Let's go ABs, get rid of these arrogant frogs
Let's go ABs, get rid of these arrogant frogs
Ja ja, trap hulle.
I’d quite like France to win 
I like both teams. Not sure who I'll be supporting at the end but I'm sure I'll get invested in one of the teams as the game goes on.
It’s nice to watch when you don’t care so much as when you’re playing yourself.
Sititi vs Alldritt could be the deciding factor here.
France starting like a house on fire.
Finau looks concussed. Lakai on.
Lots of passes going to ground at the moment.
Ramos with an excellent penalty kick. 3-0 France. Is Ramos the best place kicker of all time? He has a case.
All Blacks score through Lakai after some brilliance from Will Jordan and Ardie Savea.
Brilliant try All Blacks.
7-3
Commentator calls Caleb Clarke Eroni Clarke. LMAO!
French look a bit offside there.
Commentator is a few decades late.
Reece with the intercept, can't run away from Dupont though.
Jordie gets smashed.
All action but plenty of errors and penalties too.
This idiotic Irish commentator can't say the name Dupont without calling him the best player in the world. Pah! If I was picking a world team to play for my life and I had first choice, Cheslin Kolbe would be my pick.
Good kick by Roigard. All Blacks playing with a lot of precision and accuracy in the last few minutes.
All Blacks scrum smashes the Frogs and Roigard scores.
Roigard scores the weirdest try. Close quarters intercept? No idea what to call that.
All Blacks have clear scrum superiority but France secure it and they're on attack . . . must score . . . yes. Buros over on his debut.
France scores, good build up opening the gaps.
Another coaching mystery. A few weeks ago the Irish dismantled Tamatai Williams by setting really low. France serve up a powder puff at tighthead replacement who sets right in Williams power zone.
14-10
The difference in the All Blacks willingness to run the ball instead of just endlessly booting it high liek the Boks is refreshing. They're looking good on attack.
Ardie is playing a blinder.
Clear forward pass to Clark before the penalty
Penalty to tthe ABs. It's in range and Beauden converts.
17-10
French going to ground at the breakdown reverses all their momentum.
Sititi is being well policed.
Sititi hit back 5m.
Best half from Savea this year…he looks much more engaged.
Droppie, missed. All Blacks dominating but the French defense is keeping them in it.
Half time and the All Blacks have a deserved lead. 17-10.
The ABs should win this
Ref clearly not adhering to speeding up scrum setting time limit. Out of his depth.
Savea ............ the smallest & best loose forward in world rugby.
France starting the second like they started the first.
The French maul crashes over. 17-15 with the kick to come.
Ramos blows a potential 2 man overlap…I get Jalibert’s frustration. But France score.
And they maul it over from the lineout.
Ramos converts. 17-17.
Jalibert is definitely a bigger threat. Imagine if they had him on the bench here.
Bit of a pointless kick from Beauden. All Blacks getting the ball to their danger men, strong run by Clarke.
The slow lob was the wrong option there for the All Blacks, there was a two on one if they put it through the hands.
And now Beauden boots it away. All Blacks not showing the necessary patience on attack.
Now if that offload had stuck they were through, but it's France who scores at the other end.
Bielle-Barry scores after a kick through by Ramos. Sevu Reece inexplicably gave up on the chase.
France cash in on another NZ error
Again the All Blacks just rushing and forcing things and this time they pay for it.
France look a different team in this second half.
Error from France gets NZ a lineout in the 22, they need to capitalize.
Not surprised Reece is yanked. DMac is on, I assume either he or Beauden will go to fullback and Jordan moves to the wing.
And they lost their lineout.
And again, Williams through on a brilliant line and then forces the offload and the ball goes forward.
Penalty All Blacks and DMac will go for poles . . . it's over. 24-20 to France.
So will that French player get a red for the head contact on his own player?
Man that's a tough call for obstruction on NZ.
27-20
Ollivon demonstrates again tall guys can be effective on the deck with a brilliant turnover
DMac kicks another penalty. 27-23.
And French steal it on the deck ending another NZ attack that got within 2m of the line.
NZ making all the play but they just can't get over the tryline.
Cortez Ratima slow and hesitant again. Attacking scrum to France.
Jordan saves NZ with the intercept.
