I remember an interview on canberra radio with (I think) nick white back when the brumbies toppled the Lions when they toured. I believe Fardy was captain that day and white commented that he knew they would win with the speech Fardy gave before they ran back out at halftime. This was a brumbies team that was probably missing 10 or so wallabies players and Fardy lead them to victory over the Lions.
Edit: Peter Kimlin was captain but it was definitely a Fardy speech that was spoken of.

Super rugby should see if they can get a 2 for 1 at the engravers and etch them onto the trophy for 2024 as well. 😛

By the same token every 10 has more opportunities to create try assists. Still comparing apples to oranges though. Tom overall had a good season, it just dropped off at the wrong time.

He does somewhat remind me of young Quade who copped similar criticism from Aus public. Now a lot of that crowd seem to think he is our only hope at 10. I just hope he can mature like Quade has.

I thought the same, very out of character.

That was in the 77th minute, most likely in a test he would play 60-70 minutes then pistol Pete the super sun would enter. Or perhaps a more mobile traditional 7.

Interesting data on turnovers, but to dive deeper I wonder if the day is skewed. On average in a test there may be more turnovers in the last 1/4 than any other 1/4 on average? Turnovers from backs I’d consider an outlier in data and not a reflection of the back row. One of the foketi turnovers was only made possible because of a Samu chase effort to prevent a pass and most likely a try.

Turnovers aside, I wonder how Carrie’s past the advantage line and even post contact meters faired with forward Carrie’s when compared to having hooper/McReight at 7.

What really amazes me about Samu is he looks out on his feet after 20 minutes yet time and time again still makes big plays in the last 10 minutes.

We have enough lock depth to leave swain out I feel. Foley played better than Noah has recently but I’d argue that it was behind a bulkier forward pack going forward more often than what Noah has had to work off.

Samu must stay at 7. He and valentini complement each other well. Just need to get valentini a fellow bash bro at 6. As for Tom Wright, did he actually have a major brain fade this game? I feel they are becoming far less common.

Stopping the clock this often could mean a game goes on for 3 hours. We already have supposed shot clocks for conversion and penalty attempts. TMO or time keeper should be in the refs ear when time lapses. Blow the whistle and other team gets a free kick. Line outs and scrums should have a shot clock (30 seconds?) Once one of the 2 teams has 8 members present. Means the other team has to keep up with the pace that is set. Same goes for the current dilemma. 30 seconds to kick for touch, if you are slow free kick. The problem on Thursday night is that it is at the ref’s discrediting of what is ‘too slow’ if foley took 39 seconds to kick in the 5th minute it would not be blown up. But because 39 seconds is such a large chunk of 90 remaining seconds it does. Make it black and white, 30 seconds or turn it over.

Now it’s all good and well to have a list of time limits but they actually need to be enforced, not like the current places kick timers. This should come down to a behind the scenes official as the 3 on the field have enough to deal with.

Foley gave good direction, defence is still suspect and just kick the ball out! I do wonder if having a more dynamic back row gave him better front foot ball than the likes of Noah has seen?

Pete Samu may just be key to our world cup. He has been world class for so long but stuck on the pine, I hope this is his turning point. He is an all round player with power, skill and accuracy at the breakdown. The fact he was still able to be a major part in the dying stages shows he can truly play open side with the best. For me it’s hooper or mrcreight off the bench and either shift Samu to 6 or give him a rest with 20 to go. Just need a second bash bro at 6 to take some load off Valentini.

Foketi and Ikatau are the next best combo if Kerevi is out. I feel like they seem to gel better than Hunter and Ikatau. Foketi in particular had a massive game.

For me Darcy Swain is not worth the risk, his game and skill set is decent but he cannot keep his head together. I’d like to think he did not intentionally try and injure but boy that looked ugly and unnecessary. Given the depth of current second row stocks I don’t think I would risk taking him forward unless he has a very clean super rugby season in 23.

Slipper is a war horse. To play 30 minutes that well with a dodgy calf is outstanding. I like his calmness as skipper too. I hope he is fit come the WC.

Jake Gordon had an okay game, stopped a certain try, his box kicking was more accurate than recent games. but the wallabies game speed seemed to ramp up once White came on, everything seemed more crisp. Everyone criticises Nic for box kicking too much but I think tonight confirmed it’s more a Rennie game plan. Hardly a box kick once he came on.

It’s a shame we are all talking about this. I probably have unconscious bias but I was curious and went back over every conversion and penalty kick. RM was over the 60 second time for penalty and 90 second time for a conversion every kick. Foley was slow on some and just under on others. This is the simplest time a ref can time manage yet he failed to all game. To wait until the last 90 seconds to cut down on time wasting is absurd. He could have just called the time off and started the clock once the ball was out.

On the other foot, what was foley thinking? Once he blew time off you put that ball out. By the time everyone jogged to the line out took the line out then maybe 1 more ruck and ball out for the win. It’s a shame because he was pretty solid steering the team around, missed some tackles but decent game.

Milking is here to stay, it happens every game. When players and coaches are paid so much and are expected to win and pressured so heavily by fans they will find ways to make sure they have an edge. Nic white got hit in the head, it’s against rugby laws and he was entitled to the referee seeing the incident and dealing with it.
In the England series a player reacted to being harassed and ended up with a red card, which probably would have gone unnoticed itself if Hill had not pointed it out to the touch judge. If Darcy Swain had of done the same as Nic when he was struck in the head, hill goes off for a yellow, possibly red instead of warming the line himself.

Milking does not stop at dangerous contact either. Seems like every second ruck has an attacking player on the bottom of the ruck preventing the tackler from rolling away.

No it’s not ‘manly’ to do and I don’t encourage it but I do see why Nic took a knee.

