Teams up v Saints

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tigerburnie
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by tigerburnie »

Freddie is a confidence player and I hope he's not reading this, he mixes things up nicely, not so long ago some on here thought our old 10 didn't do that. He also tackles well, so doesn't deserve to be treated so poorly by armchair pundits. I prefer Owen myself, but think we are fortunate to have Freddie as well and Tommy as back up sees us in a better position than some previous years.
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rocktop51
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by rocktop51 »

All in all a good performance. The better side won ( rose coloured spectacles removed) The points difference should have been better given at least one soft try but a gutsy performnace for sure.

An optimistic season for sure.
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Guinness&Nuts
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by Guinness&Nuts »

I'd like to wrap McCaffrey up in cotton wool and give him a well deserved rest, however with Slater, Williams and OcConner injured he will be very busy over the next few weeks.

As far as the back three go I would select the best balanced trio. For me, I would have Tait at FB and Betham & Veainu on the wings. Veainu will still get plenty of ball and score tries. The other option is drop Tait and go for Betham and Goneva, which is a more high risk selection as Goneva is suseptable to making a few mistakes.
fortysix
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by fortysix »

We are lucky enough to have two top class fly halves.

Yes, one or two things went awol yesterday, but it is obvious that AM's input of attack attack cannot always be perfect.

Freddie didnt bottle his kicks. The very highly paid JJ Hanrahan did. Game Set Match to Freddie
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by DickyP »

tigerburnie wrote:Freddie is a confidence player and I hope he's not reading this, he mixes things up nicely, not so long ago some on here thought our old 10 didn't do that. He also tackles well, so doesn't deserve to be treated so poorly by armchair pundits. I prefer Owen myself, but think we are fortunate to have Freddie as well and Tommy as back up sees us in a better position than some previous years.
I don't think any of us said he was bad - just not as good as the alternatives in many situations.
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jonnyatom5
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by jonnyatom5 »

One thing that struck me about Barnes' reffing style is that he likes to keep the game flowing so he lets incidents ride. My block in the Crumbie seemed to see numerous knock-ons and forward passes (on both sides) that he just didn't call, this bore out in the number of scrums awarded (2). This did seem to be a particularly bad day at the office for the officials. Saying that one of those was Wigglesworth who seems to be in la-la land half the time.

From the stats, McCaffrey was clearly ahead as MoM with Veainu (86 metres made) a close second. Ben Youngs also had a stormer of a game looking at the numbers. Fitzgerald had the highest tackle count (11) and also made some metres too. I know numbers aren't everything but we clearly outshone the Saints on paper.
TigerCam
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by TigerCam »

Well, that was a prime example of how to (nearly) snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!!

There was some great stuff from the Tigers, I loved it, controlled execution of field position, timing of pass everyone knowing where one phase to the next was going and what it would produce - for 20 minutes anyway then a wheel came off followed by another couple at the start of the 2nd half. I believe it was 9 phases of the Tigers not really knowing where they were going with the ball of before North was given a late christmas present. Mind you the Saints did eventually address the Tigers wide game. For me the Saints were poor. Gifting them easy points made them look way better than they really were. Hopefully for me the Treviso game will be the place to put this right in prep for Stade? Shame about OW's jaw, he was brill at 10 not that Freddie was a slouch when he came on. At least I have a few weeks to grow some fingernail back ready for the next 'edge-of-the-seat encounter..
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Jay C
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by Jay C »

Brilliant game for the neutral, but how the heck did we not get 4 tries and win comfortably?

For me, Freddie made a couple of errors that Owen just does not have in his game - and those errors cost us 10 points and nearly the match.

