Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

Because this year the autumn internationals ended in a bit of a mess, with two games played after the end of the official test window, I’m going to stop and quickly give my opinion of the state of the teams after the whole run of matches. Note that not everyone played the same number of games, so I’m going to give their record too. France. W3 L0 100%. A very rusty France relied on their winning habit to beat Australia, then relatively comfortably beat South Africa and finished at the canter with a nice victory over Japan at the latter's RWC base. France unbeaten this year, beaten all the other top ten sides since last year’s AIS and built some depth. Injuries could still rob them of lifting the cup, but they look like the favourites for next year. Georgia W1 L0 100%. Like a lot of tier two sides, Georgia only get one or two games but what a game. Wales looked clueless in the second half, Georgia pounced and a famous upset. Georgia have both Wales and Australia in their pool for th...

Before we dive in, during the matches the sad news of the death of Dodie Weir from MND was announced. While we’ve known it’s coming, and he looked really frail a few weeks ago when he came onto the pitch before the Scotland v New Zealand match, he battled to the end, raising millions for research into MND and always with a smile. A great man and the world is diminished without him. On to the rugby. Only two matches both on 26/11 Wales v Australia If I’d written this report immediately, I would have had to have tagged this blog for adult content given the amount of swearing. I’m still wondering how Wales lost, even being down to 13 for basically the last 15 minutes, but we did. However, we still scored the most points ever against Australia, we were pretty good at converting our chances and until losing two players we were doing well at closing down the Australians in all aspects of the game. Although Wales didn’t have as many injuries as Australia, between injuries and players un...

19/11 Wales v Georgia This match really lives up to a couple of sporting cliches. One is that you must take your chances, which Georgia did better than Wales. The other is that this really was a game of two halves. In the first half, Wales really created three, possibly four, depending on how you count them try scoring opportunities and scored two tries, plus one chalked off for a forward pass. (The fourth possibility was a chance that was created, Georgia turned the ball over and cleared, but not far, then Wales scored basically straight away - to my mind that was long continuous period of pressure and so one long chance.) They weren’t perfect but they were good and Georgia were doing a lot right for a few phases on both sides of the ball but Wales could extend it past that and Les Lolos lost their shape more and more. That was fine, and Wales should have kicked on after the break. What actually happened was that Wales created exactly one scoring opportunity and were again (absolu...

12/11 Italy v Australia What is there to say about this match? Australia seemed to take it for granted that they’d win and made a bucket full of changes that, in essence, put their B-team out. This seemed foolish in light of Italy having the tenacity to beat Wales at home in March and the nous and physicality to demolish Samoa last week. So it proved. Italy played with gusto, skill, flair but also an abrasive edge. On the other hand, with so many changes, Australia looked sloppier than normal, although many of the same errors were still there , suggesting they’re coached system errors. If the Italian kickers had their boots on - between them they missed 14 points, a lot of which were easy - this would have been comfortable. You also have to wonder what might have been if Garbisi had been fit. Apart from his kicking I don’t think Allan had a bad game, but Garbisi is just at another level in running the attack. Because Italy couldn’t pull away Australia pulled to within one point wit...

Again in the order I saw them, rather than the order they were played. New Zealand v England This was an odd game. We very much had two contrasting styles, England played a power game while NZ played a speed and width game. While we don’t know for sure - the card came about because of a desperate attempt to close down a break out wide - once England lost a player to an absolutely clear RC then the two sides really couldn’t effectively stop their opponents. It meant mistakes in attack were the main thing that slowed down the Black Ferns's scoring, and there were enough to matter, but they spent enough time deep in England territory that England got few chances to score too - they only got a chance if NZ made a mistake soon after scoring and the restart. Sometimes when you have matches of two different styles they blend like eggs and oil, and you get a fine mayonnaise. This was more like oil and water, the two obviously interacted but the mix never quite came together into more tha...

29/10 Scotland v Australia The final score shows an Australian victory but most of the Aussies I know don’t regard it that way, it’s more of a Scottish loss - an easy last minute penalty kick that went awry that meant they lost - rather than the Wallabies winning. Is that fair? Probably not entirely. However, when you stop and look, the list of things Australia did well is short - they largely kept Scotland to their own half, their own 22 even, especially in the first half. That’s it. In attack they looked ok for a couple of phases then, all too often, gave up a penalty or a more traditional turnover and the attack came to nothing. While their defence was strong enough to pin Scotland back, it was helped by the wind, and the fact that they were deep encouraging them to kick early in the phase count. The change of ends and the inability of the Wallabies to keep Scotland pinned back in the second half was telling. Scotland were not great either, but they were missing a bucket-load of...

Given the times, I didn’t watch these matches live, and I didn’t watch them all. When England rack up a record score in all games, I’m not going to spend a couple of hours watching that, sorry Fiji. France v SA. The Bok Women are not the force that he Bok men are. The French women are the force that their men are. Next month the men will clash and it will be fascinating. This match, however, only really had one winner, and Les Bleues duly obliged. 40-5 to France. They really never looked troubled. England v Fiji England are racking up points (14 tries) and extending their win streak record for fun at the moment. Next week they play the only team that has pushed them in recent years, France. Allez les Bleues. Unlike France who looked serene throughout, Fiji took it to England in the first half, then ran out of puff. England scored 10 tries to 0 in the second period and it ended up 84-19. NZ v Australia This was the closest match on paper and on the day. In the first half hour, t...

