Peter, one thing to note is that we only gave away 6 penalties which seems about half of what we normally do. That’s (at least partially) a result of the reduced ruck presence. Still I’d like to see Timani get a run at 6 for some in-tight running and body shifting.

But TWAS that doesn’t conveniently support the narrative most are pushing!

Melbourne has a decent (and growing) rugby scene while league is essentially nonexistent outside of the blokes wearing purple.

And outsiders love painting an unfavourable picture and sterotyping wherever possible to make themselves feel better…

Come on, Piru. You’re better than that. It’s like saying everyone from Perth works in the mines, has a drug habit and holidays in Bali… it’s far from the truth but I can say it just as easily as any of the Melbourne hipster/faux-sport-fan/elitist B-S vitriol that gets tossed around…

The Rebels development programs are actually going pretty well, it’s the top level that’s struggling. There’s a healthy number of the Vic boys in the Aus U20s and several who aren’t there because they’ve been playing with the Rebels due to half the squad being unavailable most of the time. The Vic U20s beat NSW then lost in the final to QLD last year. These are all the players who’ve gone through the spent time in the juniors/school/club pathways/development programs post the Rebels inception when the resources dramatically improved. Playing numbers have doubled since 2011 including a 38% increase from ’15 to ’16. I think there’s 7 or 8 local kids on the Rebels list now, plus guys who left the system after school like Rob Valetini (Brumbies, Aus U20s), Pete Samu (Crusaders), Tala Gray (France), etc.
The list management (signing backrowers and wingers like its going out of fashion while neglecting locks and inside backs/flyhalfs) plus Rebels S&C and a stack of unlucky injuries (McMahon, Toolis, Shipperley, Jeffries, etc etc) has all compounded into a torrid season for the top Melbourne team. Everything underneath is going pretty well.

145,000 people paid big money to go see the soccer that weekend. Brazil and Argentina (and the Socceroos to a lesser extent) apparently have a fair bit of interest in them in case you didn’t notice…

Rebellion, you can add that the scheduling and advertising was terrible. None of my non-rugby mates even new about it happening. These are the same group of people that will get around a TV screen at a pub to watch nearly every Wallabies test (in normal viewing hours… not the overseas 2am ones).

A long weekend isn’t ideal as typically a lot of people go away for the weekend.

Other sporting events surrounding the test:
Friday: Brazil vs Argentina MCG 96k
Saturday: Hawthorn GCS MCG 27k
Wallabies vs Fiji AAMI 13k
Essendon vs Port Adelaide Etihad 34k
Sunday: Carlton vs GWS Etihad 24k
Monday: Queens Birthday/Freeze MND clash Collingwood vs Melbourne MCG 70k
Tuesday: Australia vs Brazil 49k

Not great attendances for the AFL matches but the soccer was huge and drew a lot of the ‘general sports fans’. I’m sure quite a few crossed the rugby off their list after paying big dollars to go to one or both of the soccer matches, not to mention the Queens Birthday match is always pretty big. Some 313,000 punters attended games over a long weekend including 2 other international games and one of the big H&A AFL clashes and the ARU thought that running in with minimal advertising in an area where they have done everything possible to upset the local diehard rugby supporters would somehow achieve a decent attendance…. great job, Billy.

Yeah, got to agree with you Peter. Otherwise why not just pick the Rebels for Melbourne, Tahs for Sydney and the Reds for the Brisbane test. I don’t care what team they play for, it’s a national side.

CB2, we definitely agree on the common stats situation as there are so many aspects of the game not covered by the usual ones we’re privy too. It’s the same with the footy; Champion Data compiles an incredible amount of information that they don’t share with the public. You can buy a subscription to their services and that gets you the nitty gritty stuff like ‘pressure acts’, ‘metres gained assists’, and the huge level of detail where they rate a disposal/possession on contested/uncontested, long/medium/short/sideways/backwards distance, effective/non-effective and so on and so forth. I reckon there’s the equivalent for rugby out there, maybe Opta goes into that level of detail. However short of that the best we can do is watch the game and combine that with the readily available Vodacom (or similar) numbers and then occasionally we get access to the great work ForceFan does with his ruck analysis.

Everything is going to be subjective to a degree, even tries scored comes down to some subjective aspects from the guy holding the whistle at the time. At the same time it’s really hard to discuss the game without any use of them because otherwise you’re pretty much comparing ‘gut feel’ to ‘gut feel’ with no concrete data to back any claims.

On the ‘messy’ turnover ball, sometimes you’ve got to look at the players around him. Perhaps George gets his hands on it and disrupts the ball a bit but it was Tui (as an example) who was then one who clean ripped it out of the pile of bodies afterwards… they might have decided that he was the one that actually got the turnover, not Smith. As I mentioned earlier, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a company out there doing high quality stuff with ruck involvements and other kinds of ‘pressure acts’ (slowing the ball in the ruck, disrupting a maul, sacking a lineout, etc) that we don’t in the off the shelf stats packages.

Yeah, Peter. I posted that before the bench was named and put the full team down the bottom of this thread as soon as it was named

Bakkies, I get what you’re saying in that you like a 7 to play tighter but you have to admit, for a bloke who doesn’t win turnovers as you suggest he certainly seems to have a lot next to his name on the stat sheet… more than anyone else in Super Rugby for that matter. And he’s the second rated dominant tackler in the comp, which certainly helps arrest a teams momentum and slow the ball down as the attacking player is driven backwards in contact.

