Im getting pretty pumped about the biggest game of the year (just about) for Australia. Its pretty much the decider of the Tri-nations and definately the Bledisloe decider.

Very happy I have tickets for the match, should be an amazing game.

Figured I could start getting into it tonight with an early thread since no doubt there will be one tomorrow... So does anyone know what all the cattyness with Connoly and the all blacks coach is about? I heard some clip on JJJ today where the NZ coach had a go about connolly becuase he said something or other to upset him? Please explain.

There was a thing in the paper yesterday about c***s selling tickets on ebay and those tickets now being void.

There was a thing in the paper yesterday about c***s selling tickets on ebay and those tickets now being void.

Scored mine over a month ago, cant f*** about with the first bledisloe in Brisbane for ten years...

i didnt even know it was in brisbane :(
f***

If anyones planning to go into town, be prepared to walk home. Cabs will be non existent.

Australia to win by 1 million points.

ill f***en slit your throat c***

wont someone think of the kids and stop the throat-slitting haka :(

Actually i heard something interesting about that Australia v South Africa game from a couple of TV commentators / ex-players.

Their thoughts (paraphrased are as follows)

If you remember the game, in the first few minutes of the match, the Boks were very dominant in the scrum / forward area, and the ref (Honiss?) started blowing the whistle up. The two talking heads i was listening to claimed that the ref blew the forward contest out of the match (just like the bad old days of 2 years ago when Aus had no scrum etc), and thus the game became just touch football... of course when u play touch football with 140kg beef (omg they breed those forwards big in Sth African), the result was never in doubt.

Not sure if i agree entirely with that analysis but certainly i think there is some truth to it. I also thought that separate to the whistle in that game, that teh Boks just didnt seem like they "came to play" though this might have been after they were "blown" out of the match by teh referee.

Either way a nice 49-0 thrashing of SA has given u Wannabes a nice confidence boost (not that the aussies are ever short of that :P) and take that into tonights game.


So i cant wait for the game tonight, a confident Aussie team vs the Best team in the world :)
I hope that Henry's rotation policy hasnt stuffed it for us with respect to not letting our guys get good cohesion etc, but bring the game on!

On a side note... how strong is Kiwi rugby atm?!!!
1 full team to play Argentina
1 full team to play Ireland
1 full team to play in South Pacific Championship (NZ' A)
1 full team to play in Natives Tournament (NZ Maori)

w00t!



Btw mate, its not the decider, if Australia win tonight (hahahahahaha), then there is a final game on the 19th (i think its the 19th)

yeah but if Australia lose, then we're f***ed, and that's all that matters :)

Not the decider, but it's all about stayin alive!

Yeah its a 3 game series this year.

If you remember the game, in the first few minutes of the match, the Boks were very dominant in the scrum / forward area, and the ref (Honiss?) started blowing the whistle up. The two talking heads i was listening to claimed that the ref blew the forward contest out of the match (just like the bad old days of 2 years ago when Aus had no scrum etc), and thus the game became just touch football... of course when u play touch football with 140kg beef (omg they breed those forwards big in Sth African), the result was never in doubt.

yeh the ref penalised one of the SA props for colapsing the scrum, when in fact it was his opposite because he was getting pushed back.

Yeh - not THE decider, although it will decide whether or not we can still win...

haha, dirty f***en kiwis.

If a whole game of rugby becomes touch becuase the scrum gets pulled in you musnt have very good depth anywhere else on the field. :P

And as for the decider thing. It is the decider for Australia becuase its a must win game... either way, its gonna be a f***ing awesome game.

s*** game.
and not because we lost.

I thought it was a really good game! NZ defence was rock solid; we just couldn't get through at all. Aussies probably should have taken some pops at field goals in the last quarter instead of trying to force the try.

I think the aussies were just way too creative in attack always putting pressure on the defence.
/sarcasm.

