[November Tests 2017 EOYT] Scotland vs. New Zealand (18/11/2017)

[g6mcg]

Gah!

 

[Amiga500]

So close, sooo sooo close.

I think if they'd just tap'd and went with those penalties near the end they'd have made it.

The Scots are really improving. Dark horses for the 6N?

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Cracking match. Good to see a NH team pushing a first choice ABs selection hard all the way. I've been banging on about the ability of the Scottish backs for over a year now and Hansen showed he believed the hype with his team selection. And today showed he was right to do so. If Russell and Hogg were wearing black the worlds press would drool over them.

Really impressed, bordering on amazed that a makeshift Scottish pack (which at full strength is somewhat limited) managed to give the backs enough of a platform to keep that close.

They did everything right when the chips were down and their winning try through Beauden Barrett was outstanding (SBW's offload and DMac's line). However, I think the ABs slump is confirmed with this performance. Their level is some ways below last year despite flashes of brilliance in the Rugby Championship. I guess when you are on top of the world it's hard to maintain your level.

Scotland gonna scotland

It is a tribute to Scotland that they can get foreign players to pull on the jersey and bottle it at key situations to honour the heritage of "glorious failures". I'd have thought you'd need a lifetime of residency to hone that instinctive ability, but apparently it takes just three years or a Scottish granny!

So close, sooo sooo close.

I think if they'd just tap'd and went with those penalties near the end they'd have made it.

The Scots are really improving. Dark horses for the 6N?

Teams need to learn that refs are not looking kindly on repeated scrum options at penalty time under the sticks (see also Georgia today). A misjudgement in my mind given the frailty of Scotland up front even against 14 men.

As for 6N challengers, I don't think so. Stronger packs in the 6N will neutralise Scotland completely. . It's no coincidence that the Scottish have looked at their best this year against teams that focus on mobile packs or don't have great strength up front (Australia & New Zealand) rather than brute strength (England, France and possibly Ireland). Today we saw Scotland play about 2/3rds of the first half in NZ territory. You can't get close to that when your pack is dominated and you are feeding off scraps. Scotland, if healthy, will rip Wales and Italy up for arse paper though.

 

[Spuds100]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Scotland become part of NZ if they lose this game???

Just amazing. I declare Scotland now New Scotland!

AKA, the North North Island.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I think the ABs slump is confirmed with this performance. Their level is some ways below last year despite flashes of brilliance in the Rugby Championship. I guess when you are on top of the world it's hard to maintain your level.

To be honest I've been saying this since the Lions tour, I think their last 2013-2016 level game was Ireland in Dublin last year when they really had to win, maybe the 57-0 against SA but we beat them 38-3 and weren't all that happy while not claiming to be NZ standard. South Africa away aren't good and I'd dispute their great at home, France aren't good, Australia were shown not to be too good today and Argentina aren't good. A decent team, who I think will finish 3 from 5 in Spring, could have had them and it says as much about NZ's decline as it does Scotland's improvement. Whether its Hansen going stale or lack of motivation from a team that can lose a couple of times each season and still be considered to be comfortably the best team in the World I think its going to end badly for them and without a three in a row. England, Ireland, Scotland and even Australia appear to be on a better trajectory and at least three of those sides have the foundations to overtake them before 2019, they all have the coaches and one or two should have enough luck to do it.

 

[ncurd]

I'm still going to mourn the fact that England havent gotten a chance against NZ in thr past two years. Whilst i dont think for certain wed have beaten them we certainly had the oppertunity to.

Something tells me this season will give them a swift kick up the add and they might be a different animal when we play them next year. I dont see.them becoming South Africa and not wake.up.to what's going wrong.

 

[The Jones Boy]

The AI's always show the big 4 from the southern hemisphere coming north with mental and/or physical fatigue issues on the back of very long seasons.
This AB team looks tired.
It still is in the rebuilding phase following the loss of hundreds and hundreds of caps from the 2015 RWC and it takes time to build that platform of quality players and to get them to gel.
When they do gel they are devastating and when they don't they can still win games against anyone.

Hats off to Scotland, Russell and Hogg are fine players but for me it's Huw Jones who steals the day. He's a monster at 13 and a pure pleasure to watch. He runs great lines and his pace and balance and power mark him a as a world great at this time at centre.
Good comeback from Scotland, exciting game, but they didn't deserve to win it. The AB's were way to clinical earlier in the game and took it away from Scotland.
SBW, D-Mac and Beaudie were a bit special.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

The AI's always show the big 4 from the southern hemisphere coming north with mental and/or physical fatigue issues on the back of very long seasons.