French defense is outstanding.
Another penalty to the ABs which DMac kicks to make it a 1 point game. France lead 27-26.
Le Gatrrec on, DuPont moves to #10 and Ramos to fullback.
Ratima knocks on. He's having another nightmare.
Sititi wins the penalty at the breakdown. All Blacks can get back on the attack now.
Difficult ball though.
Tuingaasi gives away a penalty for a neck roll . . . Ramos will kick this to restore a 4 point lead . . . it's over. 30-26. He doesn't miss.
It's been a while since I've seen tackling like the French in the second half. 30-26 as Ramos slots a penalty.
Now it's a penalty to the All Blacks, do they have time to kick one? Yes, DMac goes for poles. It's over. 30-29.
Now a penalty to NZ. Going for poles, it better be over. Big call.
Ratima gifts possession back to France with a poor kick. France on attack. Less than 5 to play.
Rieko Ioane knocks on and that could be the game . . .
All Blacks have a penalty but they're deep in their own 22. 2 minutes to go.
Ioane knocks it. And now the French could score.
All Blacks have a lineout inside their 22. This is last chance saloon . . .
Dmac loses it. One more chance as they get another lineout.
France win. Good game. A good night of rugby!
Jordan held up and that's the game.
Now that was a test match. All Blacks threw away too many scoring opportunities through bad decisions and lack of patience. Terrific French defense though.
Bugger. Congratulations France.
Congratulations France….all these teams France, NZ, Ireland, NZ and the Boks are so close. The difference is the Boks don’t make mistakes like Ioane did at crucial moments. It’s all paper thin.
I though France might win and on Superbru gave then to win 7 points - but must admit that to my mind New Zealnd played better rugby than France - but two critical mistakes by NZ players gave France the advantage and they used both,
Anyway the fact is the Tight 5 of the Springboks - plus Du Toit. Pollard and De Allende helped. The decided try by Kolbe set up by De Allende made the difference,.
Congrats to the commentary team on their 4 hour stint.
Dammit ABs.
The one time I'm backing them they go and do their best to lose.
Lol!
Congrats to the Frogs. ABs have improved a lot but not being able to put the nail in the coffin is once again a problem. Great game though.
Welcome back JW - how areyou ad family?
I wanted the AB's badly to win - but felt that home ground advntage could lead to a Frog win. I wonder why some players make silly mistake two f which l tp French tries, I like that new flank forwad of the AB's a lot. Will benefit and strengthen the team in future.
Enjoyable game and I’m glad I backed France for this one. At least we’ve had a northern hemisphere win against one of the big three this weekend !
Hi Clevermike, thanks for the good wishes. We got to watch a good game of rugby, shame it didn't turn out to be a win for the ABs but the team has really improved. Looking forward to the game with Italy and especially for next year! Boks are looking really good also.
Big debate down here about the decision to go for a penalty instead of the lineout ...... Razor says it was the captain's choice....................imo. lineout.
I said it was a big call in the live commentary at the time and that the penalty better go over, which it did. I'm not sure how the All Blacks felt about their chances of scoring a try at the time. Their last try at that stage was Roigard's halfway through the first half. All the attacking they've put in during that amount of time for no result while they got 12 points in penalties had to be playing in the captain's mind. The three pointer would have meant they only needed to get back in the French half, force an error and they were in business, but the French managed to keep them pinned in their own half. Hindsight is easy, it's always a tough decision. I'm sure next time they'll take the lineout - and if it doesn't work out they'll wonder if they should have taken the 3.
The ABs are struggling to score points.
They weren't comfortable against England at home.
They lost to the Boks away from home.
The scraped past England away from home.
They beat Ireland in what was probably their best game since Razor has been boss.
They narrowly lost to France away from home.
A pretty forgettable year by all accounts.
In 2018, before the last WC, I mentioned that I felt the ABs were creaking.
Come 2024 and they can't seem to find a way to score in the last 20 minutes of games. This is the complete opposite of the ABs we got used to.
They are very far from the force they once were.
They don't seem to have the same level of players coming through either. These ABs seem softer.
