Rugby Union

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Autumn Nations Series - Week 3 (lemmy.nz)

submitted 4 days ago by TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nz to c/rugby@sh.itjust.works

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Just starting an early thread as there's injury news that will impact the weekend.

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[–] Olap@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Playing to the ref is what good teams do tbf. I've seen Scotland get that wrong for years. I missed it sadly, but it sounds like a fine margin game, yet another good episode of the France vs NZ epic :)

[–] TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, if you look at the stats around carries, (188), metres gained (1319), tackles broken/slipped (34) you'd wonder how NZ didn't finish with more points some of which came down to not getting much pay from the referee at times and some strange calls that took momentum off them at crucial points.

But those numbers obscure that Jordan did a lot of long carries from the back straight into heavy shoulders which in the end didn't really help with much. It was clearly a tactic to run instead of kick, but the price was paid where at times both Reece and Jordan were completely gassed and couldn't get to the support line in time (Vaa'i pass to Jordan), or couldn't get back to shutdown the break (Reece just after).

The lethargy showed in some of Reece's kick chases as well where he got up there completely isolated and had no ability to put any pressure on the French kick receipt to an extent that it was pointless him being there & just deprived NZ of a defender. If it was a tactic designed to fatigue the French, well it didn't really work. The ref let scrums take far too long to set which gave plenty of rest and even if the French forwards were getting slower, out wide & in the back field the French were fresher than NZ due to not having run as much.

With the selected team it makes sense to play that way, because Jordan's kicking game isn't great and against the French it would have been too much chance of being picked apart - but that's why Foster picked him at 14 in Internationals where he excels.

Oh well, so far this season Razor has been very stubborn until injury has forced him to change - hopefully a debrief over the summer will see a bit more of a pragmatic approach from his team.