Such a BS excuse, The NH season is longer yet we get no sympathy during the summer when we're playing full tests a week after the season ends

 

[Reiser99]

I said last year I thought Scotland were dark horses for the 6N's and they almost proved me right. This year they are definitely in contention. They just need to be a bit more clinical when on top. Although 3-3 was a good result at half time, they could have had more. However this Scottish team have proven they can compete with the best, if they get some form and a run going, who knows.

 

[Hmmmmmm]

Such a BS excuse, The NH season is longer yet we get no sympathy during the summer when we're playing full tests a week after the season ends

And we roll straight in to tests the week after our season finishes. We also have tests in June, as you we'll know, again without a break. After the Rugby championship finishes we go straight into the EOYT. Explain how your season is longer........our guys are playing rugby from February through to the end of November. Let me know when you get a clue about rugby outside of your little pond.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

And we roll straight in to tests the week after our season finishes. We also have tests in June, as you we'll know, again without a break. After the Rugby championship finishes we go straight into the EOYT. Explain how your season is longer........our guys are playing rugby from February through to the end of November. Let me know when you get a clue about rugby outside of your little pond.

Our season runs from September to July. That's longer.
Someone on here added up the number of actual games between different leagues/hemispheres and the NH players had a significantly higher work load.
I mean Super Rugby is 18 games, including the finals. The premiership is 24 including the finals. Then there's Euro rugby on top of that. So for a side like Saracens, who could potentially be in the finals of both, you're looking at 24 regular games, 9 euro games, 5 Six Nations games, 3/4 (depending on schedule) End of Year tests, and then 3/4 Mid year tests, depending on schedule. 44 games out of 52 weeks. Obviously every international player doesn't play every game, but it's still a ridiculous workload.

Let me know when you a clue about rugby outside your little pond, though.

 

[galumay]

Great game, Scotland really showing the attacking flair is now part of the way they play, better defensively than last week and they looked the best of the NH sides last night. If they play that well again they will be very hard for the Wallabies to beat.

Its shaping up as a great 6N's this season, Wales, Ireland and Scotland have all looked good and England will likely improve as the season goes on.

I didnt see it as a bad game by the AB's, just thought the Scots really took it to them and as usual, the ABs found away to finish with more points on the scoreboard - and thats been their way for years in the tight games.

All in all a very entertaining match!

 

[FNS]

Nice game! Great attacking rugby. Although i always get the felling that AB get away with a lot of tiny things. They take a sec longer to roll out of tackle situation, they use hands/feet to slow down the ball. Very tiny. I get the bend the rules dont break it mentality but...

 

[The Jones Boy]

Such a BS excuse, The NH season is longer yet we get no sympathy during the summer when we're playing full tests a week after the season ends

You really are pugnacious and ignorant on occasion Olly.
I put it down to your exuberant youth.

Intensity and travelling.
The super rugby has less games than the club rugby in the NH, but the amount of travelling the super rugby teams have to do is vastly greater than the English teams. Look at the time zones between NZ, South Africa and Argentina. Look at the tours they do.
Harlequins, London Irish, Wasps, Saracens, Leicester, Bath, Gloucester, Northampton, they could comfortably sit inside a single province in NZ, Australia or the RSA.
You guys don't do any travelling or understand the fatigue this brings to players and teams. You don't go on mini tours in another country several time zones away.
Tigs can bum shuffle from Leicester to Northampton quicker than the Boks can fly from Jo'burg to Perth.
When the super rugby teams have to play more than one game away in the republic it has a profound effect on their win success which decreases with each consecutive game before they get to go home and recharge the batteries.
NH club teams never experience this issue.
Olly, you're statement shows you have no idea about this.
Never.
Travel is such a monty in the Super rugby it gets factored into bookies percentiles.

