'95 back in the spotlight again, suzie at it again.

[austingtir]

England beat NZ by a record margin in 2012 on MERIT ! we were the best team that day by far . It's simple ! All I can say it's a bloody good job you are an ABs supporter because if you supported Wales in the 90s or England in the 70s you would have probably hung yourself by now ...... Or minimum you would have run out of your crappy excuses

The 2003 team was coached by John Mitchell. Biggest idiot to ever coach an AB side end of story.

The 2012 team was out of sorts and were clearly out enthused they hardly even turned up for that match.


So maybe you got one win out of three on merit which is debatable. One win does not mean much of anything in these parts.

I dont see how what your saying makes any difference whatsoever to the point I was trying to make which is SA is our only truly competitive adversary.

 

[Maverick1987]

The 2003 team was coached by John Mitchell. Biggest idiot to ever coach an AB side end of story.

The 2012 team was out of sorts and were clearly out enthused they hardly even turned up for that match.


So maybe you got one win out of three on merit which is debatable. One win does not mean much of anything in these parts.

I dont see how what your saying makes any difference whatsoever to the point I was trying to make which is SA is our only truly competitive adversary.

You wouldn't have beaten us in 2003 even if you had Henry in charge .... Our players were superior . I agree with you on the fact SA are the closest to you . Maybe I misunderstood what you said . I thought you meant we didn't deserve to win in 2012 .

 

[austingtir]

You wouldn't have beaten us in 2003 even if you had Henry in charge .... Our players were superior . I agree with you on the fact SA are the closest to you . Maybe I misunderstood what you said . I thought you meant we didn't deserve to win in 2012 .

The 2003 England team was good but I would argue the point that AB team was incredibly poorly selected and coached (and that went right back to the Rod Maqueer era where he had the wood on us and John Heart imo). The win England got over us here in NZ really gave them that tails up attitude that they knew they could do it in Australia. Had they not got that win im not so sure they'd of been the same team and got up over Australia in the final (had Australia even got to the final of course).... England 2003 were not invincible when they toured NZ but they were when they left if you get what I mean.

AB players to take note of in that 2003 match. Reuben Thorn (Captain!!!!FFS!!!) Dave Hewitt at 1??? Anton Oliver at 2??? Rodney Soialo at 8??? Caleb Ralph at 11???? WTF were these clowns thinking!!!

To further reinforce my point heres the reserves for that match!!!! 16.Keven Mealamu, 19.Jerry Collins, 22.Mils Muliaina – No entry : 17.Carl Hoeft, 21.Dan Carter 18. Brad Thorn

If you cant see that team selection is FUBAR I dont know what else to say. England beat us by what 2 points with 13 men against a totally incompetent NZ side? Hardly a thrashing although I do remember watching that game and they certainly deserved the win I cant argue against that as the defence (and cheating) was impressive.

 

[saulan]

The 2003 England team was good but I would argue the point that AB team was incredibly poorly selected and coached (and that went right back to the Rod Maqueer era where he had the wood on us and John Heart imo). The win England got over us here in NZ really gave them that tails up attitude that they knew they could do it in Australia. Had they not got that win im not so sure they'd of been the same team and got up over Australia in the final (had Australia even got to the final of course).... England 2003 were not invincible when they toured NZ but they were when they left if you get what I mean.

AB players to take note of in that 2003 match. Reuben Thorn (Captain!!!!FFS!!!) Dave Hewitt at 1??? Anton Oliver at 2??? Rodney Soialo at 8??? Caleb Ralph at 11???? WTF were these clowns thinking!!!

To further reinforce my point heres the reserves for that match!!!! 16.Keven Mealamu, 19.Jerry Collins, 22.Mils Muliaina – No entry : 17.Carl Hoeft, 21.Dan Carter 18. Brad Thorn

If you cant see that team selection is FUBAR I dont know what else to say. England beat us by what 2 points with 13 men against a totally incompetent NZ side? Hardly a thrashing although I do remember watching that game and they certainly deserved the win I cant argue against that as the defence (and cheating) was impressive.

Are you saying that the players on the bench should have been starting? Because although many of those players went on to be amazing All Black players, many of them were new on the scene. Carter had just played his first Super Rugby season. Muliaina was 23 and was playing in one of his first few All Black matches and Mealamu made it into the side for the first time only in 2002. Anton Oliver, Reuben Thorn and Rodney Soialo all played plenty more All Black rugby up to 2007.

England were the better team on the day and they won, and went on to win the World Cup. The NZ win earlier in the year definitely gave them confidence going into the tournament, but they won that tournament because they handled all the challenges of the year and the tournament the best, and thus were the best team. I believe they fully deserve the wins they got.

Attempting to diminish the England win by claiming the winning team cheated and saying that the NZ side was incompetent and poorly coached (which implies that if the 'real' New Zealand team played, England would have lost) is pretty poor form.

 

[otapouri]

When one side wins by so much pretty much all of the time there has to be a reason for a loss .

 

[saulan]

When one side wins by so much pretty much all of the time there has to be a reason for a loss .

Oh absolutely, but sometimes its because the other side played better.
Or in this case, it was the best English side that has been seen in the modern era. Sometimes its because the other team gets a lot better.

The reason I commented was not because there weren't reasons for the loss, but because it felt like a list of excuses were being made to try to mitigate the England win so that it wasn't a real win. Saying it wasn't your best side (in one person's opinion, or even in many peoples opinion) doesn't change the fact that it was the All Blacks side that lost.