Majorly dissapointed. Neither team played a very good game... NZ really didnt have much in the way of solid buildups that I saw from my seat too close to the field to see the other end of the pitch - rather, some dangerous pushes on the outside and some of their usually dangerous counterattacking. Australia lost the game for itself, NZ wasnt really the cause, not defensively anyway. There were numerous occasions where Aus was looking very dangerous and would fumble in the last couple parts before completion. Miss-passes, knockons... even just chokes. Its very rare to see larkham as shaky as he was last night. I guess its a prime example of how important he is to setting up all australian back play. (even lote who is normally able to save the day was unimpressive, along with latham)

NZ definately had the upper-hand in the scrums, we were competitive in the line-outs though, hard to really know who was stronger in phase play since both sides had a few turn arounds and the Australian rolling maul was able to make ground when they tried it. I think the way blake was jogging around the field in those last important 20mins of the match where 4 points was the difference between a draw and a loss shows that hes not the answer to any of our problems, given connoly rates him and the other prop who came on right at the end the same in set peices.

I think that the scoreline was amazingly close given how it unfolded. I could have easily believed a much large divide. Australia played no where near as well as it has, nor did NZ play with much flair.

If Australia had shot for goal on every penalty they got, we would have been ahead on the scoreboard... 3 points is better than a choke in the 22 to have carter or co kick it back deep into australian territory where a restart after a conversion would have had it anyway.

In the end NZ won, the bledisloe is theirs again for a few more years and with SA pretty much a punching bag for the tri-nations it would appear that NZ is very close to tying that off for their mantle as well.

bleh.

I think the aussies were just way too creative in attack always putting pressure on the defence.
/sarcasm.

To be fair the kiwis were forcing more Aussies into our attacking breakdowns than we wanted. That left us with few players further than 1 out from the ruck, therefore if the Aussies spread the ball wide then they would have had no support if tackled (and risked turning the ball over). That's why we kept hitting it up close to the ruck for most of the game and the NZ defence looked so solid. It was only when we got desperate that we started playing more expansively and created so many opportunities that we wasted. It was during that final period that we really tested the defence (and it didn't look as good as it did at the start of the game) but it didn't matter because in the end we were our own worst enemy.

I reckon as soon as Mortlock got hurt, he should have come straight off and put Rogers on. Also should have taken Lote off at half time and given Rathbone a run. Definitely not enough passing and then when we did, we just knocked it on. Gerrard was the only back who played a good game imo. Larkham, Latham and Lote were all off, with Giteau and Mortlock being average.

Not to take anything away from NZ, they played a lot better than we did, even if the scoreline didn't really reflect it.
Jerry Collins is a c*** though, George Smith should've punched on after he was blatantly yanking on his hair like that.

NZ dominated at the break down. Absolutely f***ing dominated in every sense of the word. McCaw showed why he's the best flanker in the world. The wallabies were lucky not to lose by more imo :(

NZ dominated at the break down. Absolutely f***ing dominated in every sense of the word. McCaw showed why he's the best flanker in the world. The wallabies were lucky not to lose by more imo :(

haha the only thing they dominated was scrums. If you cannot stop another team from doing a rolling maul on your arse you are not dominating anything and Australia pushed the advantage line multiple times with rolling mauls or pick and drive.

So why did we have really really slow ball all match? Why did the wallabies commit 5-7 players to each break down where NZ would commit 2-3 and still turn it over half the time?

Yeah I agree, NZ dominated the rucks as I alluded to in my last post.

That was prolly the most frustrating part of the game.. Aus ball coming from a ruck or a maul emerged soooooo slowly... There were huge holes appearing late in the game on the blind side of most rucks.. if they could have turned it back to a runner on the blind nz were almost ignoring putting a pillar on that side in defence.. hence why the outside defence was so strong, jerry and rodney spent most of their time standing on lote with joe... At one stage lote had 4 on him for a series of 3 or 4 rucks simply because they knew he'd get a s*** ball from gitau at some stage

AB's peak a year to early AGAIN ;)

spidz knows the score.

Our front row with these young inexperienced guys will pwn by the WC.