I went to the event yesterday.
Have to say it was very pleasing that it suceeded - as you can read from my previous post; I wasn't convinced that it was going to work.
But I think having an event that finished before 8pm certainly helped. And I didn't see one of the Eden Park security staff being a d***head which was nice for a change.
Although after being at the ground watching it, I thought that there was still too many players on the pitch.
Seven would be a better number (even though they won't do this as Rugby has done it already)
It was spectacular. Pretty good Auckland weekend if you could get here. 9's. Lantern Fest. Rapture...etc. Anyways, League had a world 7's. Just didn't capture enough imagination. "Technically" older than the current 7's World Series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_League_World_Sevens
By scrappy I mean the game is disjointed with a lot of running backwards. There are also a lot more errors in 7's and it is difficult to maintain possession of the ball from your set pieces. That's my definition of scrappy.
In 7's it's tactical (for the better teams), it's about drawing out mismatches, creating disruptions in the defensive line, slowing down the play. Happens in AusTag and Touch. Just watch Tomasi Cama do it almost every match.
If anything, there was probably a lot more that the 9's could take from the 7's but it's the first year of hopefully many more to come.
Was it not reduced only to 5? I'm sure I saw teams retain the ball after the fourth tackle...
To be honest I was a bit disappointed with the Nines. I think teams fell into the mindset that it was easier to score, and therefore showed less determination on defence.
Yep - reduced to 5 per set. I actually disagree. I thought there was much effort on defense and teams weren't able to adjust appropriately. If anything, teams that ended up playing in the finals seemed like the best to adapt and had the better defence.
Watching from our seats, there were lots of opportunities to create scoring plays that they didn't take up but ended up going back to the default 13 aside game - ie hit up, hit up, run play, hit up, kick. But I'll take that as a learning curve and the coaches not wanting to expand the 9's tactics and elaborate on their 13's stuff.
Was disappointed by the Warriors to not get to the final but picked that they would've made the Semi's and happy the better team won the comp.
Bring on 2015.