The 6 Nations.
A grand old tournament but soft as melting ice cream when compared to the rigours of the 4 Nations RC in the southern hemisphere.
You don't have home and away so you play less games. The travelling is infinitesimal compared to the long distance flights and time zones that tick by as the big four participants trek around the circumference of the world. Yet still you have breaks in the schedule.
You have Italy, that's like a training weekend. We have Argentina, and especially away, on the end of a 12 hour flight, that's a tough game.
The intensity of the RC is cranked to a much higher level than the 6 Nations.
The fatigue invoked by the rigorous schedules of travelling always plays a role in our competitions and the RC is the hardest regular international competition in the world.
This is not negotiable.
NH hemisphere clubs or countries never have to deal with this issue unless they travel to the southern hemisphere in their off season, and Northern hemisphere teams don't come to NZ much. At 27 hours travelling for the shortest flight I don't blame them, but we go up north every Autumn and play at least 4 games.
The intensity of the SH tournaments are tougher and the travelling involved make the hardship greater and correspondingly the SH teams have a higher level of fatigue.
Your players don't get dragged around the globe going from sea level to the high veld and then back to sea level.
When we get here your players are fresh and rearing to go.
Then there's the weather...

So don't cry about getting no sympathy when you're tournament structures lack intensity, you get more breaks, you have an easy beat training run team in your 6 Nations program and your travel itinerary is not worth mentioning.
This AB team looks tired for a reason, but hey, their still winning.

 

[AM_Bokke]

Just finishing watching this game.

Overall, with regards to the top teams, I can't help but think it'a more of -

Is NZ playing well? Yet they still win.

as opposed to

Is England any good? Yet they still win.

NZ is still the best - physically and mentally. They are also the SH team that has the smallest "conditions" disadvantage. Weather can be quite bad in NZ in winter.

 

[BobbyM]

You really are.... This AB team looks tired for a reason, but hey, their still winning.

Broadly agree with this, the travelling is absolutely a factor in the fatigue of the SH players.

I would say though that the intensity of the six nations has ratcheted up in recent years. I try to watch all of the games of the 6 nations and the rugby championship, and there's really no difference in intensity. As recent examples, England v Ireland, Ireland v Scotland, England v France, France v Scotland. All of these games were ferocious in their own way and certainly didn't lack in terms of intensity compared to the RC clashes.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

NZ is still the best - physically and mentally. They are also the SH team that has the smallest "conditions" disadvantage. Weather can be quite bad in NZ in winter.

Someone needs to tell DMac that. A perfect early winters day and he is flouncing about in long sleeves!

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

You really are pugnacious and ignorant on occasion Olly.
I put it down to your exuberant youth.

Intensity and travelling.
The super rugby has less games than the club rugby in the NH, but the amount of travelling the super rugby teams have to do is vastly greater than the English teams. Look at the time zones between NZ, South Africa and Argentina. Look at the tours they do.
Harlequins, London Irish, Wasps, Saracens, Leicester, Bath, Gloucester, Northampton, they could comfortably sit inside a single province in NZ, Australia or the RSA.
You guys don't do any travelling or understand the fatigue this brings to players and teams. You don't go on mini tours in another country several time zones away.
Tigs can bum shuffle from Leicester to Northampton quicker than the Boks can fly from Jo'burg to Perth.
When the super rugby teams have to play more than one game away in the republic it has a profound effect on their win success which decreases with each consecutive game before they get to go home and recharge the batteries.
NH club teams never experience this issue.
Olly, you're statement shows you have no idea about this.
Never.
Travel is such a monty in the Super rugby it gets factored into bookies percentiles.

The 6 Nations.
A grand old tournament but soft as melting ice cream when compared to the rigours of the 4 Nations RC in the southern hemisphere.
You don't have home and away so you play less games. The travelling is infinitesimal compared to the long distance flights and time zones that tick by as the big four participants trek around the circumference of the world. Yet still you have breaks in the schedule.
You have Italy, that's like a training weekend. We have Argentina, and especially away, on the end of a 12 hour flight, that's a tough game.
The intensity of the RC is cranked to a much higher level than the 6 Nations.
The fatigue invoked by the rigorous schedules of travelling always plays a role in our competitions and the RC is the hardest regular international competition in the world.
This is not negotiable.
NH hemisphere clubs or countries never have to deal with this issue unless they travel to the southern hemisphere in their off season, and Northern hemisphere teams don't come to NZ much. At 27 hours travelling for the shortest flight I don't blame them, but we go up north every Autumn and play at least 4 games.
The intensity of the SH tournaments are tougher and the travelling involved make the hardship greater and correspondingly the SH teams have a higher level of fatigue.
Your players don't get dragged around the globe going from sea level to the high veld and then back to sea level.
When we get here your players are fresh and rearing to go.
Then there's the weather...

