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[2018 Super Rugby] Round 5: Lions vs. Sunwolves (17/03/2018)

TRF_heineken

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Venue: Emirates Airlines Park
Time: 17:05 CAT (SA, GMT+2)
 
I know Joseph has stated he is disinterested in results and is purely focussed on maximising how competitive they can be on day one or the RWC but playing without a recognised flyhalf has got to have been an experiment too far last week. Hopefully he picks one this week. The Fijian guy Little at 12 looked very skilled and the Sunwolves scored 22 points and left three gilt edged tries on the park - so I don't actually expect a complete humiliation of 50+ points difference.

Impressed by the Lions from what I've seen this year. They dont seem to have regressed after losing Ackerman (so far) and Cronje and Jantjies look more on the same page than I felt they were for much of last year.
 
The Sunwolves are just so frustrating and imo they won't achieve anything in this period of experimenting. For me, play a settled pairing of half backs for a few games and see how it works out. Tamara at 10 is surely the best choice for fly-half and Tanaka for 9. I know it's important to build depth but starting these players mentioned then experimenting off the bench is to me the best idea. The constant switching and changing isn't exactly getting results for them after all so instead of 10 changes per game, how about 5?
 
I know Joseph has stated he is disinterested in results and is purely focussed on maximising how competitive they can be on day one or the RWC but playing without a recognised flyhalf has got to have been an experiment too far last week.

This to me makes no sense when Joseph fills his team everywhere he can with non-Japanese players. What's the point then?

Yea good call, he's already in my team along with Marx. Hopefully Dyanti starts, he's been on fire.

Will wait until team announcement to pick team :)

Are you guys on SuperBru too?

I'm on Superbru yes, and after having 3 great weeks, this last one went terrible. only got 3 right!
 
I'm on Superbru yes, and after having 3 great weeks, this last one went terrible. only got 3 right!
Yea this week was rough for predictor. I only got 3 as well. I don't really worry about predictor though, pretty much just focus on fantasy which is going quite well, top 100 globally atm.
 
Got 4 out of 7 on my superbru predictor. The Jags winning in the last game narrowly secured me the yellow cap for the round. The Lions vs Blues game screwed most people over.
My Superbru fantasy is going very well. Its a bit easier when there is no draft system.
 
HITO-Communications SUNWOLVES Team List ◎ Game Captain
1 Craig MILLAR
2 Yusuke NIWAI
3 Jiwon KOO
4 Kazuki HIMENO
5 Wimpie VANDERWALT
6 Yoshitaka TOKUNAGA
7 Pieter Lappies LABUSCHAGNE
8 Michael LEITCH
9 Yutaka NAGARE◎
10 Harumichi TATEKAWA
11 Hosea SAUMAKI
12 Michael LITTLE
13 William TUPOU
14 Lomano Lava LEMEKI
15 Kotaro MATSUSHIMA

● REPLACEMENTS
16 Atsushi SAKATE
17 Shintaro ISHIHARA
18 Hencus VAN WYK
19 Grant HATTINGH
20 Willem BRITZ
21 Yutaka NAGARE
22 Ryoto NAKAMURA
23 Ryuji NOGUCHI

[Full squad for context]


Still no 10. Not too many changes from the Sharks game - Lappies starting instead of Britz, Vanderwalt instead of Hattingh, Asahara is dropped for Koo, Robbie Robinson is dropped for Noguchi, Sione Teaupa dropped for Saumaki.

16 Japanese and 7 mercenaries. (including 3 ex-Lions on the bench)

Lions by 30.
 
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Don't think I've ever seen Saumaki. I literally winced when I saw Tatekawa at 10 again.
 
Can someone tell me why Tamura is getting no game time?
The only positives I see from this lineup is that there are few changes and there are 16 Japanese players.

Lions by 25.
 
Don't think I've ever seen Saumaki. I literally winced when I saw Tatekawa at 10 again.
Nicknamed the Tongan Godzilla by the commentator in their first game of the season when he played, and racked up some huge stats 2 tries, 5 clean breaks, 7 defenders beaten, 111 meters.
So I don't think they're losing much. Whether that kind of performance is repeatable against the Lions is another story.
 
Well, well, well...

Let's see if the sunwolves can remain competitive in the 2nd half but didn't the lions score like 94 points in the fixture last year?
 
Well, well, well...

Let's see if the sunwolves can remain competitive in the 2nd half but didn't the lions score like 94 points in the fixture last year?

Yeah, it was something horrible last year. Tatekawa actually had a couple of decent kicks at 10 - so maybe Joseph has seen something I haven't.

EDIT: Sunwolves concede pretty much from the kickoff from a howler by Tatekawa. :(
 
Saumaki is an absolute monster!!! 26-24 come on Sunwolves, I didn't expect them to be so close
 

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