AI Matches W3: Sat 12; Ire v Fij - Eng v Jap - Wal v Arg : Sun; Sco v NZ

[Gumboot]

That'll do.

Fair play Scotland, the better side for much of the game.

Really good impact from our bench, which was pleasing, but a few of the starters had a night to forget. Not sure why we're bothering with Havili any more. We have the answer for 12, but for some reason he was playing at 15. And Christie's had his chances now without looking the goods.

[Blackmac]

Congrats to New Zealand, the distance made through the collisions is incredible

Yeah there is just an inevitable momentum once they get into their stride.

[Big D]

Telea having a very good debut.

He’s the one positive I’m taking from this abortion of a game.

And at least you picked up the win. GG.

[convoluted]

The great thing about being aboard The Fonz's erratic and creaky roller-coaster bumps and bruises is that these days each and every All Black win is to be savored with absolute relief and thankfulness rather than dismissed with the shrug we used to accord NZ victories.

[charltom]

Well done ABs.

[Yr Alban]

Numb after that. We’re no strangers to last-minute tragedy, but when we had a 9-point lead approaching 60 minutes I thought, just maybe, we might not screw it up this time. But sadly we remembered who we were. Losing the lead and a man at the same moment was absolutely brutal in a game like this.

We’re clearly destined never to win one of these games. We’ve been told ‘there will never be a better chance’ literally after the last three.

[OomStruisbaai]

Scots did well. Can't give the All Blacks space.

[Guy Smiley]

The great thing about being aboard The Fonz's erratic and creaky roller-coaster bumps and bruises is that these days each and every All Black win is to be savored with absolute relief and thankfulness rather than dismissed with the shrug we used to accord NZ victories.

You.

Not we.

[Gumboot]

The great thing about being aboard The Fonz's erratic and creaky roller-coaster bumps and bruises is that these days each and every All Black win is to be savored with absolute relief and thankfulness rather than dismissed with the shrug we used to accord NZ victories.

You.

Not we.

Nup, stinking up Murrayfield for 50 minutes ain't my idea of a great thing.

[Guy Smiley]

The great thing about being aboard The Fonz's erratic and creaky roller-coaster bumps and bruises is that these days each and every All Black win is to be savored with absolute relief and thankfulness rather than dismissed with the shrug we used to accord NZ victories.

You.

Not we.

Nup, stinking up Murrayfield for 50 minutes ain't my idea of a great thing.

Nothing to do with that... the assumption that 'we' would all just shrug and accept a win is insulting. Not all of us do that.

[Paddington Bear]

Thought the atmosphere wasn’t reflective of the game or occasion. 14:15 on a Sunday is a shite time to have an international

[Gumboot]

Thought the atmosphere wasn’t reflective of the game or occasion. 14:15 on a Sunday is a shite time to have an international

So is 3:15 on a Monday morning.

[Tattie]

Birth, death and taxes… oh and Scotland not capitalising on periods of domination.

If I was a betting man I would have put my mortgage on that happening.

[SaintK]

Well done ABs.

Only played like ABs for 20 minutes
Should be an interesting post match debriefing

[Lobby]

Well done ABs.

Only played like ABs for 20 minutes
Should be an interesting post match debriefing

On the basis of Foster’s AB’s up and down form, they win by 40 next week.

[Simian]

Numb after that. We’re no strangers to last-minute tragedy, but when we had a 9-point lead approaching 60 minutes I thought, just maybe, we might not screw it up this time. But sadly we remembered who we were. Losing the lead and a man at the same moment was absolutely brutal in a game like this.

We’re clearly destined never to win one of these games. We’ve been told ‘there will never be a better chance’ literally after the last three.

I find it wild that so many folk are alluding to mental frailty etc. For me, that game was won and lost on NZ having identified exactly how to expose the weaknesses in our defensive system and hammering that in the first ten or so. You don’t need to go forward while going wide to create scoring opportunities against us. You just need to go wide early and you’ll isolate defenders. It’s a huge problem for us and has been for some time.

Well done NZ tho. Kept the head and ground out a win. Surely you’ve better options at nine than Christie for the RWC squad tho? (Or will you gamble and only take two?)

[Ymx]

We’ve got Aaron Smith and Fakatava as our best 9’s.

Fakatava unfortunately suffered another large injury.

[Simian]

We’ve got Aaron Smith and Fakatava as our best 9’s.

Fakatava unfortunately suffered another large injury.

I was more meaning for that third nine spot!

[Ymx]

We’ve got Aaron Smith and Fakatava as our best 9’s.

Fakatava unfortunately suffered another large injury.

I was more meaning for that third nine spot!

Ah. Weber, TJP For a start.

[Ymx]

Anyone figure out who the dirty bastard who punched Scott Barrett was?