I sat down to start picking my team of the tournament and quickly ran into a problem. I normally pick units, front row, second row etc, and aim for players that have started most of their games. So we start at the front row and straight away we have a problem because there just isn’t a dominant, starting front row like that. Not including Marx feels crazy but he only started half the games, he came off the bench for the other half. Can I break the rules to pick him? Even if I do, which of the multitude of props he played with do I pick? Montoya and Gallo from Argentina were both consistently great, their other prop a nebbish. De Groot and Taukei'aho for the AB were pretty consistent and while Lomax wasn’t in the same class as Kitshoff or Gallo he would make up a decent front row. But then I’m not picking Marx… Likewise, Am was brilliant and selected in the 13 jersey four times. Thanks to being injured, he missed two games and because of an injury to someone else he played 70+ minut...

While last week had some meta-commentary, this week not so much. Let’s dive straight in, and then finish up with some reflections on the whole of the championship. NZ v Australia This match ended up 40-14 and, honestly, the Wallabies were lucky to a) score both their tries and b) lucky not to have conceded about three more than the five they did. They can also count themselves lucky that Brace only saw a tip tackle when Holloway took Papalli to an inverted vertical and then dropped him as a Yellow Card only in the second minute. I’ve certainly seen Red Cards given for them - and it wouldn’t surprise me if the citing commissioner looks at that incident. Although there was a lot of pressure, the Australian defence held throughout this ten minutes - I think a YC after two minutes is perhaps easier to defend just because everyone is fresh, although the AB came really close (like an unlucky bounce of the ball close) on a couple of occasions. They did rack up 10 points rapidly after Hollow...

When I write my reviews of the Six Nations I normally do a happy coaches section because with the different development stages and injury states a loss is not necessarily a disaster and a close win against some sides is not necessarily good news. In The Rugby Championship I don’t bother so much because it’s typically the case that a win is good news, a loss is bad news. This week though, all four coaches should have frowns. Those that lost will be deeper, probably, but there are serious issues for all the coaches to look at. Rather than spoil the reports, let’s dive in. Australia v NZ This is a match that Australian fans will feel, in my opinion wrongly, the referee stole from them. More on that in a minute. At about the 60 minute mark the All Blacks were 31-13 ahead and it looked like cruise control for a win, probably a big win. Then the Wallabies clawed their way to a lead, somehow. This is why Foster will be unhappy, how did the All Blacks let that comfortable lead slip? With ab...

Quick Summary This week saw the AB and SA trying to bounce back from bad defeats (from their perspective) last week and both matches played in pretty heavy rain. How would that affect the outcomes? NZ v Argentina The answer in Hamilton was that the rain would affect the sides incredibly unequally. If you watch the whole match, to a lesser extent even just the highlights, and watch Los Pumas you’d believe they were playing in the kind of weather that you can see spotting water on the camera lens and falling from the sky. They dropped a lot of passes, threw a lot of loose ball and, in essence, threw the game away. It might be almost a cliché that the AB thrive on turnover ball, but it’s not just lazy commentary, they still seem strike efficiently from anywhere on counterattack ball - part of their woes this year have been that teams have worked hard to avoid giving it to them and stifling any other form of attack. On the other side of the ball, if you watch the All Blacks, you would a...

Australia v SA This week started with Australia hosting South Africa in Adelaide, a city that rarely sees rugby, let alone test rugby. RA couldn’t find anyone to promote the game and go to Adelaide, while several current and recent players (who are free agents of course) went to Melbourne to promote an NBA game that was being played there. And then people wonder why their TV deal is worth about 1/3 of the NZRU’s TV deal… Although you might expect this to be a walkover for the Boks, their recent record in Australia is dismal, they haven’t won there for nearly a decade. This match was no change to recent form, despite the bookies and the experts predictions. In fact, until late in the game the Wallabies held the Boks to only three points, their try in the couple of minutes made the scoreline look close and that is not really a good indicator of how one-sided the game was. It is an indicator that the Wallabies subs were a long way off the pace, which we saw in their last match too, an...

I didn’t write a review after week one because I was frustrated by one match and didn’t get a chance to properly watch the other. It made for a very terse review. But time heals some frustration and the contrasts between weeks 1 and 2 makes for an interesting story. So here we go. Rather than week 1, week 2, I’m doing the two matchups over both weekends. South Africa v New Zealand In week one, SA kicked and tackled the life out of NZ, strangling their attack, running riot at the breakdown and winning every aerial battle (except one, which saw a horrific mid-air collision and a red card). There were a few moments where SA pulled a fingertip tackle or similar out of the bag and stifled a possible fight back but there were far, far more occasions when the ref found a reason to whistle, usually the wrong way (IMO) and stifle any momentum the ABs were starting to build. At one point the penalty count was 5-0 and of those one penalty just shouldn’t have been given (he should have caused us...