Test Rugby 2014 Wallabies Spring Tour

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MEB_ said:
Not looking forward to this one.

The sloppy hands and skill errors are making the Wallabies hard to watch at the moment. Admittedly I missed the game against Ireland, but the one against France was enough to put me off for a little while :(
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Then you missed a great game. The first half is worth a watch. 20 all at half time and some great tries.
 
1. James Slipper (Queensland Reds- 62 Tests)
2. Saia Fainga’a (Queensland Reds – 35 Tests)
3. Sekope Kepu (NSW Waratahs – 51 Tests)
4. Sam Carter (ACT Brumbies – 10 Tests)
5. Rob Simmons (Queensland Reds – 49 Tests)
6. Sean McMahon (Melbourne Rebels – 2 Tests)
7. Michael Hooper (c - NSW Waratahs – 41 Tests)
8. Ben McCalman (Western Force – 37 Tests)
9. Nick Phipps (NSW Waratahs – 27 Tests)
10. Bernard Foley (NSW Waratahs – 17 Tests)
11. Rob Horne (NSW Waratahs – 24 Tests)
12. Matt Toomua (ACT Brumbies – 20 Tests)
13. Adam Ashley-Cooper (NSW Waratahs – 103 Tests)
14. Henry Speight (ACT Brumbies – 1 Test)
15. Israel Folau (NSW Waratahs – 28 Tests)

McMahon being promoted for Jones I am disappointed with. I really wanted to see Jones get another shot after a pretty good showing (aside from his first 10 minutes).

AAC in at 13 for Kuridrani and Horne on the wing is pretty straight forward.
 

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S120 said:
McMahon being promoted for Jones I am disappointed with. I really wanted to see Jones get another shot after a pretty good showing (aside from his first 10 minutes).
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My first reaction was the same but I guess they see McMahon as having the most potential. And we don't see what goes on at training. Maybe McMahon is just super impressive.

It's great for the Rebels to have both of those guys really starting to come into their own at the same time. Their back row will be strong next season.
 
Maester said:
My first reaction was the same but I guess they see McMahon as having the most potential. And we don't see what goes on at training. Maybe McMahon is just super impressive.

It's great for the Rebels to have both of those guys really starting to come into their own at the same time. Their back row will be strong next season.
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Rebels are going to have a really exciting side next year. Doubt they'll beat more teams than they lose to but seeing the following side each week grow would be fun:

1. Toby Smith
2. Pat Leafa
3. Paul Alo-Emile
4. Luke Jones
5. Caderyn Neville
6. Sean McMahon
7. Coby Faingaa/Sean Fugistaller
8. Scott Higginbotham
9. Luke Burgess/Nick Stirzaker
10. Bryce Heggarty/Jack Debreczeni
11. Dom Shipperly
12. Mike Harris
13. Mitch Inman
14. Tom English
15. Cam Crawford

Some fun guys in that side and if they can keep them togther, they could become a very solid side. Need to keep that pack together in particular.
 
Does anyone know if tonight's game is going to be on Channel Ten/One? Haven't seen it at all anyware in my EPG...
 
Strange - why would Ten not broadcast arguably the most sought after game of the tour?
 
Disappointing performance for me. A crazy number of handling errors and the scrum (while penalised harshly IMO a couple of times) was always inferior relative to England and got smashed a few times which put us badly on the back foot. Our back line constantly found space out wide by using 2nd man plays effectively but we weren't able to capitalise on that possession and flow well enough at all. Some brilliant passages of play were put together (including the 2 passages that led to our tries to Foley and Skelton, Cheika will be loving the look of those plays on replay) but we lost ball at the lineout, were going backwards in the scrum and turned over ball far too easily.

Around the ground, the pack was fairish for the most part IMO. Carter I thought had a pretty strong game, particularly relative to his earlier tour performances, and Faingaa/McCalman/Slipper continued their consistent play on tour. Simmons getting injured relatively early hurt.

I liked Matt Toomua's game very much and his last two weeks have surely put beyond any doubt that he is our inside centre. I'm really on the fence with Foley. He does great and tremendously stable things throughout the game but there are times when the attack becomes so stilted and seemingly rudderless with him at 10. Toomua at least did a good job of getting in as a secondary director of traffic to good effect but I think Foley is going to have his hands full with trying to stave off Cooper at 10 in 2015.

AAC was very active. Probably his best game on tour for me, I hadn't been that impressed with his form to this point. Rob Horne was good too.

We really need some reinforcements in the pack from the likes of Pocock, Fardy, Palu, Moore, TPN for the RWC, that's for sure. I want Scott Sio or Paul Alo-Emile on the bench too but who knows if they will be capable of making things happen in a RWC with so little national experience.
 

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Lebbo73 said:
Apparently not.

