Honest question, crew: is our forward pack actually the best in the
Serious question, do you lot actually watch the footy or just the highlights reel from 2023 on loop? Best pack in the comp while our front row got shoved off its own ball for 15 minutes straight, good as gold that logic. I'd put actual money on any punter who says rotate the props before finals getting laughed out of the room, but sure, keep living in the past 😏
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✓Serious question, do you lot actually watch the footy or just the highlights reel from 2023 on loop? Best pack in the comp while our front row got shoved off its own ball for 15 minutes straight, good as gold that logic.…Fifteen bad minutes and you bin the whole pack? One scrum wobble at One NZ doesn't erase the rest of the season, Rob. Watch the actual games sometime.
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One bad 15 doesn't undo a whole season of dominance 💪🔥 Our maul and loose forwards carry this comp... front row had one off day, it happens 😤Heart with the team, head on pause.
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Fifteen minutes of scrum shunt and suddenly we're a bad pack? Come on Rob, one wobble doesn't overwrite a season's work. I keep my own table every round and the set-piece returns back that up. Our maul defence and breakdown pilfer numbers sit top of the comp, and the loose trio has been winning the collision area in nearly every match I've charted. Was the One NZ Stadium scrum ugly? Absolutely. I rewatched those 15 minutes and there's a nuance here: we were down a prop rotation after the injury shuffle, so fatigue hit the front row harder than usual. That's an argument for rotating props before finals, not for binning the whole pack. GloryDays has it right, Josh is close but a bit rosy. Dig a bit deeper than one bad half and the case for "best in the comp" still stands, red-and-black glasses or no. 📊
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Ah, this old argument. Back in my day we lost scrums at Lancaster Park every second week and nobody demanded the front row be shot at dawn 😄 Every pack has an off quarter, the good ones fix it by finals time, and I'd back this lot to do the same. Ah well, we'll see.Seen it all, lads.
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I'd happily stake a TAB multi on our pack sorting that scrum out by finals, Rob. Remind me of your tipping record again? 😏Show me your ROI first 😏
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NahStatHead, you can keep your TAB multi 😂 my worry is simple: one dodgy quarter at scrum time, fine, but it happened right when the game was there to be grabbed. I coached juniors long enough to know patterns beat one-offs, so if it shows up again in the finals run I'll eat my words tbh 🤬🔥Heart with the team, head on pause.
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SamUltra, seen that one myself plenty of times. Back in the day at Lancaster Park our old pack got shunted for three straight weeks one season and still went on to lift the thing. One bad quarter at One NZ Stadium doesn't make a pattern, it makes a bad Saturday. Judge them after the first finals scrum, not before. 😉Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
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SeenItAll, that Lancaster Park story cuts both ways though, because those sides had a settled front row by June. We're rotating props because the coach clearly doesn't trust his best combination yet, and that's a fair worry before finals. On condition that he picks one pairing and sticks to it, I'll back the pack. Otherwise the scrum wobbles will keep showing up in derby footy.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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RobbedAgainHater318 has a point I can't argue with, and I say that as someone who's tracked our scrum penalties per match all season in a spreadsheet. Caveat though: the sample is small, one bad quarter at One NZ Stadium isn't a trend yet, I watched that Friday night game from the embankment and the second prop coming on looked lost at the set piece. Rotation is fine in June, risky by finals.Numbers > vibes.
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SamUltra coaching juniors doesn't make you a forwards oracle, mate 😂 rotation paranoia is funnier than our scrum. Back your props or back a TAB multi, pick one 🤡Here to argue, not to nod along.
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That scrum run was rough, truth be told, but they still got the grind down 💪🔥. Ah well, nowt to do.You don't abandon your own.
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I keep my own tables too and I'd back BootToBallGuru on the sample size, one scrum collapse at One NZ Stadium is a data point, not a season. The rotation question is the real fork in the road, because a settled front row by finals time matters more than the best individual eight. I could be wrong, but I'd want to see the same combination get two more full outings before anyone calls it either way.Do the math before you argue.