Just don't say that on the silver fern.com You will be roasted alive. People are obsessed with him. Before McCowan had a meltdown - Jimmy was better than him.
Both of them got caught fluffing around at the base of the scrum and got tackled. Pass the fucking thing. Bachop never got caught as far as I can recall. Love the fact that he is the standard.
I basically agree with Rego/Hurricane. He's by no means the finished product yet. But there really isn't anyone else. Piri is past it and everyone else is even less proven than Smith or is excluded on the basis of their name being Andy Ellis.
Bring back Brendon Leonard. Seriously though, Weepu, Ellis, Cowan etc are all puss. Smith might make the odd error but at least he brings something to the table.
The problem for me is that the hype is not equal to reality. If he hadn't been built up so much I would probably think he is ok. We were told by Steve Hansen that he was the second coming of Bachop. Others said he had a bullet like pass. He has none of these things and is neither of these things. He is only good - I rate him 7.5 out of 10. He consistently runs towards the 1st five before passing it. Bachop used to fire it from the base of the ruck. His decision making is fine and is improving with each game. He deserves to be an AB but he will be replaced before he plays 40 games. Kerr Barlow is an upgrade though also not as good as the gold standard.
Great stadium, the new Forsyth Barr. One criticism would be that the floodlights are much lower than at outdoor stadia, and thus you can quite often get blinded by the lights trying to track any kicking action.
Watched the replay - there were 2 or 3 passes that Smith did that were legitimately bullet like. So that impressed me.
I'm glad you saw that Hurricane. He has massive potential. Graeme Bachop is a bit of an urban legend tbh. Was a one trick pony. Previous halfbacks like Loveridge and Going were so much better...and had a running game. Bashop didnt ever run from the back of the scrum and his legend grew purely from his passing ability
That first Argentina try was awesome. Stoked to see them try to play attacking rugby, I thought they actually looked pretty dangerous at times.
Yeah, Argies dominated the first 15-20 minutes. But when the All Blacks clicked, they had too much for the Argies. Awaiting Hurricane's claims of referee bias with excitement.
Only saw the last 30 minutes of the game. Will save my complaints for the game against the Saffers. From the 30mins I saw the AB backs looked devastating. Argies couldn't get over the gain line while I watched. Our defence is so strong. And our work at the breakdown while questionable at times (there you go Heef) is at such high speed it is tough to compete against especially for a team in their first year of the 4 nations.
So proud of the boks. We managed to win a non-argie game! Goosen was dangerous, Louw and Habana played well too. Kirchner had a goodie too. The last ten minutes saga was a shambles though.
