OlapFriday night rugby match thread: 8pm BST. The All Blacks vs the Azzuri
Italian anthen smashes God Defend New Zealand
Fantastic seeing the ABs failing to defend a first phase lineout play!
I-TAL-IA
TagMeInSkipIGotThisYup, Reiko’s shout for that one, although Monty Ioane could do that to just about anyone.
Was fully expecting Italy to be in with a chance, but seeing the AB team I think they win this comfortably.
Will still be cheering on Italy though, cos that would send France through and I might be able relax with the final group match not being a must win affair.
Saw it was close, turned the telly on. Two minutes later the ABs have two further tries.
I’m a curse.
Quick, turn back off! 24m BP is dissapointing though
I did. And I just checked back in and now we have to deal with them having a point to prove next week. Bleugh
Baron Von JUgh. Azzurri need to find some momentum here.
Yeah, they’re looking at a record defeat currently
Its tough, to get momentum from the ABs when they’re in this mood you have to cause the game momentum to cease. There’s a reason France, SA etc draw games out as long as possible against the ABs. Stop/start takes away their rhythm and if you can back that up by milking penalties they start to rush things when they do have ball in hand.
I just thought I’d pop into the old /r to see how the usual punters were seeing things, and I must say. I get that this is far quieter and it’s really just a handful of us bantering together.
But I do enjoy the sanity and mostly well reasoned and rational chat we have here :) Maybe its because we must be real die-hard fans to want to chat about footy on a niche platform together, but compared to some of the hot takes over there I do wonder if the biggest difference is we’ve all watched at least 1 game of rugby before ;)
A bit less shitposting here for sure. But some good fun nevertheless. Tommy Allan yet to miss a kick is fantastic to see too. Of course, this was Scotland 12 years ago with Chris Paterson. And we were guff then too, but it gave us a platform, which Italy can have here too
Hoping NZ ring the subs early doors and give some other boys a shot
Yeah it’d be the greatest comeback in the world if they were to win it from here and I doubt that’s possible. But if they keep playing like they’ve done in the first couple of minutes they could easily win the 2nd half.
WOOOHOOOO! Try Italia! Andiamo Azzurri!
Checked the scores and saw Italy had clawed back one try. Popped the game back on to see a charge down.
Think I’ll just stop watching for the rest of the tournament
I never thought DMac was 100% convincing when he played at 15 for the ABs; but since he went to Japan and came back as a 10 for the Chiefs and now the ABs, I’m all on the bandwagon. Still to see him do this in a tough battle against say a big contact team, but not feeling so panicked at not having Mounga next year.
That’s it, isn’t it, doing this against a team giving up a ton makes it look easy. Ireland (or SA I hope!) the big test in a fortnight
His little grin while settling before the kick looks a little movie psycho henchman to me. Plays well though.
Oh I agree with that for sure; but I don’t think this result is just Italy not being good. ABs have done the work, they won the collision, won the break down, won the set piece, maintained their discipline, and played with accuracy & variety. They kept Italy out of the game and dictated the way it was played.
IRE or SA will be a completely different game, and they will be able to wrest control of the game if they lose it in the way that Italy were not. Although if the ABs keep improving from this they are looking like the team that hurt SA in NZ earlier this year. The difference between this ABs team and other eras is there’s a question mark on if they can do it.
If they can, then whoever faces them in the quarters will need to win like its a final, and what that might do with 2 games remaining afterwards is food for thought.
Not the result I wanted but happy with that ending.
On the NZ coverage Shag made the point that there were no cards in this game, and I have to say that is bloody refreshing. Probably because the collision zone was so dominated by one team rather than being a real battle. But still a positive for rugby no matter the cause I think.
None in Ire vs SA last week either
huzzah! I think all the teams are working hard on tackling height and everything, so really it must come down to a bit of luck, get the timing just a little bit wrong and its bad news.
Cards will decide knock outs for sure, so discipline really important to work on for now too
Penalties too I think; defensive breakdown is so well rewarded that players might need to go against instinct and let the ball go if they’re caught isolated. The mantra for any team needs to be no easy metres, make them earn it not be given it by letting the referee ping you.
We noticed this and thought how clean the game was for both teams, especially the AB’s. I think I saw one Italian player that looked like he was hurt but no major issues it seems!
Yeah even with all the stops for kicking conversions and restarts the game itself breezed by - and that’s as much as anything due to what you note, with few players going down to pretend injuries just to get some water & air etc. I’m not a huge fan of the way Carley refs either, but I thought he was pretty decent and kept the game moving quite well too.
Foz’s comments after that match have got a bunch of people worked up because they think he’s saying that big collision low points rugby is bad. I expect he’s misinterpreted, the people he was talking to were the WR officials trying to encourage them to keep games moving and avoiding all the clock manipulation that’s going on.
I think some fans think Foz is saying Ire or SA can’t play rugby; but my impression is that what he’s trying to say is if the game is kept moving then they’ll really be able to show what they’ve got. Because NZ hasn’t forgotten the lesson of how well Ireland can play with the ball and players in motion.
I was expecting the AB’s to win but not by this much! Very happy to see how the boys in black played last night. That was quite the statement.
Yeah, people who write off the All Blacks got a wake up call last night. Can’t wait for those quaters!