So don't cry about getting no sympathy when you're tournament structures lack intensity, you get more breaks, you have an easy beat training run team in your 6 Nations program and your travel itinerary is not worth mentioning.
This AB team looks tired for a reason, but hey, their still winning.

That's a few years out of date, playing away from home in rugby is a massive swing, the bookies and rankings take it into account and it's obvious in every tournament on the planet. The 6 nations is far tougher and more intense than the November tests for one, the good NH sides use the series for development, last week for example Ireland had two debuts and five players with less than five caps, you'd never see that in the 6n, Jones is yet to start his strongest XV. With the exception of Italy in the last few years, and they're improving under their reformed structure, the games are seriously intense, the French are brutal to play against even when they're bad, England and Ireland beat most teams up and it's a mental challenge trying to beat the Scots and Welsh, there's less travelling but no difference in games because the intensity is driven up a notch for the 6n. I reckon the 6n was tougher than the Mediocrity this year's RC served up for the most part.
Then there's the travelling in Super Rugby, plenty of the guys who played NZ yesterday have played in SA in the last couple months, likewise the guys who beat SA last week. In days when guys fly business class, are treated by professionals to avoid jet lag and travel so much it's almost second nature, the effects of a long haul flight is the equivalent to missing a couple day's training, which is definitely not worse than the extra competitive matches.
Now you could pit Super Rugby against the European Cup and there's no comparison, at most you get maybe four dead rubber games in the ERCC, Super Rugby gets that weekly, outside the top 4-5 teams the standard looks lower and the players look like they care far less, players get to saunter through these games and you don't see that in any league here. It's also the toughest rounds of these competitions that are played literally the week before the summer tests, these are more important than those tests too.
NZ might be tired but I reckon they're tired of playing rugby rather than physically tired because they didn't need to break a sweat to win the RC, and having won it lost interest and nearly lost to a dismal Boks side and did lost to Aus who are far from great shakes befause they lost interest.
NZ are rebuilding yes, but they're not doing it well, The Lions showed that, Aus showed that and now Scotland have given an indication. They'll always be good enough to win most of their games because of their talent pool but they're getting caught up to if they're not caught already because I reckon England could walk an RC in their place, potentially Ireland too but we haven't proven it away from home yet. They aren't looking bad because of a hard season, because they haven't had one and even if they did they couldn't use it as an excuse as they couldn't beat the Lions on the back of their hard season while fresh.

 

[NDC89]

You really can't argue with the travel schedule, but I don't agree that the RC is a tougher competition than the 6Ns. It used to be, back in the day. Mostly when it was the Tri-Nations and the 3 teams in it were the best 3 in the world realistically. That is no longer the case.

New Zealand are the best team in the world. Ok fine. If I am honest, at the moment, England and Ireland would push the bloody close though. As would Scotland it would seem, though I don;t know if they have the consistency yet.

England & Ireland are both better than all the rest of the RC teams.

Australia, Scotland, Wales, South Africa and Argentina. Don't think there is much between these teams. Aus and Scotland both appear to be on the up though. I really wouldn't like to call a game between any of them.

Italy and France are both pretty bad atm, but are still both hugely physical games. France especially just want to beat you up for 80 minutes with the biggest humans they can find.

 

[AM_Bokke]

I thought that the RC was good this year. I am a Boks fan but I thought that the Boks - ABs game was the most exciting game I had watched all year. I thought that it was better than Ireland and England in the 6N. The Aus - ABs games were also good. While not exactly smashing matches, the fact that both Aus - SA games ended in multiple try draws is pretty good.

Both the June and Autumn internationals are friendlies. The 6N and RC are trophies. Yes, the trophy comps should have more intensity. I get the sense that SH sides take the int'ls a bit more seriously but that is because the national sides are what all of rugby is built around in the SH. While England and France have all of these clubs. But let's be honest, a lot of England's and France's clubs are useless. They are loss making junk in small towns. I don't personally find the European club season very engaging or the competitive balance as high as some people like to think.

People can complain all they want about the Sunwolves and Jaguares but at least they provide their countries with professional rugby opportunities in large cities. They have real purpose. The SA and Aus purges were also needed. I think that the upcoming Super Rugby season is going to be quite good and certainly better than last year.

As rugby fans let's just all hope that both the NH and SH can maintain good balance. A strong SH makes rugby better.