Rugby Championship 2016

horace wrote:Very close.

BD - did you play rugby at some stage?

He certainly did.

Call me old fashioned but a grand slam with this team would have cheapened the 1984 efforts.

horace wrote:Very close.

BD - did you play rugby at some stage?

Aye, 20 year veteran. Was a state rep over ten years.

Very tough game. An ex bro in law played for oz. He's bald and looks like Frankenstein from the scars from being stomped and being quickly stitched up on the sidelines or sheds.

Ahhh the good old days. Only two replacements allowed and no interchange and you had to be dead to be substituted.

Er, back on the day there were no replacements.

How far back are you goin?. Right back in the day it was how many people you could fit on the field.

Back in MY day you could replace a player if he left the field due to injury but that (injured) player could not return. If a player left the field & was not replaced, then he could come back on after treatment. There was no such thing as a substitution.

I think "injury" substitutions were first allowed in the 70's.

Well I meant when I first started playing and basically what BD said was what I meant. I can remember them when I first started watching and certainly the rule as BD describes it was the rule until well into the professional era as I can remember a super 10(12,?) match where a Reds back was sent off and it was quite obvious that the forward who went down injured in the next play had got the word from the sidelines.

Okay a bit of investigation shows that the first injury susbstitution was in 1968. Tactical substitutions were "officially" sanctioned in 1996.

taipan wrote:Okay a bit of investigation shows that the first injury susbstitution was in 1968. Tactical substitutions were "officially" sanctioned in 1996.

Sounds about right.

Actually the first match I ever saw was the first ever win over the Springboks in the late sixties but I can remember interstate matches where people were playing looking like they'd been in a car accident, so yeah it may have only been winked at in extreme cases before that.

Bradman wrote:Actually the first match I ever saw was the first ever win over the Springboks in the late sixties but I can remember interstate matches where people were playing looking like they'd been in a car accident, so yeah it may have only been winked at in extreme cases before that.

Would have been 1965. I guess you mean series win?

Ah yeah. I thought our first test win might have been before that. Is 1965 correct?

First win was 1933.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rugby_union_matches_between_Australia_and_South_Africa

OK. Mea culpa. I see where you're coming from.

OK men - putting to one side the mind games between EJ and Michael Cheika, how do you think the match will go on Saturday?

Huge blow for us losing big Billy V, but it will at least give us a chance to see how Nathan Hughes compares as a like for like replacement.

Personally, I'm not sure the other 3 matches really told us too much. We weren't under much pressure against one of the worst SA teams of recent years. Fiji, for all their efforts are not a professional team, and many of their best players qualify for other nations (but that's a different issue, for another time). Until we "fell asleep" either side of HT, they never looked threatening.

As for the Argentina game, a fantastic effort to win after losing Daly so early ...... but the Pumas were shot at the end of a hard season, and frankly inept with their tactics against 14 men. Had they played 30-40 yards further upfield I think we'd have been beaten.

So - the best, and hardest game by a distance, I think - at the end. We will want to go unbeaten for the year, and match SCW's 14 match winning run (although the coach & squad won't be thinking of that in itself) .... and stick it once more to the Aus media ( especially Fox sports ) for much sneering commentary before the summer tour. Half the squad played in last years WC, and I'm sure the memory still bloody hurts. They will want to prove a point once more.

Australia, being Australia, will want revenge for the summer whitewash. Considering that Aussie Rules footy and/or league are bigger in many places, they still produce a damn good RU team. The buggers never know when they're beaten much of the time, and in my experience don't usually just roll over.

Hard to call, but I'll put my head on the block. 35-45 point game, both sides to score 2 or 3 tries, winning margin either way of 3-6 points ...... the difference hopefully being the kicking of "daddy's boy" (which looks an utterly stupid expression now, don't you think?) Owen Farrell.

That prediction may be utter bollocks of course, but we'll know in a few days. Anyone else brave enough to call it ?

Personally I'll be surprised if England lose.

wannabees to concede too many dumb penalties

score more tries and lose

You think defence is our weakness and your strength this week MB ? Until recently, we've generally struggled to score tries, but that is changing. You may get tries out wide, but I'm not sure you'll easily pass Farrell and Joseph up the middle - they have beefed up the central defence by some margin.

Don't worry too much about penalties - you may get about 4 back just off Dan Cole   .

Growls

dont watch enough pom rugby to say

just going on my cynical take of oz rugby

Fair enough mate ..... and TBH it's quite possible that you've called it right, as you have some real quality in your squad.

If they all play, Pocock & Hooper will make every breakdown a real scrap for possession. You have a fine half-back pair in Genos & Foley - one of the best, and if they can get the ball to Israel Falou, the man is a handful for the very best defences.

So, you could get an extra try, but may well suffer with scrum penalties we do have the better pack overall IMHO.

Wallabies lost to the Boks a few weeks back. Say no more.

embee wrote:wannabees to concede too many dumb penalties

score more tries and lose  

I'd agree with that. The 13-3 penalty count cost us the game against Ireland.