• 34 Posts
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Joined 1 年前
Cake day: 2023年6月12日
  • TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nzOPtoRugby Union@sh.itjust.works•NZ NPC 2024 - Round 2English
    1·
    4 天前

    One result was a bit of a surprise, and most of the rest of the matches were plenty competitive perhaps because it was quite wet most of the weekend which is always a leveller. Here’s the results of Round 2:

    spoiler
    • Otago 27 v 25 Auckland
    • Northland 35 v 18 Manawatū
    • Tasman 22 v 7 Canterbury
    • Hawke’s Bay 31 v 17 Southland
    • BoP 24 v 20 North Harbour
    • Wellington 26 v 19 Taranaki
    • Counties-Manukau 20 v 26 Waikato

    Only 1 away win which I usually think is a sign of a healthy competition, where all the teams are hopefully fairly close to each other. Time will tell of course.

    Otago getting up over Auckland at home was a surprise to me especially after last weekend losing to Southland; so I was even more on edge at McLean Park especially once it started raining. Southland were pretty good but my Magpies managed to play most of the game at the right end of the park and with tempo were able to push a few more tries through.

    Wellington getting up at home against the defending champs is a great result for them, and Tasman beating their franchise partners by such a big margin will make for fun bragging rights next time the Crusaders are in camp.

    BoP have done as well as you could hope for a storm week, getting 3 from 3 and bonus points in each so are pretty cemented at the top of the table along with Hawke’s Bay & Wellington who have also had perfect starts. Counties-Manukau didn’t win anything in their storm week but at least picked up a couple of bonus points which sees them ahead of perennial stragglers Manawatū, who have the wooden spoon, but the surprise is seeing Auckland down in 13th with only 1 BP to show for their first two weeks.

    Lot’s to look forward to in Round 3, Hawke’s Bay & Canterbury hit their storm week the Bay have to play 2 of them away, whereas the Rams get 2 of theirs at home. But given we hold the shield that means 2/3 games in the storm week aren’t defences so I kinda prefer it that way even if we might not pick up all the results we want - particularly playing Canterbury down in little Britain.

  • TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nzOPtoRugby Union@sh.itjust.works•The Rugby Championship - Round 2English
    2·
    5 天前

    Just to put that previous comment into perspective, I think the longest flight in 6 Nations is probably Glasgow-Rome yeah? That clocks in just over 3 hours.

    The shortest flight for the Rugby Championship is Auckland-Sydney which is over 3 1/2 hours, Auckland to Buenos Aires is around 14 odd hours, and the quickest flight Auckland - South Africa is near 20 hours.

    I guess you can see why getting the Jaguares back into SR is seen as feasible given how many years we had SA in the comp & had that nightmare travel schedule.

  • TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nzOPtoRugby Union@sh.itjust.works•NZ NPC 2024 - Round 1English
    1·
    11 天前

    Results of the two Sunday matches

    spoiler
    • North Harbour 32 v 41 Hawke’s Bay
    • Manawatu 21 v 54 Tasman

    I didn’t watch the Tasman game, but that’s not much of a surprise they have a much more expensive squad than Manawatu typically carry and have been there or thereabouts at the top of the table for a long time now.

    Hawke’s Bay picking up the W away from home at North Harbour where they hadn’t won since 2011 is a heck of a result. Definitely didn’t look like they’d get the job done for large parts of it, but once Lincoln McClutchie came on in the 2nd half they looked very solid and had a great scrum and maul. How Lincoln wasn’t picked up by any SR team this year is beyond me. Also, Fakatava is (for me) currently a better halfback than Noah Hotham; the latter probably has a higher ceiling in the long run but I think its a real shame that Robertson’s team decided to go with their boy than pick the better player. See the Bell over Riccitelli selection as 3rd Hooker as another example of that.

    1 more game in Round 1 which isn’t until Wednesday - i’m not sure if i’ll remember to mention it or not.

  • TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nzOPtoRugby Union@sh.itjust.works•NZ NPC 2024 - Round 1English
    2·
    12 天前

    Results so far & any notes if I watched:

    spoiler
    • Taranaki 31 v 15 Counties-Manukau
    • Auckland 21 v 29 Wellington
    • Canterbury 34 v 21 Northland
    • Southland 22 v 13 Otago
    • Waikato 21 v 36 Bay of Plenty

    Ive only watched a bit of games 1 & 3 and all of game 2 so far. There’s just so much Rugby and i’m trying to get some work done on my dinghy in the shed.

    • Counties-Manukau almost looked like they might have been able to rein in that lead in the last 15-20 minutes of their game, but were unlucky the referee was very lenient on repeat infringments on linebreaks / goalline D by the 'naki. Of course if they’d done better to start with it wouldn’t have been so tough.
    • Game 2 was a great watch, a real ding-dong battle with the Auckland NPC team playing a lot like the Blues. The Lions had to put in a massive defensive shift and weirdly similar to the Argentina-ABs game were able to capitalise on a couple of mistakes to get their foot through the door. Auckland started with a very journeyman 10 with Plummer called up to train with the ABs, and looked a lot better when Zarn Sullivan returned form injury to take up the playmaker spot; with Perofeta, Barrett & Plummer ahead of him at the Blues NZR should really be trying to get him to move to another Super club so he can try to get more game time - whether that be at 10 (my preference) or 15 (where the Blues have played him).
    • Northland were surprisingly competitive against the Rams for the bit I watched near the end; especially given the huge number of Canterbury players with SR experience.
    • Wish I’d watched that Southland victory; they’re perennial wooden-spooners but the match against Otago is their big derby so no surprise they were competitive at home. Rugby Park in Invercargill is NZs 2nd worst NPC ground (after Tasman’s alternate home in Blenheim) - I wonder if there was an Antarctic southerly sweeping the ground.

    I’ll be watching my Magpies at 2pm, bit of a rebuilding phase for them this year I think, North Harbour should be pretty good with Bryn Hall back at 9 for them this year. C’mon the Bay!

  • TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nzOPtoRugby Union@sh.itjust.works•The Rugby Championship - Round 1English
    2·
    12 天前

    Yeah I said after the two England games that the ABs were pretty lucky to get away with 2 wins and could easily go 0-4 on the road against SA, Ire & Eng this year. I still thought they should have had enough to put the Argentinians away at home but yet again they played a muddled, disjointed game and had no answer to the rush defence. Couple that with a very soft 2nd half forward performance and they were deserved losers.

    Honestly, unlike the home loss to Argentina under Foster this performance I think was even worse. Argentina 2 years ago played incredibly; tonight they just played well. Good, structured rugby - did the basics very well, and had some interesting variety in attack plus from broken play were incredibly dangerous.

    Yet again, the All Blacks defensive system this year was found to be very porous and they got no better physicality from Blackadder than they did with Finau against England. When Sititi came on they pulled Papali’i off and left Blackadder on who promptly gave up two penalties. The Sotutu fans will be even more aggrieved that he was overlooked for that performance.

    The NZ public will probably bag McKenzie but I dont think there was a lot he could have done, Perenara’s service was pretty slow for the first 55 minutes, and while things sped up a lot with Ratima on for the last 20 minutes the ABs forwards were just completely outclassed.

    I was at the Wellington Stadium with my Scottish partner & in-laws for the 2011 World Cup when Argentina beat Scotland and while we were all gutted to lose that, the Argentinian fans that night were amazing. They were just as incredible tonight - so much passion, so much fun. I hate losing, but I love the joy they get out of beating us :)

  • TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nzOPtoRugby Union@sh.itjust.works•The Rugby Championship - Round 1English
    2·
    12 天前

    I think if the Wallabies had set some better pictures they wouldn’t have been penalised out of the first half so much. While I do think Pearce has been a bit pedantic and not paid attention to some of the SA infringements as much really it comes down to referee management and the Aussies just did too much dumb stuff early on to ever get on the right page with the ref.

    Combine that with a malfunctioning scrum & a wobbly line out they’ve just really struggled to get much going. At times so far in the 2nd half they’ve looked very good on attack, but as soon as SA manage to slow a couple of rucks down they’ve been at risk of a turnover - that is if they haven’t dropped it themselves by then.