At 70.30 is when it happens. There’s a couple of Scots over him in the ruck. Amazon prime stops screenshots of it being taken. And the screen pans away as it’s kicked from the ruck.

[Ymx]

This was the ruck. Who’s the guy there?

[Tichtheid]

This was the ruck. Who’s the guy there?

The guy with the green line pointing to him?

That's Richie Gray.

He's 33 years old, played around 100 games for Glasgow, 60+ for Toulouse, same for Castres, 69 Scotland caps and has been a test Lion.

With all that experience I've never seen him do anything remotely violent, or even get angry, not once.

[Ymx]

Possibly not then. Was it the angry looking guy on the left in that too photo, substituted immediately afterward?

Which one was the dirty thug I ask you?

[Tichtheid]

Possibly not then. Was it the angry looking guy on the left, substituted immediately afterward?

Which one was the dirty thug I ask you?

Barrett probably kneed himself in the face, it's more likely than any of the players in those stills punching him - one is Richie Gray, the other is his brother who is annoyingly placid, it's just his way and has annoyed the fuck out of us for ages, we desperately need a big bad bastard in the locking position. The third is the hooker Fraser Brown who was having his best game for years, again I've never seen anything dodgy from the 33 year old

[Slick]

Possibly not then. Was it the angry looking guy on the left in that too photo, substituted immediately afterward?

Which one was the dirty thug I ask you?

Probably one of the Saffers

[Kiwias]

Just watched the recorded match, fast forwarding frequently. Thank fuck I did not stay awake till 2AM watching it live. Papali'i and Telea looked excellent, I like Big Sam's captaincy -- he stays very calm.

Christie is shite, Havili should get his agent looking for contracts up north, BB is not a 10, Caleb Clarke is still shite, JB seems to have become a shit fullback after his spell at 12. Taylor had a good run today, best for a while.

[convoluted]

You.

Not we.

Nup, stinking up Murrayfield for 50 minutes ain't my idea of a great thing.

Nothing to do with that... the assumption that 'we' would all just shrug and accept a win is insulting. Not all of us do that.

FFS, my comment was a light-hearted attempt to make the best of the situation we are in, but with more than a grain of truth in that after decades of mostly All Black dominance our recent wobbles has certainly given me a new-found appreciation of each and every win we can eke out -- a full appreciation that I seemingly alone am prepared to acknowledge wasn't there before.

And it was a given as to who would provide the prissiest reaction to my post. The angst over the last couple of seasons, most noisily from himself , relates exactly to the assumption that All Black victory is to be expected, nay demanded, with only the very occasional loss to be tolerated and even then grumpily.
Any aberration to that demands a scapegoat, and in recent years we have chosen Foster to serve that purpose.

Some weeks ago, @Asmo made a mid-game point during one of our stutters (and with the usual suspects cussing out Fozz) that NZers have to understand that the rest of the world is catching up fast and that one or two nations may have overtaken us. Seems no-one took his message on board.

Scotland itself has beaten England on each of the last two occasions they have met!
And Scotland was the last team to defeat France in France!
And today would have been as good as that same Scotland has played recently.
But because we didn't put 50 points on them our performance with lots of second-stringers involved was an 'abomination' (previous page) which apparently '(stunk) up Murrayfield' for most of the game.

I'm as guilty as anyone of 'demanding' a win each time, and yes Beaudy was infuriating with his normal dollop of nothing kicks, etc, but...
Credit to the gutsy defence that won three penalties on our own line with Scotland seeming certain to score.
Credit to the team keeping their collective nerve to get a win that looked most unlikely.

Our attitude to international rugby and what is supposed to happen was best summed up after our win in the initial World Cup in 1987, with serious suggestion made that consideration be given to granting New Zealand two teams at subsequent World Cups. Expectation was that finals would forever be NZ v NZ.
Round about the same time, at a Hong Kong 7s, a group of NZers paraded themselves around the ground with a huge banner reading Undoubtedly The World's Second Best Team -- New Zealand B.

Re. Foster, no number of screeching tantrums or toy-throwing is going to change the fact that it's he who will be taking us through to the World Cup, so we all need to live with it and give it a rest.
The narrative has already been written: if we bomb in France, then it's all on Foster. Should we win, then all will be due to the players and assistant coaches, with Foster clinging to their coat tails.

[Kiwias]

Just watched the start of the AB press conference after the Scotland match and Fozz's first words were enough for me.

We are delighted

[Gumboot]

Just watched the start of the AB press conference after the Scotland match and Fozz's first words were enough for me.

We are delighted

“I was delighted to come away with a good win for many reasons. One of them was the composure shown in the last 20. When you’re away from home against a team with their tails up, it’s hard to turn that around."

And why did we need to turn it around, Fozzie? Did it have anything to do with us blowing a 14-point lead on the way to shipping 23 unanswered points, by any chance?

