All Blacks retain Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cup

Desert Eagle

Punjabi Dude
Joined
Sep 25, 2006
Messages
18,613
New Zealand (12) 26
Tries: Woodcock
Pens: Carter (7)

Australia (9) 12
Pens: Mortlock (3)
Drops: Giteau

New Zealand retained the Tri-Nations title and the Bledisloe Cup with a hard-fought win over Australia at a damp Eden Park in Auckland.

Heavy rain made the early stages a battle, with four Dan Carter penalties helping the All Blacks to a slender 12-9 lead at half-time.

But the hosts' physical power told after the break when Tony Woodcock went over from close range on 59 minutes.

A seventh penalty of the day from Carter wrapped up the victory.
 
enghuei said:
They always win the tri-nation
But they always chock when the the RWC comes
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This All Blacks is different, past AB sides have always been about flair with their backline compensating for their forwards BUT this current side has some very mean forwards.Any side that plays the Boks in SA and has its forwards running riot over the Boks is special. This AB side has also evolved from the 2003 one, back then their wingers were only expected to score tries BUT nowadays their wingers do as much work as the rest of the midfield and still possess the try scoring threat. They have only one weekness and thats at outside centre and even then the guys that play there are still better than almost all 13s bar Jauzion and BOD
 
Eto'odinho said:
This All Blacks is different, past AB sides have always been about flair with their backline compensating for their forwards BUT this current side has some very mean forwards.Any side that plays the Boks in SA and has its forwards running riot over the Boks is special. This AB side has also evolved from the 2003 one, back then their wingers were only expected to score tries BUT nowadays their wingers do as much work as the rest of the midfield and still possess the try scoring threat. They have only one weekness and thats at outside centre and even then the guys that play there are still better than almost all 13s bar Jauzion and BOD
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Don't waste your time on him mate, he wouldn't have a clue. I doubt he's even been to a rugby match before.
 
enghuei said:
True, never been to a rugby match before.
Only watch it on tele.
Not a big fan.
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Then stop putting forward ill-formed opinions based on media generalisation. I have watched all the world cups since 1995 and on two occasions they didn't bottle it. Australia played well in 2003 and in 1995 the refereeing was very dodgy in the final with the AB forward line being constantly penalised for very very minor "offences".
 
Eto'odinho said:
Then stop putting forward ill-formed opinions based on media generalisation. I have watched all the world cups since 1995 and on two occasions they didn't bottle it. England scraped past in 2003 and in 1995 the refereeing was very dodgy in the final with the AB forward line being constantly penalised for very very minor "offences".
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I did not get this through media generalisation.
I have watched both WRC in 1999 and 2003.
On both occasions New Zealand choked during the latter stages.
 
enghuei said:
I did not get this through media generalisation.
I have watched both WRC in 1999 and 2003.
On both occasions New Zealand choked during the latter stages.
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In 1999 against the French yes, but in 2003 No. Unless you are getting your definition of the word choke mixed up, choking is what we United did at the San Siro this year.
 
Eto'odinho said:
In 1999 against the French yes, but in 2003 No. Unless you are getting your definition of the word choke mixed up, choking is what we United did at the San Siro this year.
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For me on paper New Zealand was definitely better than England they should have won. Up until that match Carlos Spencer was having a great tournament and if I remember correctly he made a lot of mistakes against England.
New Zealand should have won but they did not, hence I used to word "choke".
Nothing against the All Blacks though, maybe they lack a bit of team work back than and relied too much on individual brilliance.
 
enghuei said:
For me on paper New Zealand was definitely better than England they should have won. Up until that match Carlos Spencer was having a great tournament and if I remember correctly he made a lot of mistakes against England.
New Zealand should have won but they did not, hence I used to word "choke".
Nothing against the All Blacks though, maybe they lack a bit of team work back than and relied too much on individual brilliance.
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Australia won that game because they had a dominant pack. They knew they were better than them man for man in most departments so they played a percentage game.And all players no matter how good they are have days off.
 
enghuei said:
And there's where the word "choke" comes in.
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Get your definition of the word choke sorted out. United choked at the San Siro, Australia had a specific game plan for the ABs and Spencer just was just off colour. Teams that have consitently choked include the French, the Boks and the Irish.
 
