rob Simmons was often criticised by those who couldn't count player involvements.

John Roe and Dempsey classic what you are banging on about. One doesn’t really understand the game unless you are watching it live , as you say Rodda may have been a bigger part of it , a bit like Kiwi props you almost never see them. But they’re there!

There are 2 ways you can watch a game of rugby. The first is you watch the ball and enjoy the spectacle. The second is you watch beyond the ball and you enjoy the game. Player ratings are very much dictated by how you watch the game. Most people would and have suggested that Cooper for example is poor in defense. If you watch beyond the ball you would see the work that Cooper does to always position himself as first back in the line outside the forwards in the direction the play is going. He is doing this to make sure they don't get caught out with a back against a forward. If they are lined up like this he is pushing the forwards back across to make sure they are not marked up on backs. If your only watching the ball your not seeing this happen. The same can be said for some players who are getting high ratings because they know when to pop up around the ball to collect the accolades. But you watch them off the ball and you realise that they are not doing much effective stuff the rest of the time. A month back a lot of people were saying we should persist with Lolo and that with time he will come good. But if you watched him off the ball you could see how hopelessly lost he was and how little he contributes to the management of the game. He will occasionally do something flashy but the team will consistently be poor when he is at 10. A few have commented that Rodda didn't get the rating he deserved. I agree. Because of the game management of Cooper and the punch through the line that players like Kerevi, Valentini, Ikitau, Nella etc are generating we think great we have gain line ball and are going forward. But it is guys like Rodda who through their work in the ruck, timing, physicality and just simple skill and accuracy that gain line ball is being maintained and a platform laid to launch the next phase at a pace that makes the next gain line easy to achieve. Rugby is such a great sport that is complex and full of interesting rabbit holes you can go down in your pursuit of understanding what makes a team great.