I love eating humble pie. I know I bagged Graeme Henry relentlessly but that second half was the best bit of AB Rugger for ages.. where have they been hiding that kind of play? Or was it that they were allowed too?
32-6 was about right. England did well putting on the pressure in the first half and were desperately unlucky to score but for a lack of basic common sense and ignoring the ref.
England's only defensive tactic was to kill the ball.
The ref got stuck in otherwise there would have been a huge punch up in the first half if he hadn't dealt with the cheap shot head highs, diving over the ball and very blatant school boy hands in the ruck ..he did well to control the boil over. England lacked the discipline of a test side.
Second half the English back line was exposed as lack lustre and their scrum went south east north and west.
Man of the match for me was Conrad Smith in the first half then Sitiveni Sivivatu's sublime in the second. Jimmy Cowan the half back was all over the place and moved the ball well though a long way from being a Dave Lovridge or Sid Going.
Final irony: English Captain saying the score flattered the All Blacks and they (English) played better than that.. sorry but you can't stand and watch players run through your black line and watch your scrum fall apart and say stupid stupid comments like that and not get slayed by your own press.
England will bounce back but they need to find someone with some coaching experience. Martin Johnson is is good company, plenty of ex-players fail as a coach if they don't go through the lower grades.
You could have Wayne Smith when Ospreys have done with him???
This grand slam is all the sweeter for winning it without a tri scored against them. That's not bad.
Sadly that's the end of the season for us.
Well done Wales.. Well Done Warren Gatland. The ABS rated the Irish and Welsh games as good as they come.
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Originally posted by Crowleyhe also said wales had the toughest world cup group....he's an idiot.
What do you guys think of Warren Gatland saying this is the best the Tri Nations teams will ever be and that Wales will beat them in 2011?
Personally I think he's an idiot if he believes this...
Originally posted by Tirau DanI'm talking about his comments, not his coaching quality.
Warren Gatland is a very good coach doing extremely well with a rag tag bunch.. he won six nations and went well against SA and the ABs. I can see him improving the Welsh side out of sight. I can't say the same for NZ although more games together will knit them. He has every chance.
He said this is the 'best the boks, ABs and wallabies can play' which is obviously not correct.
In the Wales and Scotland tests, the boks made MANY handling mistakes; the wallabies never quite fired from what I heard and the ABs are "rebuilding";
If the boks had a ref who knew rugby laws and if their passes stuck they would've put up 50 against the Welsh.
Sure, on a day the Welsh can beat the boks, but on this tour the boks struggled and at times looked like juniors learning the game playing PLUS had to play against 16 men. Still the Welsh couldn't beat them.
Gatland is therefore an idiot for making these remarks, see?
Originally posted by CrowleyAt the moment NZ is slightly ahead of Aus and SA in the race to rebuild before the next trip down the wc but they aren't a great side because the side has been changed too many times. If he keeps the 15+5 together they'll improve. Gatland has been outspoken against the rotations from the start he'll build his Welsh core players into something that will be very good. I just can't see that happening with our lot who have this mentality that they "are" great. They aren't!
I'm talking about his comments, not his coaching quality.
He said this is the 'best the boks, ABs and wallabies can play' which is obviously not correct.
In the Wales and Scotland tests, the boks made MANY handling mistakes; the wallabies never quite fired from what I heard and the ABs are "rebuilding";
If the boks had a ref who knew rugby laws and ...[text shortened]... Welsh couldn't beat them.
Gatland is therefore an idiot for making these remarks, see?
So there is ambiguity in there.
If he thinks Aussies won't improve under Deans, he's dreaming.
But Gatland did good things with Ireland and he's really shaking Welsh rugby so I guess we just have to wait and see if he can repeat his six nations effort.
You know I disagree with you on the bias of ref's but I do agree about consistency.. we've seen some good games ruined by terrible refs this season. Kaplin & Rolland are among them but they are rated the world's best.... shame!
Originally posted by Crowleyis it our unions doing the rating, the players or our home union refs assoc? The latter has failed hopelessly previously.. refs always have an excuse for not being sacked (not that players and coaches are excused from that)
Hopefully the Super 14 referee rating system will work and then the IRB will implement it.
The best refs should then come through to ref the top games.
Originally posted by trev33Lots of water under the bridge since some of those appointments but the underlining factor is coaches should go though assisting ranks and learn how to coach. This doesn't take long but does produce good results.. All the good ones had big winning runs with provinces all the failures went over seas to early. Zin Zan Brooke, Buck Shelford and John Kirwan are examples. (Heck of an attractive life style if you can get the work though - Kirwan has made brilliant friends in Italy and Japan..naturallly nice guy would make a great assistant coach for England at present when they get a proper coach.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/1806336.stm