Loose Pass: The reasons why Ireland v All Blacks was ‘not a classic’ as Andy Farrell left with ‘a lot more awkward’ November
Ireland and New Zealand walking out at Soldier Field, Chicago.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with anti-climaxes, hybrids and amusing headlines…
The wrong place at the wrong time?
Whatever your loyalty, whatever you think of head contact protocols, whatever you make of the importance of technicalities and their officiating thereof by referees, on one thing we can all agree: the Soldier Field rematch was not a classic.
Nor, in fact, was the England-Australia match, played as it was by two teams who had trained two or three times together each, with one team short of some of its key players and having had “15 Test matches across 22 weeks in nine countries, and 10 different time zones,” eight of which had been crossed just six days prior.
New Zealand‘s preparation for Chicago was similar, while Ireland chose a six-hour time difference to add in as a challenge for their first match together in eight months.
Little wonder that the first half was sluggish, that the match was influenced by a dozy tackle resulting in a red card, that there were a plethora of injuries, that the players spent much of the first 40 trying hard the patience of referee Pierre Brousset through all manner of sloppy technical infringements. Some fans turned against Mr. Brousset, but he had to make his stance early if the game was to pick itself up and not descend into acrimony.
The last thing the game needed were technical glitches as well as infringements, but even the stadium video screen operators found it hard to wake up, meaning that the decision to send Tadhg Beirne for a TMO review took almost four minutes, about four minutes longer then it needed to, while we had the farcical moment of watching all three match officials trot the 40m to the sideline video screen together. A moment that every single fan of every single persuasion in the stadium and watching from afar found perhaps amusing, but instantly never wanted to see in the middle of a game ever again. The atmosphere, threatening to warm up, rarely got beyond that level for the rest of the game. Mr. Brousset made a lot of clear and specific calls which TV viewers could probably accept, but would have been a complete mystery to the casual fans in the stadium the game is desperately trying to attract.
That New Zealand woke up in the second half and got their act together a little more is perhaps testament to the fact they have now played together 10 times over the past four months and could fall back on a little ingrained cohesion. Andy Farrell perhaps chose an Ireland squad based more on familiarity than form to counter this, but it did not work out like that. Ireland‘s November has become a lot more awkward as a result of this game.
In fact, little on Saturday in Chicago worked out as it should have done. Would both teams have been better served with this Test at the end of the window in this location? Would perhaps a different location have worked out?
Hindsight is a very precise science of course, but considering the bizarre situation whereby English clubs could release their English players but not their Australian ones, and considering the disjointed nature of Saturday’s game, it still feels as though the seams of the calendar continue to split at unhelpful moments.
The clue is in the name…
Hybrid players have been long been in the thinking of the more progressive coaches in the game; Rassie Erasmus and Eddie Jones have both toyed with them for yonks. And now Steve Borthwick has joined the club.
It doesn’t sit well with all, least of all a generation that has grown through the last 25 years or so of having the athletes professionally-trained for position-specific movements and athletic conditioning. But it was inevitable.
And is it really new? After all, while the old adage runs that rugby is game for all shapes and sizes, there are significantly fewer protagonists at elite level weighing less than 100kg for example, even fewer who can’t pelt out 100m in fewer than 13-14 seconds. If you’ve two props who stand five feet high and six feet square and can squat a small truck, but one could sidestep a squirrel and accelerate like a cheetah, he’s the one who probably gets the nod. If you’ve two wings who can run 100m in sub-11, the one heavy enough to also meet a maternally-enraged hippo head on and get it sent for an HIA as a result is going to be your man.
The more the sport science within the game has grown, the more multi-faceted the athletes are going to be. And given current attrition rates among the chosen few, the more coaches are going to look at back-ups especially who can cover more than one base, going to use such as strategic weapons.
Meanwhile, at the fun levels, how many of us with broader than average shoulders might have once been earmarked as a back-up prop at least, despite the natural dexterity nudging them towards a stint at fly-half? How many centres have been forced to double-up in the back-row when teams are a little short on numbers? Or vice versa?
And after all, it was not long ago that flankers, as they are known these days, were known as wing-forwards. Which is perhaps the correct epithet for Henry Pollock or Ben Earl right now.
The giggles
Loose Pass loves a good pun, but after noting a colleague’s declaration that SARU are considering taking Jan-Hendrik Wessels‘ disciplinary case to court as a ‘twist’ in the tale, perhaps it is open season?
We are, after all, groping for the truth of this matter, while it seems fair to say that Wessels has been well-hung out to dry. Should the citing commissioner be sacked?
Whatever your opinion, the whole thing is a bit nuts…
The comments section is open.
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