FULL TEAM ANNOUNCED. 4 debutantes, no Timani.

1 Robertson
2 Polota-Nau
3 Ala’alatoa
4 Carter
5 Coleman
6 Hanigan*
7 Hooper (c)
8 Higginbotham
9 Genia
10 Foley
11 Speight
12 Hunt*
13 Kuridrani
14 Haylett-Petty
15 Folau
16 Moore
17 Smith
18 Kepu
19 Arnold
20 Hardwick*
21 Powell*
22 Cooper
23 Hodge

Naisarani isn’t eligible for another 12-18 months so just forget about him for a while and let him continue to progress and improve. Then we’ll start talking about the big fella…

Meakes should be in there now ahead of Horne. If it needs to be a designated 13, English or Rona.

I’m ok with Hardwick being in the squad but I think Fainga’a or Alcock could have got a shot ahead of him as well as Fardy instead of Dempsey. Two 6s, 7s and 8s (plus Timani can play 6 with Higgers at 8). Pretty good spread in body types, and all currently fit…

I hope it’s not Horne. The only thing justifying his spot in the squad is that he knows the Wallaby systems and plays. He should purely be a backup 13 if Kuridrani gets injured and will miss tests, not on the bench. Would much rather any of Hodge, Naivalu and probably even Koroibete ahead of Horne in the 23 jumper (not to mention the other unlucky centre candidates like Rona, English, Meakes, etc).

I suspect there’s a couple under that cloud that Cheika may have had locked in the 23 so he’s waiting to see how it all transpires…

Paul D, as noted the big missing component from all these stats is ruck involvement. Unless ForceFan is going to chime in with some of his numbers that he generates (because none of the freely available stats sources seem to do that) we’ll have to go without. Timani’s minutes are low due to suspension and injury where he missed full games for the most part. If you multiply Timani’s stats to match Hanigan for minutes this is what we get.

Timani* / Hanigan
carries: 100.2 / 51
line breaks: 0 / 6
offloads: 6.3 / 3
tackle breaks: 0 / 6
TC’s: 10.4 / 5
TW: 2.1 / 2
tackles made: 91.9 / 84
tackle miss: 4.2 / 8
handle errors: 27.1 / 9
pens: 2.1 / 4
lineout w: 6.3 / 28
lineout s: 0 / 1

Carries/Handling Error: 3.7 / 5.7

So the first thing that jumps out is that timani appears to do more work (twice the carries,more tackles inc less misses) while Hanigan is clearly the better lineout target and runner out wide (linebreaks). The staggering thing there is Timani’s handling errors… not sure how much of that is ‘first game back jitters’ when coming back from injury and suspension… although it in reality it is closer when you consider the ration of carries to handling errors (3.7 and 5.7 respectively). Some of that may also be due to the nature of where those carries happen, Timani’s tend to be in tight while Hanigan’s are generally out a bit wider.

Anyway… food for thought. I think Carter, Coleman and Higgers are good enough lineout targets to have Timani at 6 given the extra grunt he adds and Hanigan may have been a better bench option to come on when the game is a little looser towards the end.

Peter, I’m sort of going to echo Fionn here. I reckon the changes you’ve suggested are going to be how the team finishes the game; Arnold and Timani coming on for Carter and Hanigan (in addition to full front row replacements).
Starting pack:
Robertson, Polota-Nau, Ala’alatoa, Carter, Coleman, Hanigan, Hooper, Higginbotham
Finishing pack:
Smith, Latu/Moore, Kepu, Arnold, Coleman, Timani, Hooper, Higginbotham
Probably around 910kg to start and 930kg to finish with some bruisers to come on.

Nakarawa is amazing. He was one of the highlights of the 2015 RWC.

I’m hoping for something pretty similar, Peter.

Latu, Smith, Kepu, Arnold, Timani, Powell, Cooper, Hodge.

I think 16-19 and 21 and 22 are as good as guaranteed (at least I think 22 should be…) but we may get another surprise at 20 and 23. I thought we might see a bit of at least 3 of the 4 melbourne boys this weekend and at least one of the Sefa and Marika but who knows, maybe they’ll all miss out.

He should get a run off the bench in the first test as I think Coles (and Kaino for that matter) are unavailable. At a guess Squire is the Kaino replacement for that test but who knows, maybe we’ll see Ardie and Cane on the park at the same time!

Arnold to 12 is an odd call…

I reckon it’s been a good 10 years since someone called Hodgson a young gun!

Yep. Expected to be ready for the second test. Hoping Smith kills it on Saturday and then the second test he starts with Sio on the pine. 3rd test the same or reversed if Sio has enough gas in the tank.

There’s 8 players on a bench so you’ll probably have the ones you listed (maybe Moore gets the nod over Latu) and in addition to that Cooper is the reserve 5/8.

The way I’m reading this team is it’s going back to the RWC ‘finishers’ approach.

My guess based on who didn’t get selected in the XV is that the bench is

16. Latu/Moore, 17. Smith, 18. Kepu, 19. Arnold, 20. Timani, 21. Powell, 22. Cooper, 23. Hodge

That’s really looking like they’re picked to have a decent impact. Also means if guys like Robertson and Hanigan are struggling there are capable replacements who can take over at any point in the game in Smith and Timani.