[charltom]

Possibly not then. Was it the angry looking guy on the left in that too photo, substituted immediately afterward?

Which one was the dirty thug I ask you?

Almost certainly nobody.

[Grandpa]

Just watched the start of the AB press conference after the Scotland match and Fozz's first words were enough for me.

We are delighted

“I was delighted to come away with a good win for many reasons. One of them was the composure shown in the last 20. When you’re away from home against a team with their tails up, it’s hard to turn that around."

And why did we need to turn it around, Fozzie? Did it have anything to do with us blowing a 14-point lead on the way to shipping 23 unanswered points, by any chance?

Foster was indeed delighted. He got his mother to pick the backline this week. She did it based on hair colour.

[Ymx]

Possibly not then. Was it the angry looking guy on the left in that too photo, substituted immediately afterward?

Which one was the dirty thug I ask you?

Almost certainly nobody.

Sounds like Saint Richie Gray might be being cited.

[charltom]

Possibly not then. Was it the angry looking guy on the left in that too photo, substituted immediately afterward?

Which one was the dirty thug I ask you?

Almost certainly nobody.

Sounds like Saint Richie Gray might be being cited.

... but not for that; rather for dangerous entry into a ruck.

[Ymx]

Though it might be due to a bad ruck entry.

Still, that’s one hell of a cut Barrett ended up with there.

Might have been a violent head butt to cheek, if not fist.

[OomStruisbaai]

Just watched the start of the AB press conference after the Scotland match and Fozz's first words were enough for me.

“I was delighted to come away with a good win for many reasons. One of them was the composure shown in the last 20. When you’re away from home against a team with their tails up, it’s hard to turn that around."

And why did we need to turn it around, Fozzie? Did it have anything to do with us blowing a 14-point lead on the way to shipping 23 unanswered points, by any chance?

Foster was indeed delighted. He got his mother to pick the backline this week. She did it based on hair colour.

You lot underestimate the Scots, which I understand. Both their teams are strong in the URC. Embra is one of the top teams.

[Raggs]

Though it might be due to a bad ruck entry.

Still, that’s one hell of a cut Barrett ended up with there.

Might have been a violent head butt to cheek, if not fist.

Watching the ruck, I'd guess an elbow from Richie. Impossible to say if it was deliberate or not though, as it would seem to happen as Richie is coming in to support/clear at the ruck. Elbow would certainly be able to produce a decent cut with less obvious force, and there's no obvious swing or punch type movement in that ruck.

[Ymx]

Though it might be due to a bad ruck entry.

Still, that’s one hell of a cut Barrett ended up with there.

Might have been a violent head butt to cheek, if not fist.

Watching the ruck, I'd guess an elbow from Richie. Impossible to say if it was deliberate or not though, as it would seem to happen as Richie is coming in to support/clear at the ruck. Elbow would certainly be able to produce a decent cut with less obvious force, and there's no obvious swing or punch type movement in that ruck.

The camera panned away from the ruck as the ball was kicked and it looked like something going on but was too blurry and hard to tell. Might have just been him pushing and returning to his feet.

But given the nature of the guy from various peoples accounts it would seem surprising for him to have done such a cheap shot.

Though it sounds like he’s already been replaced in the team, suggesting they aren’t confident he will be playing.

[Gumboot]

You lot underestimate the Scots, which I understand.

Nope, we do not underestimate Scotland.

You may have noticed before the test that many of us were highly critical of our imbecilic head coach/selector for not selected a number of first xv players, and predicted that his arrogance would come back to bite us on the arse. Ten minutes into the second half, I was convinced they had our number and we'd lose badly. Fortunately, our bong squad bailed us out.

[Ymx]

Saint Richie Gray denied that he had committed an act of foul play worthy of a red card.

But having reviewed all the evidence, the Committee deemed that on the balance of probabilities, there was foul play in that the Player had led with his elbow into the tackle area to the danger to others.

On that basis, the Committee applied World Rugby’s mandatory minimum mid-range entry point for foul play resulting in contact with the head. This resulted in a starting point of a six-week suspension.

Having acknowledged mitigating factors including Gray’s excellent disciplinary record, the Committee halved the six week sanction to three. Gray is available to play again on December 4.

Flying leading elbow to face it would seem.

Naughty boy.

[Raggs]

Though it might be due to a bad ruck entry.

Still, that’s one hell of a cut Barrett ended up with there.

Might have been a violent head butt to cheek, if not fist.

Watching the ruck, I'd guess an elbow from Richie. Impossible to say if it was deliberate or not though, as it would seem to happen as Richie is coming in to support/clear at the ruck. Elbow would certainly be able to produce a decent cut with less obvious force, and there's no obvious swing or punch type movement in that ruck.

Well would you look at that.