spoiler

NZ 23 - 20 Aus

Leaving the result hidden just in case some folks haven’t seen it, will chat more in the replies!

  • TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nzOP
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    11 months ago

    Hell of a test match in the end; glad the ABs managed to get the result to see off the departing legends with a W.

    Some folks might look at some of the nervy errors from the debutants early on and feel like they might not belong but pretty much the whole team were playing badly and that compounded some pretty aggressive scrum refereeing from Dickson who went to a straight arm penalty a second after the hit in the first scrum and then took the word of an AR 50m away for the 2nd penalty - both of which to my mind were Aus not taking the hit.

    Anyway after the rubbish first half most of the All Blacks stood up and especially the bench sealed it for us in the end. I thought Stevenson just got better and better as did Finau and Tupou Vai’i.

    If any questions got answered, for me its that Finlay Christie is not on the money and i’d feel much happier if Brad Weber was going as one of the 3 halfbacks. Christie just wasn’t getting to the rucks on time and while his pass was great when he got there it meant slow rucks when if he’d predicted the location a bit better he’d have been able to shave half a second to a second off.

    Wallabies looked awesome in the first half and really up until they subbed on White & Cooper who didn’t really have bench impact in the same way the ABs bench did. Another match though where the prop subs were very weird and they left it too late to get a guy clearly struggling off the park.

    0-4 this year looks bad on paper but they are getting better every week and with their pool can build into the playoffs so I reckon they’re still in a decent shot to go deep in the RWC.

        • Olap@lemmy.worldM
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          11 months ago

          Yeah, I wish all national teams would spread the love. Would like to see more A team tours too

          • TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nzOP
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            11 months ago

            Yeah, NZ is pretty good in that regard - if we were like England or Scotland the only place that would see test matches would be Eden Park. But that usually only gets 1-2 a year depending on how many home games we have. Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch & Dunedin all regularly get test matches, and then from time to time a test might get played in the provinces as well.

    • Olap@lemmy.worldM
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      11 months ago

      I made do with youtube highlights sadly. Too much other rugby to watch