James O'Connor can show his physical game against Sonny Bill Williams

[zimeric]

thats the time when he shouldnt be at 12.. what he needs to do is man up he was back to his old "grab the collar and hang-on" type tackles that he learnt from Cooper
....disappointed.... the kick on the full was marginal it was a great kick but he was unlucky.. the saders shut him down and it was obvious he was their main target all night, SBW in particular gave JOC plenty of hard shoulder.. hes going to be hurting today..

[James]

The only Northern Hemisphere team that brings about a bit of fear is England and they would run at JO'C and Cooper all night long if he stayed at 12 against them.

While Kurtley Beale is at 15, JO'C needs to be either at 14 or just maybe at 13- and then only if we had a bigger 12- although I wouldn't want to experiment in a World Cup Year.

If it was experiment season this is what I would do: Cameron Shepherd trialled at 12, if that doesn't work have AAC there. If we have AAC at 13, Ioane or O'Connor at 13. Matt Giteau covering 9/10/12 from the bench freeing us up a spot for another forward (someone solely to come on for Palu at the 30-50 minute mark).

[DR GRAFENBURGH]

There are plenty of giant backrowers in the NH.
They either kick or run crash balls at 12
I don't follow your argument that JOC would be a good 12 against NH teams. He's a good 12 against everybody but I agree his size makes him a target and the fact he was belted black and blue last night which rendered him largely ineffective supports the theory overall.
I thought he was absolutely fantastic in 10
Ripia is absolute shite

[zimeric]

he mentioned he got three knocks to the head...none fully knocked him out though... was why he stopped kicking

[AndyS]

If it was JOC's given task to look after SBW then he failed miserably. This is the main reason I believe JOC does not belong at 12 in Super Rugby He just ain't big enough
When the Wallabies play northern hemisphere teams we can look at playing him at 12 but only then.

Yep, nothing like a cheap shot with the shoulder after the pass to show your dominance...

[GIGS20]

Jeez TFT, I haven't seen the reply yet, but at ground level I thought neither SBW or Freuan had the dominant games I expected. I think the damage was wider (but might change my mind after looking at the IQ) with mainland guildford and dagg running rampant.

[mudskipper]

from what I saw JOC did OK and a positive is he is not injured after the match.. A fews weeks back I heard JOC say in an interview that he wasn't intimidated by size as he has always been the smallest guy, its something he has grow use too. I liked the positive spin on the question and watching him he is always committed to the tackle but he uses good technique for size... It just show JOC is a good student of the game or he would have never gotten this far.

[welshrugbyfan]

He spent the night hiding out on the wing.

Why oh why can we throw a blanket over the entire force team?

Someone needs to explain to the backs what a backline structure is. The crusaders backs were consistantly at 10, 12, 13, to 11 or 14. Nothing worse than seeing our backs standing on the side of a ruck just having a rest cause its a nice safe place to be.

When the ball gets spread wide we are constantly found wanting.

It's become a weekly problem.

[DR GRAFENBURGH]

To be fair, the Crusaders moved the ball from side to side and broke the line at will. When the ball is moved so wide and the front line is broken, you end up with props in the backline and wingers in the ruck. It's a strategy they used.

A surprise to me was that everytime we launched a downtown kick they had 4 players in a line 60m downfield awaiting the kick.

That would leave them exposed on the flanks or midfield to run the ball

No guts, no glory

With our "exciting backline" coached by the most recent "wallaby backline coach", why are our backs reluctant to run the ball? Why are they structured so badly? Why can't they read that the opposition has 4 players 60m downfield awaiting our kick and licking their lips at the prospect of counter attack?

We should have run it at them a little bit more.

The kiwis play hard on the ball. The Aussies and saffers have a light hearted grab at it after the tackle and everybody else fans out expecting the next play. The kiwis pile in with the intention of stealing your ball.....often ilegally by going over the ball and off their feet.

The Reds and Force struggled with the ferocity at the breakdown...a kiwi trademark.

Both great games though cf the yawn fest tahs/Rabbles