Like this team A LOT. Kickers at 9,10, 12, 15 (be nice to have a left boot in there but beggars cant be choosers).

For me Simmons is miles ahead of Arnold at the moment but he’s not going to develop if he doesn’t play so can live with him starting.

Frisby to start against Scotland (i know they are bogey team but i’d accept a loss or two to give him some time in the driver’s seat). It will be interesting to see if Mick can develop Phipps running/kicking/passing because he does have a big engine. However i see Frisby as having a far more complete game for the long term.

Wouldn’t hate to see SK/KK given another go in the centres at some point, especially if Naivalu proves to be a bust.

Unfortunately we are probably going to lose a couple of spots in the 23 to mumm and phipps.

Green will win!

Who would you take in a combined Oz/Bok side

Boks 1,3-6, 8. 11-14.
Wallas 7 (Pocock), 9,10, 15
Tie for 2

I think the delivery was about as good as the forward platform allowed.

I’ve been looking out for Genia’s Twilight-Gregan impersonation and I thought he has been pretty good at limiting his two-step then pass tendencies of the past.

When it was there it seemed to be as a result of defensive pressure at the breakdown by the AB’s rather than crabbing. In any case I’d still take two steps and a pass that hits a team mate rather than Phipps’ speedy but wild service.

Hear hear.

With Folau at the wing we also have the opportunity to use cross field kicks more often as an offensive weapon.

4 kickers (Genia/Cooper/HP/Hodge) in the backs. Tasty.

Cooper with a couple of good outside runners off his shoulder. Yes please.

A 9 who can snipe and hit people in the chest as they move forward. I’ll take it.

Not sure how good Hodge is at organising the defensive line though – need a backs defensive general in there somewhere (which to me is the biggest loss with giteau out). I guess that’s a question for whoever we put in the backs though.

Off topic – does anyone have any gossip on how Timani is going at training?

i think that Grey pays for Bernie’s inadequacies and the selection. Hard to have a view on the quality of defence if your attack is spluttering and predictable, leading to quick turnover ball to the opposition, plus your defence has to realign with players out of their normal position (HP, Pocock), having to cover the 10/12 channel etc.

huge number of points out of that 25 ppg average are given up off poor offence?

i guess you could argue that Grey needs to focus on transition from defensive realignment after failure of the offence.

Look out! He’s behind you!! and QC returns to NZ as the Pantomime Villain 🙂

Let me start by saying that whatever 1-15 we put on the field it just isnt going to cut the mustard at the moment. AB’s are too big, too fast, too skilled within a shared structure. But lets see what we can do

1-5 i think is just about ok. Not great and we can argue about Ready or TPN for Moore but I dont think that’s the main issue. Only point that i would make here is that we cant put Fardy or Mumm into the engine room of the scrum because it totally depowers scrum and lineout.

9-10 not awesome but the best we have. huge relief at having a half back passing accurately and quickly. Foley would look much better if we are winning the collisions but would like to see him looking for multiple touches in a phase like QC.

6-8 ball winning, collision and line out. Fardy, Pocock, Timani. Timani is the only person that i have out of position but only because my wishful thinking that he is the long term aussie 8.

11-15 defensive leadership, handling, and kicking options. Hodge, Goodwin, Folau, Morahan, HP.

that pretty much gets everyone playing their natural positions.

No room for Kerevi in there but i need a midfield organiser in there and i couldnt see either him or folau doing that job.

My best line out and kicking team:

Sio Moore Kepu
Douglas Simmons
Fardy Timani (8) Pocock(7)
Genia Foley
Gits Folau
Mitch HP Hodge

Slipper
TPN
AAA
Hooper
Coleman
McMahon
AAC
Phipps

Hoops and McMahon probably a bit unbalanced, would have Frisby to grow into it but have to have Phipps. I still have a soft spot for quade but no idea how he’s travelling at the moment.

Would love to find room for Kerevi. With this much kicking in the team might be able to put him in for Gits although you lose a lot of defensive organisation.

I will be amazed if this is not exactly right. Maybe Genia for Phipps to start but i dont know how its looking in training.

same. skipped through roughly 500 comments about the non-event of Cheika/Hansen handbags looking for someone to actually talk about the game. This article is a breath of fresh air.