 

[nzlizard]

You wouldn't have beaten us in 2003 even if you had Henry in charge .... Our players were superior . I agree with you on the fact SA are the closest to you . Maybe I misunderstood what you said . I thought you meant we didn't deserve to win in 2012 .

As said before, 2003 had John Mitchell as coach, the biggest noddy mother****er to ever coach in the game, he was the man who told us that Cullen was the 5th best fullback in NZ at the time and that Ben Blair was ahead of him, also they played Leon McDonald at centre ahead of Umaga (2003 WC), John the dickface moron Mitchell was the worst coach ever.

2012 was a different story, you guys deserved that win as you turned up and played like demons, full credit for that win.

 

[otapouri]

Martin Johnson was worth the two players off the field he seemed to find another gear, interestingly he did a couple of seasons in the King Country playing for Tihoi and making I'm not sure was it NZ u21s.

 

[austingtir]

Are you saying that the players on the bench should have been starting? Because although many of those players went on to be amazing All Black players, many of them were new on the scene. Carter had just played his first Super Rugby season. Muliaina was 23 and was playing in one of his first few All Black matches and Mealamu made it into the side for the first time only in 2002. Anton Oliver, Reuben Thorn and Rodney Soialo all played plenty more All Black rugby up to 2007.

England were the better team on the day and they won, and went on to win the World Cup. The NZ win earlier in the year definitely gave them confidence going into the tournament, but they won that tournament because they handled all the challenges of the year and the tournament the best, and thus were the best team. I believe they fully deserve the wins they got.

Attempting to diminish the England win by claiming the winning team cheated and saying that the NZ side was incompetent and poorly coached (which implies that if the 'real' New Zealand team played, England would have lost) is pretty poor form.

The fact that Anton, Reuben and Rodney were all involved again in 2007 further re-inforces my point if anything these guys were failures who were kept on which contributed to us losing again in 2007. Your right that alot of those benched players were young and inexperienced but Caleb Ralph, Thorne in particular (blackadder after him) never should of worn that jersey. It still baffles me how Anton managed as many games as he did aswell. Even Spencer was an incredibly dubious first choice first five when Mehrtens among others were still in o.k form and Carter was just beginning to shine.

 

[ncurd]

England beat us by what 2 points with 13 men against a totally incompetent NZ side?

Look up the amount of times that has ever happened a team going down to 13 men in a tight match and them winning especially against top tier teams. Add into the fact England hadn't beaten NZ in NZ in 30 years.....

The reality is the 2002 AI's gave us the confidence we could beat anyone and then we did everyone over in 2003 with the only loss being a World Cup warm up match. In a two year period we only lost to France twice (and had a 60% win rate against them and only lost competitive match at the start of 2002). We played every Tier 1 nation home and away and won (France we didn't beat in France and SA we didn't play in SA).

Any suggestion we weren't the best side in the world at the time and the AB's were just 'poorly coached' is frankly ludicrous. I could say we were poorly coached in 2014 but we all know NZ were rightly best side either way.

As cheating claims pot, kettle, black comes to mind all the great teams bend the rules to breaking.

As to the suggestion we couldn't beat Australia in the final? You mean the final where the ref did his level best in second half to try evening up the game?

- - - Updated - - -

The reality is NZ circa 2003 were a bit like England 1999 but only took 2 more years to come into their prowess unlike our 3. They even had a promising young fly half like us. However you can't dismiss any win against either team just because.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Can we close this thread now? It went from a discussion about poisoning of players, to a d**k-swinging contest where for some strange reason the Poms are mad at the All Blacks... Which has nothing to do with the 1995 final.

 

[otapouri]

Your right

 

[otapouri]

Oh absolutely, but sometimes its because the other side played better.
Or in this case, it was the best English side that has been seen in the modern era. Sometimes its because the other team gets a lot better.

The reason I commented was not because there weren't reasons for the loss, but because it felt like a list of excuses were being made to try to mitigate the England win so that it wasn't a real win. Saying it wasn't your best side (in one person's opinion, or even in many peoples opinion) doesn't change the fact that it was the All Blacks side that lost.

The best quote on this thread fair play.

 

[smartcooky]

As said before, 2003 had John Mitchell as coach, the biggest noddy mother****er to ever coach in the game, he was the man who told us that Cullen was the 5th best fullback in NZ at the time and that Ben Blair was ahead of him, also they played Leon McDonald at centre ahead of Umaga (2003 WC), John the dickface moron Mitchell was the worst coach ever.

Anton Oliver gets stuck into John Mitchell in his autobiography.

First of all, there is the abysmal way the Mitchell treated the All Blacks manager at the time, Andrew Martin.

Then there was the incomprehensible new-age bullshít such as "the journey is more important than the result". Well, we all ended up on a journey alright....to nowhere!

Then there was that fact that he and his assistant, Robbie Deans, turned the All Blacks into boozers again, after John Hart and Wayne Smith had tried so hard to move them away from the booze culture.

But worst of all, he made the crucial mistake of dropping key experienced players like Oliver, Mehrtens, Cullen and Randell, and then, when the inevitable happened and the Wallabies handed us our arses in the semi-final, he had the sheer gall to complain that he didn’t have enough experience on the park.

Mitchell has been chucked out of virtually every major coaching job he's had since then... the Force, the Lions and the Stormers. I can't recall him winning anything as a coach, and now, the poor old Yanks have been lumbered with him.

They have my sincerest sympathy!