The Best 75 Minute Team in Super Rugby

[Rex Messup]

I have to admire the effort, commitment and pure guts of that effort. It was a fantastic effort against the odds.

It is however awfully frustrating to get so close and come up short every week. The team has some psychological problems with winning.

Chalk it up as another "if only"

I felt we butchered a few tries and went away from what worked so well in the first half. We dominated the tackle contest with fantastic pick and drive. Why did it stop?

Chucky looked dead tricky with front foot ball

Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[BDAVEY]

I have to admire the effort, commitment and pure guts of that effort. It was a fantastic effort against the odds.

It is however awfully frustrating to get so close and come up short every week. The team has some psychological problems with winning.

Chalk it up as another "if only"

I felt we butchered a few tries and went away from what worked so well in the first half. We dominated the tackle contest with fantastic pick and drive. Why did it stop?

Chucky looked dead tricky with front foot ball

Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

here here... so proud of the lads..... leave Stannard there...... actually I like the whole backline (Cummins had a poor game!), watch out Highlanders next week

[theforceguy]

Chucky looked dead tricky with front foot ball

Chucky was appreciative of front foot ball and used it to the best he could

[GIGS20]

Rough title Rex.......remember you (and I) called for ten man rugby this week, and what was working was actually a game which, for once, involved 15 players.......very impressed, but bummed

[SNOB]

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This will be better suited for this thread!!!!!!!!!


Well I havn't read all the posts yet on purpose.... Lets see how this goes!
1)I didnt go to bed severly depressed just pissed!
1) I expected a mauling and we nearly stuck it up them!
1)The ref seemed to like us! (if a ball is touched can you still mark it?)
1) There is life after JOC! JOC your bargining power has diminished by 50%!
1)Little Willie can go home!
1)Stannard was great we were more than 1 dimensional and we had them on the run all the game!
1)Swanepol sometimes a bit slow but on the whole great and it looked as though he and Chuckie have been playing together for years!
1) Sharpie for captain of the Wallabies! what a performance.
1) Any way we can keep Smithy?
All in all a lot of positives from a loss!
__________________

[Rex Messup]

Pretty much summed it up.
The newbies ran out of legs at the death. It's a big ask when you never see game time

[zed]

Some of the tackling was phenomenal (from both sides).

[shasta]

Rough title Rex

True but I know where he's coming from. After playing so well, it's hard to criticise him, but that mid field bomb chuk tossed up near the end while we still held the lead was a little brain explosion like. After he'd kicked for territory so exceptionally well earlier. As was said - probably ran out of legs towards the end. Blame the injury situation for that.

[Tazzmania]

Great effort from the guys, I am happy to renew my membership for next year based on a performance like that.

The pack has just improved in leaps and bounds this year, hats off to the forwards coach, and to John Mitchell for creating the platform over the years.

Well what can we say about the backline, almost matched man for man by an All Black, yet not only held their own but made some stunning breaks for the first time this season.

Looking forward to next year already as we have retained the pack bar Brown at this stage and I think his delay is probably not being an ARU priority at this stage.

Come on JOC this is the team to sign on for, shock every one and sign for four more years like Carter and McCaw

[Nipper]

You do have to wonder, though, at the psych aspects of this whole scenario - "the valiant losers". This isn't new, either. Happened a bit last year as well.

Other than the Sharks, Stormers and first Tahs game, what was the average loss diff? Not much in it...

[sandgroperrugby]

Well stannard was outstanding he looked like he belonged. Put the likes of James outside him and I think we have got alot of potential. Paddy is at home when playing at 13 ran some great lines and was really good in defence. I wasn't happy to have lost but like someone else said I wasn't disappointed with the efforr. Most international teams find it hard to contain the likes of smith and nonu and for a lot of that game our unknown and to other provinces unwanted boys did the job. Respect!!!

[James]

Nipper, I enjoyed that Hurricanes game more than I enjoyed the Brumbies game a week ago and probably more than I would've enjoyed the Brumbies game even if we had won in those dying minutes.

Valiant losers are losers who are actually playing rugby. That's better than what can be said about some of the other games we've had this year- like both Waratahs games. Win or lose isn't the end of the world but if I had actually paid money to see a game like that Sydney game I would've been pissed.

[GIGS20]

You do have to wonder, though, at the psych aspects of this whole scenario - "the valiant losers". This isn't new, either. Happened a bit last year as well.

Other than the Sharks, Stormers and first Tahs game, what was the average loss diff? Not much in it...

Hear what you're saying nipper, but I sat down in front of the Telly yesterday arvo expecting to watch my team get royally pumped, in stark contrast to last week, when I expected them to be delving the love, not receiving.

Anyway, my delight this week is bound in a team which played with heart, power, strength and passion against a team on paper much better than them, as opposed to last weeks team which played a lackluster, ordinary game, going through the motions against a team which has bean beaten by the lowest teams on the ladder this year.

The difference between my expectations and the result tends to flavor my reaction.

It was the same with the Bulls and the Rebels.

I was disappointed against the Saders, but knew they were the better team and it was OK.

You need to realize that not every team is the crusaders every year... I like to see promise, I saw promise, sue me!

[Nipper]

Valiant losers are losers who are actually playing rugby.

James and Gigs, don't get me wrong - I love watching some of these boys play, and often get up at ungodly hours of the morning to do so! It's just very frustrating as a fan (I'm sure it's no treat for the team either!) to watch them put in great efforts, do the hard yards, and then lose it or tie in the waning minutes. As a fan, I almost expect it now, and I'm sure it creeps into the minds of the players.

You have to wonder what it is that prevents them from getting over that final hurdle at the end to get the win. It's happened too often to write it off as "bad luck", hasn't it? Fatigue? Psychology? Leadership? Don't know.

It was a great effort, and a lot of younger guys put their hands up, and they should get rewarded (I'll take Swanepol over Sheehan any day!). It's just a shame that the team didn't get rewarded with a "W" for a great effort.

[James]

I'd put it down to fear of losing. You go into the final 10 with an 8 point advantage and instead of playing in a style that has worked for the past 70 minutes, you revert to a style of 'defensive' or 'protective' rugby: kicking the ball away, committing less numbers to the breakdown so that others can defend, not throwing the ball wide in case of a knock-on or being dragged out etc etc. Which takes a lot of the pressure off the opposition and counter-intuitively puts more on us.

If we had stuck to what had been working before then, we probably would put an additional try in. It's probably a hard one to judge because if you keep playing in the same style you used for the last 70, maybe the opposition will have finally found a weakness or found a way around your strengths. But then you could change the style to a conservative one and sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't. Otherwise you could change the style to one that still focussed on attack but was a bit different to the initial plan. Again though, it might work or it might fail miserably.

I think another thing is we lack impact players. Players who can come on and put in such a dynamite performance that momentum in the final 10 stays in our favour. A 120kg number 8. A zippy little scrum-half with a bullet pass. A guy like TPN with a torpedo tackle. A fast, powerful outside back with the kind of step or fend that can damage a tiring defence. I don't think we can claim that at the moment.