I agree Campbell deserves a shot. Do I think he will better than JP, Kellaway or Wright? Not really, but happy to be proven wrong.

I think if JP and Wright are to be test fullbacks they need to make better decisions and need a full season at super there to settle in.

Kellaway for me is ready now. Less excitement than the other two but has a calmness about him and makes safe correct decisions. For me that is a massive plus.

In regards to the high ball the advantage is usually with the kicking team, players are coming forward with momentum into the jump (for some reason Australia has been poor when chasing or perhaps other teams are blocking better) I think the biggest failure on the weekend was poor legal blocking.

To the people who are saying ‘it’s a specialist’ roll, that is less and less the case these days. Wings have to be able to play fullback to a certain degree as they spend half their time filling in whilst fullback chases kicks or is out of play, in reality MK is a freak but he does not display the full back traits so the other wing needs that skill set.

It would be interesting to see some other angles from the knee/shin to the head on Leota. See where the English players eyes were looking. I imagine march review would go over it though. Perhaps incidental, maybe didn’t go out of his way, maybe just didn’t choose to lift his leg over too.

It was a forwards game and a slog fest for the most part. England aimed to kick long and play for a penalty and turnover. Rennie knew that England would play this way and instead of running it back chose to send the pill back to them. When the backs were actually given the ball inside the 22 they showed good depth and shifted well. Check Jordan’s try for example.

Ah, an oversight by me, had forgotten about the English yellow.

The 7 man scrum punished the English scrum!

Nah most Aussies back the AB’s as their second team. Just media hype! Did not see the game but I would’ve surprised if he is around for game 2 from the video above. It makes the red on swain look pretty soft 😂

I cannot remember the original reasoning for the head gear, maybe a head knock or to cover a split originally. Geoff Larkham his dad frequented a rural store where my father worked for farm supplies and when dad queried Geoff he responded with ‘would you wear headgear for ‘x’ amount a game.

Oddly enough Frank’s used this loophole when he was suspended for striking and they had a bye the following week.

The card and suspension system in righty is very frustrating. I understand they put the stiff black and white frameworks in place to take away the appearance of biased decisions, at the end of the day fans and teams still will find a bias to blame. We still have the subjective view of mitigation and force in place. The issue I have is that some offences that don’t meet the ‘red’ framework are often more malicious and have the potential for a worse outcome.

On top of that, any action that any action that has taken ‘a high amount of force directly to the head’ needs to go off for an independent assessment if we are to take head knocks seriously.

As to the Matera incident, anyone who thinks the Matera tackle was not bad needs to look up the Alex McKinnon tackle (NRL) on YouTube. Head knocks are not good but either is being put in a wheelchair.

It is such a lottery going into contact slightly high and they are trying to get targets lower but if Noah drops his body height but 6 inches it’s shoulder to head not head to head and franks made no effort to lower body height. Then we are talking 2 reds. It’s a strange era in rugby.

I don’t have a problem with red cards for dangerous play. But I think I’d nearly rather trust judgement of good honest men on the maliciousness of the action, the dangerousness of the action and a players clean/dirty history than this ‘stiff’ regulated system. However it will not happen because people will always call out for bias reviews.

Maybe Matera didn’t meet red criteria but it was as bad or worse in terms of dangerousness, recklessness and outcome. It deserved the same or worse punishment.

I feel for Len, he had a sparkling clean record, got a tackle wrong by a few inches and will miss a semi final and possibly a grand final.

It’s interesting all the talk about Jordan Petaia’s great technique as opposed to Tom Banks poor technique.

While Petaia did not put himself in a ‘cardable’ situation it did risk his not the ball runners safety. He left his feet with no control, head ended up wrong side of the tackled player. Which risks neck and head injury. Now if he had done the same in Banks situation that could have been really nasty for the tackler as Jordan was lucky his opponent did not change direction into the contact. That would have jammed straight into his head/neck.

Yes he tackled smarter in terms of a red card. It still was far from a low risk tackle.

To expand as this has been bugging me for some time that the wallabies are full of Pacific Islanders and kiwis. Hers is the break down of where players were born.
AAA – Aus, Andrew K – Aus,
Angus B – Aus,
Darcy S – Aus,
Feleti K – Aus,
Hunter P – Came to Aus from Samoa via NZ,
Jake G – Aus,
James O – Aus,
James slipper – Aus,
Lachie S – Aus,
Len I – Born in Aus (raised in NZ moved back age 12),
Matt P – Aus,
Michael H – Aus,
Nic W – Aus,
Noah L – Born in NZ, moved to Aus aged 3,
Pone F – Aus,
Rob L – Aus,
Rob V – Aus,
Thor – Moved to Aus aged 18 from Tonga via NZ,
Tate M – Aus,
Tom W – Aus,
Lalakai F – born in NZ unsure of age,
Pete S – Aus,
Jordan P – Aus,
Tom R – Aus,
Isaac R – Aus,
Rory A -Aus,
Kurtly B – Aus,
Filipo D – Fiji moved ahead 20,
Colby F – Aus,
Will S – NZ, moved aged 10,
Tolu L – Tonga, moved aged 2,
Consul M – Aus,
Izaia P – Aus,
That’s 26/35 born in Australia, just shy of 75%. 3 of the remaining 9 moved here at or below the age of 10 another 2 I could not find age of immigration. So that leaves 4 who moved to Australia after the age of 10 to played for the wallabies last year.
Oh and just 3/35 we’re even born in NZ
Sorry, the format sucks after pasting to post

I love it when people pull 90% of stats from thin air with no idea.

Ikatau is a larger body than hunter and I think he is a more rounded 13. I think hunter is more of an inside centre but is not going to displace Kerevi any time soon.