Anyone got any views on the game itself? I’m really excited about it. Nice to go into a game with a small amount of hope but no expectations. Hard to see us winning any games against either the Boks or NZ but a couple of things that might keep it interesting:

– Pocock healthy. Win/loss is just massively different with him on the park over the last 5 years and i’m not sure it’s coincidence.

– Plenty of time to prepare some variety to the attack – in particular some kicking FFS.

– No real injury list apart from Beale

– Time for the leadership to discuss pulling their head in with the refs.

– Pocock healthy. Alright, i know NZ have shown they can minimise his impact very effectively but that does force a little more predictability into what they are going to do. Of course, knowing where Mike Tyson is going to hit you and stopping yourself getting decked are two different creatures!

– NZ with some newish combinations so potentially a few communication issues but tbh whoever gets picked they will still be crazy potent. Everyone in black no doubt keen to carry on the best traditions and prove that they can be even better without the Departees.

Just praying Oz dont follow Matt Burke’s suggested selection in the SMH as we wont win a line out! Would love to have heard his rationale….

Bring it on!

Agree. Kicking aplenty as follows:

Option 1 Kerevi at 12

9 Frisby
10 Foley
11 Horne/Whoever
12 Kerevi
13 Folau
14 Morahan
15 HP

Option 2 Toomua at 12

9 Frisby
10 Foley
11 Horne/Whoever
12 Toomua
13 Folau
14 Morahan
15 HP

On the basis of this series, which Aus player makes a combined Aus-England 15?

Folau.

In my opinion man for man 1-15 nearly every England player has been superior to his Oz opponent.

If we are individually second best in order to win we need the rub of the green, a leg up from the Ref (which requires great captaincy/team culture/ref management) or a superior gameplan/teamwork.

For us to have an expectation of success we need at least two of the three. What evidence do we have that this is achievable? As frustrating as it is then we may have to face the fact that we are just a pretty average team at the moment and look forward to the guys returning from injury. Seems to be a great opportunity to blood some future prospects.

Do I and my good one yellow and gold eye think Joubert got the decisions wrong? Absolutely.

Do I think the English (in a positive way) and the Aussies (in a negative way) put him in a position to make those decisions and award the rub of the green to the Poms? Absolutely. Appalling captaincy and fractiousness from the WBs, expertly wound up by some excellent trash talking from the men in white. To be fair, I think our sledging in cricket (particularly in the Steve Waugh era) probably won us a few games we deserved to lose so pretty weak to moan about it being done to us. Farrell does an amazing job of getting under the skin with his mouthy gittishness but both he’s backing it up with performance and our guys are losing their heads.

Single playmaker (ie non distributing 12) can probably work if you have someone like Aaron Smith acting as a second playmaker, or the Genia/Cooper combo of 2011. Not advocating a return of those two in particular as they havent been the same since that golden year, but Frisby has the skills of a 10 in addition to a 9 so could that possibly work?

9 Frisby/Genia
10 Foley/Beale
11 Wing 1 (topic for another day – Big Fast Meat 1)
12 Kerevi/Hodge
13 Folau/Kuri
14 Wing 2 (BFM2)
15 HP Sauce/Folau

Yeah, I was surprised last year during the RC that they were keeping it under wraps. I thought they must have been keeping it as a surprise for the RWC and then still (nearly) nothing….

Shame, because a) as a spectacle t’s quite thrilling to see it when it works and b) adds another dimension for the opposition defence to worry about. I’m sure it’s not a high percentage play but if we are coughing up the pill anyway bashing heads against a white wall it’s surely worth a shot.

Massively impressed by the thoughtfulness of the English kicking, both to relieve and build pressure.

Is there a reason we never see cross field kicks to a marauding Folau, ala Roff/Latham/Tiquiri of years gone by? Or is this an outdated/easily defended tactic these days?

Awesome defence by the poms, helped by an undersized WB pack.

slipper binding horrible

oh well, looks like last year was the abberation…

How do you rate Carter and Arnold in the scrum, Nicholas? Front row looks tasty (esp looking forward to TPN coming on) but a little worried about being underpowered in the engine room.