McCaffery was brilliant (as he has been all season) and I - along with several others - must eat humble pie for being so underwhelmed at his signing :smt038

Saints battled hard but we did enough to win the game and thanks to Freddie for slotting that last pen over :smt003

Only downside (apart from not getting the bonus point, despite having 50 minx to do it) were the additional injuries we sustained....
PM76
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by PM76 »

Best 20 minutes of the season followed by 55 very mediocre minutes but at least the game was won! A deserved MOTM for McCaffrey, I also think Croft is looking better whenever he plays. Honourable too for Smith, Youngs x. 2, De Chaves and Fitzgerald. It was slightly concerning how things regressed when Burns replaced Williams but FB now has a chance to really 'make his mark' and play consistently given OW's injury which while very unfortunate for OW could, and hopefully will, bring the best out of Freddie.
Will S
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by Will S »

I'm not quite sure what Freddie could have done about their three trys :smt017 . Two were from driving lineouts and one was from a dropped ball by OTY which resulted in North running in from 80m.

Freddie nailed three vital penalties which won us the game (two were long range and one was high pressure).

Personally I rate FB higher than OW.
PM76
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by PM76 »

Will S wrote:I'm not quite sure what Freddie could have done about their three trys :smt017 . Two were from driving lineouts and one was from a dropped ball by OTY which resulted in North running in from 80m.

Freddie nailed three vital penalties which won us the game (two were long range and one was high pressure).

Personally I rate FB higher than OW.
Agree that Freddie nailed his kicks and was not at direct fault for the tries but there was a lack of attacking structure once FB replaced OW and things- now this is obviously not solely due to FB but the change at 10 did have an impact IMO.
Roly
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by Roly »

You've got to admit, it takes a very special kind of talent to score 3 tries in 20 minutes of the first half and then go on to scrape a win in the dying seconds whilst failing to get the bonus point win.

I'm absolutely in awe.
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iceman_19
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by iceman_19 »

Slightly gobsmacked that some people are - directly or indirectly - laying the blame at Freddie's door for the loss of momentum and structure. Personally I think that's a very lazy view to take based on the timing of the substitution.

The real reason for dropping was because our intensity faded at the breakdown and Saints started competing hard for it. I lost count of the amount of times YBY had to deal with rubbish - or worse, slow rubbish - at the bottom of a ruck and we struggled to break the gainline with the regularity we had before. As much as I don't rate the bloke, Tom Wood did have a big impact in that regard when he came on.

Freddie had to deal with some pretty average ball and did a very decent job IMO.
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Roly
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by Roly »

iceman_19 wrote:Slightly gobsmacked that some people are - directly or indirectly - laying the blame at Freddie's door for the loss of momentum and structure. Personally I think that's a very lazy view to take based on the timing of the substitution.

The real reason for dropping was because our intensity faded at the breakdown and Saints started competing hard for it. I lost count of the amount of times YBY had to deal with rubbish - or worse, slow rubbish - at the bottom of a ruck and we struggled to break the gainline with the regularity we had before. As much as I don't rate the bloke, Tom Wood did have a big impact in that regard when he came on.

Freddie had to deal with some pretty average ball and did a very decent job IMO.
Yeah, it would have been nice if they'd waited until they'd bagged the bonus point though.
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Grimlish
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Re: Teams up v Saints

Post by Grimlish »

iceman_19 wrote:Slightly gobsmacked that some people are - directly or indirectly - laying the blame at Freddie's door for the loss of momentum and structure. Personally I think that's a very lazy view to take based on the timing of the substitution.

The real reason for dropping was because our intensity faded at the breakdown and Saints started competing hard for it. I lost count of the amount of times YBY had to deal with rubbish - or worse, slow rubbish - at the bottom of a ruck and we struggled to break the gainline with the regularity we had before. As much as I don't rate the bloke, Tom Wood did have a big impact in that regard when he came on.

Freddie had to deal with some pretty average ball and did a very decent job IMO.
+1

In addition to a very deliberate slowing of the ball and consistently falling on the wrong side, Saints were consistently yards off-side at the breakdown. Its what we would have done in the circumstances - ie got away with as much as we could to get ourselves back in the game, but a) it hardly reflected badly on Freddie, and b) it really did bring into question what it was that Wayne thought he was doing. Oh and credit to Tom Wood too. I wonder which 6 Eddie J was most impressed by?
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