So we forced a coach out who nearly knocked off the Allblacks twice in one year? Cheika will suffer the same fate as EM.
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Except there have been more improvements under Cheika. He is still weeding out the rubbish, and having our best two hookers injured has hurt. McKensie had both hookers fit and still was awful
 
Very concerned about the Wallabies. I expected them to take one or two steps backwards, but lets be honest this was a weak England team. Cheika has a lot of work to do.

In terms of negatives:

1. Time to go Fat Cat and Ben Alexander. Both of them way past their expiration dates. Time to blood PAE, who was the most impressive prop in the NRC.

2. Lock stocks. We only really have one solid test level lock in Simmonds. Carter struggles, Horwill is completely out of form, Jones seems more suited to the backrow and Skelton can barely play for more than 10 minutes. A major concern.

3. It's time to shift Israel Folau to the wing. His weakness been exposed and teams are countering him effectively. Played his worst game in gold against England.

However, in saying that, there have been quite a lot of positives from this tour:

1. Disregarding the England game, our starting front row in Slipper, Faingaa and Kepu performed admirably. Faingaa has been the find of the tour and deserves to be the incumbent starting hooker when Moore and TPN come back. Will be interesting to see the competition between these three next year in Super Rugby. If Faingaa can put in some good performances for the Reds, have no doubts that he'll be one of the first names picked. Slipper also continued his emergence as a world class prop. It scary to think that he's 25 and played 62 tests and is only starting to hit his peak.

2. Matt Toomua's performances at 12. Added stability and directed our attacked during the whole tour. Defensively solid as ever. We've finally found our inside centre. Should be one of the first picked every week.

3. TK and AAC. Fair to say that the outside centre position will be one of our strengths coming into the WC, both played very well in the 13 jumper.

4. Ben McCalman showing that he can play a bit at international level. Wycliff Palu should be the starting no.8 when fit, but we're building some much needed depth in the backrow department (Fardy, Palu, McCalman and Higginbotham).
 
I'm not too worried. I think our attack and defence are starting to come together - we just didn't finish enough opportunities. The only real concern for me is the scrum as I'm not sure how we go about fixing it. Moore or TPN in for Faingaa would strengthen it a fair bit, but in addition to that our scrum needs a technical overhaul. Whether enough can be done before the world cup to compete with that England pack is doubtful.

But overall I think you could tell our guys were at the end of a long season. And other than the scrum we were the better team. Both their tries came from scrums and they didn't look like scoring at any other point. I thought the first one was lucky as I don't think Folau knocked the ball forward. He was running backwards and his hands were facing backwards. He just ran past the ball which made it look like the knock was forward.

I think it would be a huge mistake to put Folau on the wing. He's not quick enough and his biggest strength is still his aerial ability. Plus fullback gives him much greater scope to inject himself in attack, which he's very good at. He got beaten a couple of times in the air in this match and against Ireland but it's still very rare and I think maybe he just badly needs the off season. No doubt he still has to improve his positioning but this is happening slowly but surely. If he was to be moved anywhere I'd think the centres would be a better option than the wing, but I doubt either will happen. I could only see it happening if Karmichael Hunt plays fullback next year and absolutely kills it.
 
I wouldn't move Folau from 15 as we have nobody better to play there. I don't think his performances have been that horrendous, we're just used to world class and he's been simply decent to good recently. I don't even think his England game was his worst game on tour, his France game (I think, it may have been Ireland) was horrendous. In any case, his prowess under the high ball is too good to not have back there. I think he's just exhausted atm. He must have played a ridiculous amount of minutes this year, full season for the Tahs and Wallabies and he barely ever leaves the field. I think he needs a long rest, particularly in the lead up to a huge season in 2015.

Slipper and Kepu are now a solid base from which to start a scrum but our reserves are nowhere near their levels. Definitely would like to see Alo-Emile or Sio given a shot next year. Sio I think would be there already had he not got injured. Alexander and Robinson need to go.

I did like what I saw from Carter from the Ireland and England games. His first two games I thought were absolutely dreadful but I think he's been solid in the last two matches. How I wish we had Kane Douglas still in the country...our lock stocks are really bereft. Simmons is a good lock but he's certainly not a Retallick, Etzebeth, O'Connell or Wynn-Jones. He'd be a great foil to one of those if paired with them.

All in all, I'm not too concerned. I wasn't expecting a hell of a lot from this tour given how little time Cheika had to put it all together with new coaches and players he had hardly met before. With the likes of Fardy, Pocock, Palu, Moore, Higginbotham, TPN, Hunt, O'Connor and maybe Cummins to add to the spring tour squad, I think we will be a better side in 2015 under a more experienced and stable Cheika-led regime. I'm not expecting a RWC win or even an appearance in the final though.
 
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