Well, according to Wikipedia

In sports, an individual athlete, or, more commonly, an athletic team collectively, is often said to have choked when failing to win a tournament or league championship and if certain other criteria are also met, especially if the player or team had been favored to win, or had squandered a large lead in the late stages of an event. The usage of the word "choke" in this sense is generally treated as slang.

I guess we can use the word on New Zealand, based on their performances of the last 2 RWC
 
enghuei said:
Well, according to Wikipedia

In sports, an individual athlete, or, more commonly, an athletic team collectively, is often said to have choked when failing to win a tournament or league championship and if certain other criteria are also met, especially if the player or team had been favored to win, or had squandered a large lead in the late stages of an event. The usage of the word "choke" in this sense is generally treated as slang.

I guess we can use the word on New Zealand, based on their performances of the last 2 RWC
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You do know that England had already beaten the ABs in the summer internationals shortly before the WC and we had infact beaten all the big boys in the build up to the WC and that we were the favourites going into the tournament. Do you know all of this? Now unless the tournament was held in NZ in which case AB might have been slight favourites in their encounter against Australia largely down to them being the home team, I honestly can't see how you arrived to this conclusion that they choked. And if you watched the game, you might have observed that the AB went out to an Australia side(excuse my poor memory above) who were playing at home.
 
I knew England was unbeaten in their tour to the Southern Hemisphere beforehand. But as you admitted, player to player New Zealand were the better side, and thus they were the rightly favourites.
I know we would not reach a consensus here. Let's just agree to disagree.
 
enghuei said:
I knew England was unbeaten in their tour to the Southern Hemisphere beforehand. But as you admitted, player to player New Zealand were the better side, and thus they were the rightly favourites.
I know we would not reach a consensus here. Let's just agree to disagree.
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Excuse my slightly poor memory, The ABs went out to the Aussies who were the home side in that tourney. As for us, England was the number one side in the world, we hadn't lost a game in 18 months prior to the WC and lets also not forget that this was very much an ABs side still under construction
 
So you were to first one to bring up the fact that AB lost to England, which is not true. I did not know who New Zealand lost to, but still they choked.:)

And I see you have edited your original post regarding "England beat New Zealand with Wilkinson's kicking prowess or summat" to hide your original mistake, good move mate.
 
enghuei said:
So you were to first one to bring up the fact that AB lost to England, which is not true. I did not know who New Zealand lost to, but still they choked.:)

And I see you have edited your original post regarding "England beat New Zealand with Wilkinson's kicking prowess or summat" to hide your original mistake, good move mate.
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My memory failed as to the opposition BUT they didn't choke in 2003.
 
All Blacks didn't choke. They basically had problems dealing with Stirling Mortlock and Stephen Larkham and Gregan on the night who were excellent. And in 99 the French found out that Lomu was slow on the turn and played loads of kick over his head. Anyone who said the the All Blacks choke clearly have no idea at all about rugby and relies on media generalization.

Pity that Weepu did not make it to the World Cup squad though. Always liked the guy, but he's never going to start ahead of Byron Kelleher.

Haven't been getting that much coverage on rugby nowadays in this part of the world. Whatever happened to Rico Gear?? Major injury or crap form??? Why is he not in the squad?? Looking forward to McAllister getting some games in the RWC though. The closest thing to Carlos Spencer.
 
NZ didn't lose to England in the 2003 WC, they didn't even play them. Nor did they 'choke'. At the time of the tournament our strongest centre, Umaga was unfit. We resorted to makeshift MacDonald at centre and although he performed admirably in the quarters against the Jarpis, our midfield was destroyed in the semis by a brilliant Australian mdfield, in particular Stirling Mortlock. I foresaw it happening before the match, as did many rugby pundits in NZ. I struggle to see how you can call this choking engheui, but then again you say a lot of rubbish about football so I can't say I'm suprised.

