Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

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...