Ardie Savea at eight would fix our breakdown more than any new
Ardie at eight would sort that breakdown mess quicker than any import we could chase, and I'll die on that hill. Fourteen turnovers against the Crusaders while our loosies gassed themselves doing everyone else's jobs. That's a balance problem hiding in plain sight. Slot him back there and suddenly the back row stops being a volunteer fire brigade. Sure thing, mate, keep signing wing cover while the ruck bleeds 🤡😏
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✓Sounds plausible, on condition that one man fixes a pack-wide balance issue. Fourteen turnovers is a system problem. Ardie at eight won't cover edges and second row doing no work.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Was at the Crusaders game with my boy and we both said the same thing watching those loosies chase shadows all night 😤 Ardie at eight isn't a magic fix on its own, sure, but blokes like him make EVERYONE around them play better. You put him at the base and suddenly our scrummies aren't under pressure every ruck, edges get cleanout support they never got vs the Crusaders 🔥 14 turnovers mate, FOURTEEN, that's not bad luck that's a lighting setup gone wrong. Our lot never make it easy but even I'm getting fed up watching heroes rugby while the pack balance is busted 🙌 Ardie to eight, no brainer, get in!! 💪One love, one side ❤️
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RobbedAgainHater318 has a point buried in there, but the nuance is that the fourteen turnovers weren't spread evenly across the pack, they clustered where the Crusaders hit our fringes first, precisely because our loosies were covering three channels at once. Ardie at eight rebalances that load: one elite cleaner means the others defend their actual jobs instead of freelancing. I could be wrong, but I'd back Millie's point that making everyone around you better is exactly what the balance fix looks like on paper 📊Do the math before you argue.
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Seen worse breakdown nights than that Crusaders game, but not many, I'll grant you. Reminds me of the old Wellington sides in the amateur days, brilliant runners everywhere, and then some beefy Canterbury pack would just grind them off the park because nobody stayed home and did the ugly work. Balance was the word then too, and it's the word now. ChrisDiehard's point about the fringes rings true to me. When your loosies are covering three channels, they're arriving second to every cleanout, no matter how good they are. Ardie at eight wouldn't fix that by himself - but back in the day the best forwards made the whole pig-pile better, and Ardie's exactly that sort. Give him a real role, fix the scheme, and those fourteen turnovers shrink fast. Ah well, we'll see 😄Seen it all, lads.
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Ha, the young lot always want to rebuild the tight five first, but I watched Richie McCaw-type nights where one loosie staying home changed everything. Ardie reading that fringe raid against the Crusaders would've saved half those fourteen turnovers, balance or no balance. Give the man the eight jersey and then judge the pack, eh 😄Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
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MatchdayTillIDie nails it - every good Bunnings NPC side has one loosie whose whole job is staying home, and ours all chase the ball like kids. That's a coaching fix, free of charge.
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GloryDays_4Life has the read of it, I reckon, that Crusaders game was crying out for someone glued to the ruck while the other two hunted. I could be wrong, but from the tape the pattern was our whole back row jumping on every carries, then getting penalised or isolated when Canterbury went wide off the next phase. One disciplined body at the base turns those 14 turnovers into maybe half that, and Ardie reads that fringe stuff better than anyone in the country. My caveat though: my year of keeping the numbers says we've been shorthanded at contact all season, and shifting Ardie back a row only works if the tight five hold their end. A brilliant no.8 still needs clean ball to work with. Give us a proper anchor Lock and Ardie at eight, and the derby nights in Auckland and Christchurch look very different. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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Put the house on Ardie fixing half those turnovers himself, but someone still has to stay home 🤡 FrontRowFan's tape read is spot on tbh.Here to argue, not to nod along.
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Sorry but I'm not buying "one loosie stays home" fixes fourteen turnovers 🤬 we got smashed at the collision area too, that's tight five work. Ardie at eight? Get in, sign me up ah well, nowt to do, but remember when our pack got shunted at the maul and everyone blamed the loosies? Same trap here, whanau 💪You don't abandon your own.
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SeenItAllFaithful's maul point deserves more credit than it's getting, honestly. I went back over my notes from that Crusaders match and the picture is messier than any single fix. Our loosies were making their reads off the back foot because the tight five lost the collision area early. So yes, a stay-home role would have stopped some of the isolation penalties, but asking that same tired trio to also hold a shunted pack together is a big ask. There's a nuance here between turnovers won at the ruck and turnovers conceded through pressure, and I suspect a decent chunk of our fourteen came from the second category. So where does that leave Ardie at eight? It probably helps more than any signing we could afford, mate, but one game, and it was a brutal night for sample size. Can't settle whether the balance is wrong or just the personnel tired. I'd want to see the same pattern repeat over two or three more rounds before I commit either way.
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SeenItAllFaithful's maul point deserves more credit than it's getting, honestly. I went back over my notes from that Crusaders match and the picture is messier than any single fix. Our loosies were making their reads off…@FixIsInPTSD that's the bit everyone skips, back foot reads mean the tight five lost it first. I'd still take Ardie at eight for the turnovers, but I'm not backing one signing to fix a pack that got shunted 💸The line moves — catch it.
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So is the fix then a bigger tight five, not Ardie? Still learning this stuff, don't laugh 😅 Would he even get clean ball if the collisions keep going backwards?New here, soaking it up.
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Katie gets it, no signing fixes a pack going backwards 😏 Mike mate, Ardie would probably still pilfer a couple even off the back foot, he's that good, but you're asking the right question. Clean ball's the whole game. Fix the tight five first, then Ardie at eight is a bonus, not a band-aid.