I'm suprised by Weepu being dropped as well air mood, however he has been poor most of this year and has serious off field problems as well. However Leonard, our back up half back has been performing very well in the limited game time he has had whilst Andy Ellis is a good attacking half back so I'm not worried about lack of depth at half back. To be honest I'm slightly more bemused by Flavell being dropped; he hasn't performed as well as he would have liked however he hasn't been poor and is an experienced player.

Rico Gear isn't performing as well as he would like however he would still start for any other team in the World, it's more down to the fact that NZ has two other very fine wingers in Sivivatu and Rokocoko, as well as Howlett as back up.

McAllister is a very good player at 2nd or 1rst and would be my choice for starting in the number 12 jersey. However I don't really see Henry dropping Mauger which is a pity.
 
The Zidane of rugby is clearly Carlos Spencer. Luke McAllister is going the same way. Same style of play, smae method of kickings and so on.

Jerry Collins is a monster but I'm more of a fan of the partnership of Chris Jack and Ali Williams. The twin towers, giants.

Who's the starting insode and outside centres nowadays for the All Blacks kiwifan?? Who took over Umaga's place?? Mcdonald?? Conrad Smith??
 
air_mood said:
The Zidane of rugby is clearly Carlos Spencer. Luke McAllister is going the same way. Same style of play, smae method of kickings and so on.

Jerry Collins is a monster but I'm more of a fan of the partnership of Chris Jack and Ali Williams. The twin towers, giants.

Who's the starting insode and outside centres nowadays for the All Blacks kiwifan?? Who took over Umaga's place?? Mcdonald?? Conrad Smith??
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I think you're getting confused with positions. Collins is a number 6 ( possibly the finest number 6 in the world), Jack and Williams are locks. They would also be my starting 4 and 5, however I'm also a big fan of Keith Robinson.

inside centre has been Mauger for the past few years. However as of late he has been very poor while McCallister has shone in the time he has got at number 12. I would prefer the latter starting at the WC, however I know that Mauger is a favourite of Henry and he certainly brings a lot of experience.

Outside centre is a bit of an issue at the moment. It certainly won't be McDonald, as there is too much chance of a serious head injury which would certainly end his rugby career if not his life. (He's already had two major head injuries). There are three feasible options; Muliana at centre and MacDonald at fullback (Mils is better at fullback however MacDonald is also a very good fullback and Mils is a decent centre), or else Toeava or Conrad Smith at centre and Mils at fullback. The latter, Smith, is the better centre however he has just come back from a major injury and does not have many games under his belt, while Toeava has played in the number 13 several times this year and has performed well, however he is still inexperienced and inconsistent. In a game against a strong midfield, for example with Mortlock and the like, my pick would be the first option.
 
Kiwi_fan said:
I think you're getting confused with positions. Collins is a number 6 ( possibly the finest number 6 in the world), Jack and Williams are locks. They would also be my starting 4 and 5, however I'm also a big fan of Keith Robinson.
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Nah. I do know that the flanker partnership is of McCaw and Collins while the locks are Jack and Ali Williams. I just like Ali Williams and Chris Jack more than the other players in the forward pack. Was also a fan of Tuiali'i before as I like his forward running, very slick but he isn't getting that much of a look in nowadays. Collins is more a robust type, the battering ram.

What about Nonu?? He's not getting much of a look in for the centre role?? He looked kinda good.
 
air_mood said:
Nah. I do know that the flanker partnership is of McCaw and Collins while the locks are Jack and Ali Williams. I just like Ali Williams and Chris Jack more than the other players in the forward pack. Was also a fan of Tuiali'i before as I like his forward running, very slick but he isn't getting that much of a look in nowadays. Collins is more a robust type, the battering ram.

What about Nonu?? He's not getting much of a look in for the centre role?? He looked kinda good.
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Erratic form, loses concentration and is culpable to handling errors. Still a very useful impact player from the bench. Wasn't selected for the RWC however.
 
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