It's a tricky place to be because how do they fix their rugby problems while basically isolated and no longer playing much against SA? If a forward has a dominant game in SR against the Bulls or Stormers in SA, then you can rest assured that there's a good chance he's up to the standard required for test rugby. If he can do it consistently then you may as well pick him for the ABs because it means he'll certainly perform at test level.
But what do you do when you don't have the SA litmus test at your disposal any longer?
For me, the Kiwis need to figure out a way to be involved in the URC or Top 14. If it means spending months away from home, so be it.
They can't carry on pretending everything is fine while their house is actually on fire.
They can say that they were dominant before SR existed. That's true. But rugby isn't the same these days. Everybody has levelled up. The SA teams are sharpening Ireland's teeth, the northern hemisphere competitions are extremely professional with tons of money poured in. The game is ultra professional these days.
Having the talent and playing games against each other and some Islanders simply isn't enough to keep New Zealand on a level.
For me, they need to act quickly or suffer being left behind by almost everybody else.
I thought they played well and even dominated France for the most part. The problem was their execution close to the line. Four incidents I can recall off the top of my head - a completely unnecessary slow lob pass that canceled out a 2 on 1, a poor kick by Beauden when they were attacking down the left deep in French territory, Williams losing control of the ball trying to offload it and knocking on after he ran a beautiful line that all but left the tryline open, the French stealing the ball on the ground just two meters from the line after another sustained All Black attack all but got them there. These are all instances of them losing patience and forcing a play or just not being accurate enough in execution right on the final hurdle.
Same with the last French try where once again the All Blacks tried to force an offload that wasn't quite on, ball went to ground, French got it and away they went.
This is fixable, they just need to calm the fuck down. As I also mentioned in the live thread, the French defense was outstanding. They scrambled on defense and tackled like I haven't seen a team do in a good while. I thought the All Blacks attack looked really good for the most part and you can actually see the progress as opposed to the Boks who just seem to settle back into the 10 man stuff all the time. They need to move on from Ratima though. He is simply not test quality and it hurt them when he replaced Roigard.
I think the All Blacks can be positive. New coach, 8+ of their frontline players retiring or moving on last year, there's going to be a shaky period. It hasn't been good for them, but they're showing signs now of getting it together.
Whilst I’m gutted we lost by a point, I’m still happy how we’ve finished out the season with a vastly different squad to last year. We’ve unearthed some exciting new talent and apart from the debacle against Argentina, we performed well against all opposition given the upheaval with so many retirements and a new coaching regime. Before consigning us to the rubbish bin Plum, let’s just see how things play out for the Boks in NZ next year. The Boks record in NZ is dismal compared to ours in SA remember!
I'm not consigning the ABs to the rubbish bin, Moola.
Far from it.
You'll always have enough talent to be competitive.
What I am saying is that to get back to your previous dominance, your franchises need to be playing against better opposition.
Think of it like this...
You guys were the most dominant that you've ever been...during the height of SR, when it was easily the most competitive franchise competition on the planet. When SR teams where vastly better than most international sides.
Perhaps you feel that's a coincidence.
I don't.
Yeah that against the run of play try by France kind of sealed it for them
There was nothing in that game which is what we expected from two evenly matched sides
I think the isolation thing work both ways also against the Boks….but the big difference is the AB are actually scoring tries of real Backline Play.
It’s true that most of there incumbents left and they had to start from scratch almost with a lot of new, inexperienced players.
So they are doing actually very well and managed to beat Ireland at home, which we haven’t done.
For me personally I am more worried about the Boks stagnating there player depth and the transformation of our Backline play.
Like Pakie said we basically still this Forward oriented 10 man Rugby team??
What the hell if you think we have Tony Brown there and all the potential danger runners, but almost zero of that, transpires onto the field??
Big Question marks for SA!?and then you have the usual Blind Bok supporters and dumb media,
making like we are the best at everything and on top of the world ?
But in real life it is still Stampkar delux grind, with in between individual greatness…
I'm in total agreement that the forwards coming through for the Boks are not dominating.
Wiese isn't new any more, but he's been good since game 1. Outside of a couple of silly penalties, he took to test rugby easily.
Nortje has probably been the best of the true noobs.
...and then nobody else really.
Why is this guy not there?
14,230 posts
In case nobody makes a thread for the game.
Here's hoping the ABs put 30 points on the French.
Nice evening of rugby ahead.