Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

We’re back to the men and women playing, plus the Top 14 starting but I won’t be reviewing that. Argentina are in Australia, South Africa in New Zealand. At the WRWC we largely have the top two teams in the pools playing off for bragging rights, in Pool A, USA are still in contention. Because Argentina v Australia was an afternoon kickoff, their time, so still in the dark my time, I’m starting with second match. TRC New Zealand v New Zealand At half time it was 14-3 to the AB and that might suggest the game was dull. That’s not what happened. This was a game where the Kiwis have worked out how to disrupt the Bokke machine and applied themselves to doing that. They’ve made everything except the scrum look very ordinary and they’ve taken a scrum penalty too, although they conceded a couple, but it’s far from complete dominance there. As an example of how badly the AB are disrupting the Bokke, there was a penalty when, ok, Pollard was a certain three points, which he delivered, but th...

Rather than splitting these up into separate reviews, I’m just going to review all the games in one huge list. One thing that is going to crop up in my reviews of the WRWC is talking about different groups of teams. Right at the top we have England, who are red hot favourites to win it all, being undefeated since the last final. Then there’s a second group, consisting of Canada, France and New Zealand who are the likely semi finalists. They may not all make it, but they’re the most likely contenders. They could beat England in the final, but it relies on quite a bit of luck. Then there’s a third tier that is too large to all fit into the quarterfinals but who are competing for that, and for some a chance at a semifinal. This group includes Australia, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, USA and Wales. With the exception of Canada, all of these nations have some sort of professional national team and may have a professional league as well. Under this there is a group of also rans, minnows if you ...

This year’s Rugby Championship starts with back-to-back matches in South Africa and Argentina, with the Wallabies and All Blacks visiting respectively. Smart money would suggest that the Bokke and the ABs should win both matches, the Bokke a bit more comfortably being at home. South Africa v Australia For the first 25 minutes, the Bokke looked unplayable. They roared out to a 22-0 lead and everything they did looked brilliant, everything the Australians attempted looked lacklustre, more a case of green behind the ears and fool's gold than pride in the G&G jersey. Even after Australia scored, making it 22-5 after 28 minutes, and until half-time, it felt like the Wallabies were having a good 15 minutes but the Bokke would regroup and kick on in the second half. That didn’t happen. The substitutes didn’t improve things for the Bokke either, the Wallabies defence was massive, their attack was potent, and whilst they had some luck: two intercept tries - good defensive pressure but...

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...