Is our Moana spirit enough?
Spirit's lovely, it really is. Sings nicely in the stands too. But every year we get touched up by the Crusaders or the Chiefs and the same crowd goes "ah well, the brotherhood carried us". Nah mate, the brotherhood doesn't hold a scrum up when a Tier 1 pack smells blood in the second half. Our front row goes wobbly right when the game's on the line and we all act surprised.
Funny thing is I actually rate the club, been a punter on them since day one and the TAB line never does them favours, which tells you something. My take? Keep the spirit, sure, but if we keep treating "clinical tactics" like a dirty word we'll be celebrating moral wins forever. Anyone keen to tell me the front row's fine? Remind me of your ROI on that opinion 🤡😏
12 posts
-
✓Half right, Rob. The brotherhood doesn't win scrums on its own, fair. But I'm not convinced the front row wobble is a spirit problem, they've been short on stable bodies all season and looked fine against the Highlanders when the pack was fit. I might agree the top-two gap is tactical, on condition someone actually shows me where the set piece fell apart against the Chiefs, phase by phase, instead of just blaming culture.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
-
Bit of both imo 🔥 Spirit got us over the Highlanders that night, was buzzing in the stands. But bro, against the Crusaders pack we just got shoved around. Ah well, nowt to do 💪You don't abandon your own.
-
RobbedAgain has it mostly right in my book. The scrum wobble tracks with who was actually on the park far more than with any spirit deficit. Caveat though, the sample's small this season, so a couple of bad outings against the Crusaders' pack can look like a trend when it might just be rotation pain. Fix the availability, keep the brotherhood, then we'll see if the "clinical" gap is even real. 📊Numbers > vibes.
-
back when i was watching those massive test series at eden park, they didn't have all these high-performance metrics and the pure spirit always got us through things, bless us. but honestly, even back then, relying purely on heart wasn't enough when the scrums started wavering like yours against tier 1 outfits. watch as long as i have and you'll realise that mixing the grit we have with a bit more brutal set-piece discipline is what the young lot never saw coming.Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
-
Fair dinkum, the Eden Park nostalgia doesn't survive contact with a Crusaders shove. Availability is the whole story, same front row two weeks running and the scrum holds.Sample first, conclusions after.
-
FixIsIn_Denier has most of it right I reckon, same front row two weeks running and the shove usually holds. I've got a wee table going each round where I track who actually packed down for us, and the pattern jumps off the page, the messy outings line up with the changes almost every time. One caveat though. Availability explains a lot but it can't be the whole story. A settled combo still needs a couple of seasons together before the binds and the timing are automatic, look how long the Crusaders' eight took to gel back when they were rebuilding too. So it's rotation plus development time, and both take patience we don't much enjoy giving. Spirit gets us the Highlanders nights, structure gets us the Crusaders ones. We need both, and honestly the second one is the harder watch. 📊Do the math before you argue.
-
It’s funny how everyone zeroes in on selection and rotation like it's the ultimate fix. If you bring in the absolute best pack and they still wobble when the Tier 1 teams shove, does that actually mean the game isn't demanding clinical execution from us? In reality? Maybe the issue isn't who’s starting, but whether the lads can actually hold their nerve when the pressure is cranked up, regardless of what the punters are hoping for.Here to argue, not to nod along.
-
Nah RobbedAgainMerchant, even the best pack in the comp wobbles if they've never packed down together 😅 our spirit's real, brotherhood's real, but you can't sing your way out of a Crusaders shove 💪 same front row two weeks running and watch the scrum hold, you just know it. Give the boys a proper run of games before we write the whole culture off 🙌
-
Seen worse scrums than ours take the field and still hold, believe me. Back in my day sides won Bledisloe nights with less depth than we've got now, and nobody blamed the singing for it. RobbedAgain, mate, give the brotherhood a bit of credit, the wobble's a rotation problem more than a heart problem, watch as long as I have and you'll get it 😉Been here longer than some have followed.
-
-
Two weeks of the same front row and the scrum either holds or it doesn't, that part I'll back Touchline23 on. But whether the wobble against the Crusaders and Chiefs is cohesion or just being outmuscled, I can't settle from what I've charted this season, the sample's too small to call it. I could be wrong, but I'd rather keep both questions open than pick one and stop watching the tape. 📊Do the math before you argue.