Honest debate, my Drua whanau
Two 40+ hideings at Churchill Park in the wet and some of you still reckon the offload festival is sacred. Sweet as, keep worshipping it. 🤡
And in reality? The TAB had us as home semi favourites before those games, I had $50 on the line and watched us throw miracle passes into standing water like it was a skills session. Rugby's a conditions game, always has been. Kick when it's bucketing down, run when it's dry. Simple. Anyone arguing otherwise, quick question: how's that record treating your multi? 😏💸
18 posts
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✓Two wet-weather clangers and suddenly the whole gameplan is the problem? Both those blowouts came down to handling errors and a forward pack getting bullied at the breakdown. Kick more and we just lose slower. Show me the numbers that say a structured kicking game wins us more at Churchill Park than the offloads do, because the wins we've ground out there came from the same running game everyone's now bagging. Fix the execution, keep the identity.Hype isn't an argument.
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Nah Kev, watching us sling it about in the dry is why I pay my rego and get to Churchill Park every fortnight 🔥🙌 Those wet clangers hurt, but if we turn into another kick-and-chase clone we're just any other team, tbh. Fix the breakdown, keep the faith, our lot never make it easy but they're OURS 💪😱One love, one side ❤️
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I keep my table every round and I'll say this plainly: the Drua we watch in the dry and the Drua that turns up in a Lautoka downpour are two different sides, and the 40+ tickets at Churchill Park prove it. There's a nuance here though. The offloads themselves aren't the problem, the timing of them is. In wet conditions our error count balloons because we're playing Dry A rugby on a Wet A afternoon, and that's a coaching choice, not bad luck. So my call sits between Kev and Millie. Fix the breakdown first, yes, but a side with genuine semi-final ambitions adapts its menu depending how you count it. Some games need two passes before contact, others need the ball put in the air and a chase. Kicking more in the wet doesn't make us kick-and-chase clones; it makes us a team that can win ugly when the heavens open. Keep the soul for the dry afternoons, earn the home semi by being dangerous in both weathers.Numbers > vibes.
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Wet Saturday nights at Carisbrook in the late 80s taught me this much, the sides that survived the sludge were the ones willing to park the flash stuff for eighty minutes and pick their moments. Back in my day we called it playing the weather, not the coach. Those 40+ afternoons at Churchill Park had the same feel: the Drua trying to play Lautoka sunshine in a downpour, and paying for it. But I'd stop short of selling the soul, chur. Watch as long as I have and you'll get it, every great running side learned when to put the ball somewhere honest and when to keep it alive. Fix the breakdown like Kev says, add a kicking plan for the wet days only, and the offload game stays ours where it belongs. Seen worse than a young side learning that lesson the hard way 😄Been here longer than some have followed.
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fair shake of the road mate, UnderdogNightmare, but I watched a fair bit of sludge rugby out of Carisbrook myself back in the day and I'd argue you're remembering it kinder than it deserves 😄 those sides "playing the weather" lost plenty too, they just lost quieter and nobody cried about the style. my two bob: the offloading game is the only identity we've got, and I've seen worse teams than us try to buy a semi with safety first. what actually sank us in those two 40+ nights at Churchill Park was the breakdown and the hands going to jelly. Kev said it and he's right. you can't fix wet Saturday by becoming a kicking side overnight, you just become a bad kicking side. pick your moments like the old boys say, sure, but keep the soul. seen worse, and I've seen it wearing our colours too 😉Seen it all, trust me.
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Fixing the breakdown is doing a lot of work in that argument, Millie. I'd believe the keep-the-faith line on condition that someone shows me a wet-weather win under this gameplan, not just dry-day highlights.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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RobbedAgainHater318 has a point, I keep the round-by-round numbers and the wet-weather sample is tiny, maybe three or four genuine rain games.
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Took a cheeky punt on us in the wet v Moana, TAB laughed all the way. Two 40+ shellackings say play the conditions, hard out. 😏
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Betting against us in the wet then wondering why you're sour, classic punter energy 😂 Two bad arvos at Churchill Park and everyone forgets the dry-day magic. Ah well, nowt to do 🔥You don't abandon your own.
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Funny thing, back in the day at Eden Park we copped a few of those wet-night shellackings too and nobody told the All Blacks to stop playing footy. Two bad afternoons at Churchill Park and you'd think the soul's gone cheap, eh. Fix the breakdown like Millie said and the rain becomes a detail, the young lot never saw what happens when you panic and kick your DNA away. 😉Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
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SeenItAll_Guy's Eden Park point cuts both ways though, the All Blacks had a tight-five that could grind out 15 phases in the mud when the flash stuff dried up, and that's the bit our pack hasn't shown yet. Until the forwards can win us territory and a stack of scrum penalties, asking the backs to suddenly become a kicking side is just swapping one weakness for another. Fix the set-piece, keep the offloads.
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Retro_Faithful has hit it, I could be wrong but that tight-five point is exactly what my match notes keep flagging. I track our phase counts every round and the offloads dry up the moment the pack stops going forward. My old man used to say you earn the right to play flashy rugby, and we haven't earned it in the wet yet. Keep the soul, fix the forwards. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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ChrisDiehard's phase counts say it all - pack goes backward, the pretty stuff dies. Fix the tight-five and we can keep our soul, sure thing, mate. 😏
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Chloe's got the causality the right way round, I reckon, and that's what keeps me up at night about this one. Two 40-pointers in Lautoka rain and my round-by-round sheet keeps showing the same shape: offload counts crater exactly when the tight-five stops winning the collision. So the question for me is whether we've actually got a gameplan problem or a personnel problem wearing a gameplan costume. Watch the NPC sides in a soggy Bunnings final sometime, they don't abandon the running game, they just have forwards good enough to earn the right to keep playing it. I could be wrong, but I'd hate to see us sand down the edges that make this team worth watching before we've properly tried fixing the set-piece. On the other hand, two blowouts at Churchill Park is a small sample, and I've been burned before by reading too much into bad afternoons. Honest answer: I don't know yet, and anyone claiming certainty either way is selling something.Do the math before you argue.
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Chloe's got the causality the right way round, I reckon, and that's what keeps me up at night about this one. Two 40-pointers in Lautoka rain and my round-by-round sheet keeps showing the same shape: offload counts crate…@FrontRowFan nah you're spot on, offloads need the pack rolling forward or nothing sticks 😤 same with our juniors tbh, when the big fellas get shunted the backs panic and hold it. Keep the soul but sort the scrum first 💪In the stands since I was a kid.
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Coached junior forwards for years and this is the same old story at every level tbh... if the big fellas aren't winning the collision, the flashy stuff dies, simple as that. Our lot never make it easy 😤 Fix the scrum, keep the soul, that's the whole equation 💪Heart with the team, head on pause.
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@JoshDiehard spot on mate, coached juniors too and same story every week... big fellas get shunted, the flair just dies 😤 keep the soul, but the scrum comes first 💪Heart with the team, head on pause.