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Joined October 2016
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Kiwi, Hawke\'s Bay Magpies supporter. Chur.
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If you’d asked me about my opinion on the ABs defensive lines placement maybe you could put those words in my mouth. I may have said it elsewhere, but just to address your presumptions i’ll repeat that the referee’s policing of the offside line was appalling all tour.
Note there’s no mention of teams, players or jersey colours in that statement.
However, i’ll also state that being offside is more beneficial to a rush defence which is trying to prevent the ball from going wide than it is to the the style of defence that the ABs employ. The ABs were able to get up quick & drop the Lions big ball runners behind the gain line, but all the Lions had to do to counter that was pass the ball.
The Wrap: Lions draw series, is rugby’s power shift north on?
You misunderstand, i’m talking about a defender (or two) 3-4 players out from the ruck in the defensive line.
And yes, at most breakdowns & yes half a yard or more.
The Wrap: Lions draw series, is rugby’s power shift north on?
I’ll continue to argue that if the off-side line had been policed, and if the referee’s had stopped the Lions (often Vunipola) sitting down for a break every couple of minutes before a scrum or line-out that the rush defence would not be so effective.
The Wrap: Lions draw series, is rugby’s power shift north on?
Yeah and the nucleus of that team was the one that got bombed in the quarter-final 2 years later.
The Wrap: Lions draw series, is rugby’s power shift north on?
I’ve heard that excuse about only coming together just before the tour a lot. Well, the ABs had similar or less preparation time for the series – and Gatland was given a hell of a lot of time off from his actual job to compensate so I kinda don’t buy it.
The Wrap: Lions draw series, is rugby’s power shift north on?
Ahaha, nevermind the fact that if Read was offside & they called it, that’d be one of only a handful of times they bothered to police the off-side line the entire tour.
I contend that a major reason the Lions were able to compete as well as they did was because their defence was extremely effective. But, from what I could see a lot of that effectiveness could be put down to being half a yard or more offside 3-4 players out from the ruck at most breakdowns.
Now, they sure as heck looked offside a hell of a lot, but given the referee rarely blew them up for it, you can only conclude that like Read they were actually onside.
The Wrap: Lions draw series, is rugby’s power shift north on?
“… it seems to me there is a different set of rules at work at test level to the Super series..”
Well…. Yeah.
You might have noticed that during Super rugby its all SA, NZ & Aus referees, only some of which are in the elite Test referees bracket. Then during the Rugby Championship there are more NH referees involved. NH referees often rule on things differently to SH; in fact from country to country there are major style differences.
But all teams have to live with that; so its nothing that the IRB are doing to the Wallabies, its the Wallabies failing to adapt & thus doing it to themselves.
Rogue Cheika tarnishes the Wallabies once again
Ahahah, yeah – im one of the few people that have re-watched that game after time to calm down & view dispassionately. I’ve also read some very interesting statistical breakdowns of the game so I have a very strong opinion of what I consider the truth of what happened during that game. Suffice to stay that re-instating Henry, Hanson & Smith was, I consider, the only just option the NZRU had.
The Wrap: Lions draw series, is rugby’s power shift north on?