Otherwise Carter’s aerobic conditioning strikes me as better than Horwill’s for getting around the park in a high tempo game.

Given our traditional strength in the area feels really strange hoping to avoid an attritional breakdown battle!

As wallabies fan living in London I shelled out a substantial part of my cash reserves to watch the game live at Twickers and I don’t regret a single penny. AWESOME displays by the Abs and thought they were truly a credit to the game we love. We were under the hammer from the first moment and at half time I thought there was a serious danger of a France scoreline. Great job by the Wallabies to get back into it and walked away from the match feeling no shame by having been soundly beaten by one of the greatest ever teams of rugby or any other sport.

A lot to be proud of and we gave them a bit of a fright, but lets not kid ourselves. It was a 3 try to 2 17 point win regardless of the whatifs. So in the spirit of the way the ABs look at defeats (under the harshest means light) a few items of constructive criticism from watching it live:

• Energy levels. There was a palpable difference in energy levels between the two teams and the ABs just looked stronger, fitter and more enthusiastic about the game from the first minute. I don’t know if there is an actual conditioning advantage or whether it is a function of the respective ease

• Rear guard actions. There were long periods in each of the Wallabies games of having to adopt a fortress mentality. This is fine and made them incredibly tough to break down but they need to switch the mentality to being more predatory and looking to turn defence into attack. Too many times awesome defending leads to a turnover then simply a pressure relieving kick which turns into another attack requiring staunch defence. The darkness do an incredible job of defending with intent – ie looking for the turnover to immediately launch a counterattack. Just defending heroically isn’t enough to win a tournament.

• Speed. We just don’t have enough of it! Watching one of our quicker guys in Beale get hauled in by Nonu was every bit an example to me as watching Pocock try to catch Beauden Barret (which I’d never expect even if he was fresh).

• Rolling maul and scrum. A real positive to come out of the tournament. After watching our guys get pummelled on both over the last 15 years of Autumn internationals it is incredibly exciting to see us genuinely competitive hear. Huge congratulations to the guys for the work put in and I think as long as the effort is maintained this will only get better. Sio will be more comfortable at combating tricks from opponents he is physically dominating (such as keeping his feet when Nel disengaged in the Scotland game)

• Line outs. I think we did the best with what we had but it just wasn’t good enough. A little bit hampered by lack of options but frustrating to have a fantastic rolling maul but a misfiring lineout. We need the new batch of locks to really go to school on this.

• Tactics. The game against Argentina with passes floated over the top of a defence angling in and the second try showed a level of tactical awareness. The second try also showed fantastictactical thinking but I don’t think we would have been capable of producing the tactical gameplan put together to take Pocock out of the game in the final or running France off their feet in the quarters.

• Handling. This is a tough one – in soccer terms its like expecting Vinnie Jones to have the ball skills of Ronaldo but watching the Abs warm up with the locks and props running with the mddle of a line of backs it is reminiscient of the old 70s Dutch Total Football concepts. Awesome to watch. Watching the way Nonu has developed into the total package I cant believe its not a teachable skill. If we can turn our scrum into a weapon we can do anything. The intention is there but the execution still a way off the best (Mr Slipper).

• Kicking. I thought generally our kicking game was ok but will be tested in the absence of Mitchell and Giteau running forward. Overall not bad but equally not to the standard of NZ. Kicking from the T just needs to get better as we cant keep giving 6-12 points to the opposition from missed kickables.

• Selection. The Final. Playing a half fit Folau was a mistake. For a while now we’ve been wanting to structure the attack to get Folau the ball more. In the second half we were able to get him plenty of ball but watching live his hesitation and tentativeness was obvious. Given Beale’s form we shouldn’t have risked him as we had a good alternative.

• Selection. Next year. Cheika has done an awesome job with the squad. From where we were a year ago I cant get over how much we’ve improved and am really proud of the guys. For next year we need to build a group of players that can compete with not just what the Abs are doing now but what they will be able to do in 4 years, which will no doubt be even better.

Size, speed, skills, intelligence. Lets look who has potential to be that and start working with them now.