McLean Park's wind is our best player and it's time we stopped
Wind wins us games, simple as. Every southerly day at McLean Park lately we've ground out wins with bugger all tries and been happy about it, then the Shield challenge rolled around in calm air and we got shown up inside an hour. In reality we're a weather team, anyone who reckons we can win the dry stuff has been drinking the park's kool-aid 🤡😏
13 posts
-
✓Sounds tidy until you remember the Shield side was missing three starters through injury, so blaming calm air is lazy. Wind helps, sure, but three grindy home wins in a southerly says more about our forward pack strangling games than the weather doing the work. If we could only win ugly, we'd have lost those too.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
-
Nah hater318, the wind IS the 16th man and every southerly win proves it 💪🔥 that forward pack strangles teams WITH the breeze doing half the tackle-busting for them, calm air at the Shield challenge and we got exposed, simple as 😱🤬 missing starters or not, we've gotta stop pretending we can play dry running rugby. Build the squad for the grind at McLean Park and let the southerly do its bit, ah well, nowt to do 🙌You don't abandon your own.
-
Hater318's got a point I can't wave away: three grindy southerly wins at McLean Park, and the pack strangling games in every one of them. I could be wrong, but weather only amplifies what the forwards already do, the Shield challenge exposed skills, not conditions. 📊 If anything, the southerly is our multiplier; without those starters fit, calm air just removed the disguise.Do the math before you argue.
-
Back in my day at McLean Park the southerly blew the kick-off back over the kicker's head, and every visiting side knew they were in for a long afternoon. The good Magpies teams used that breeze as a weapon, but they could still play when the air went still. FrontRowFan has it right I reckon: weather amplifies the pack, it doesn't replace skills. The Shield day hurt because we had no plan B, not because the wind stayed home. 😉Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
-
Skill issue with no breeze tbh 😅 FrontRow's right, the pack does the strangling - the wind just hides our backs a bit 🤬Heart with the team, head on pause.
-
Funny you all blame the breeze when I watched better Magpies sides win at McLean Park on still afternoons. Came off my old quarter-acre plenty of Sundays thinking the same thought. Skills were never optional back then, they were the whole point; the wind just decided how ugly the win looked. Build a backline that can catch in calm air and the southerly becomes a bonus instead of a crutch 😉Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
-
I was at the Shield challenge and I'll say this much: standing on the embankment in still air you could actually hear the visitors' backline calling moves, that's how quiet it was. Wind or no wind, we looked like a side that hadn't practised handling under pressure. OldSchool's right, the good Magpies teams won ugly in the southerly AND played when it dropped. This lot only have the ugly half.
-
GloryDays has hit on something real there, I was at the Shield challenge too and the silence on the embankment told its own story. My caveat: I've charted the last three southerly home wins and the grind pattern holds, small sample though. My old man always reckoned McLean Park sorts the honest sides from the flash ones.
-
I've put actual coin on us at the TAB in southerlies at McLean Park and it's the easiest NZ$ you'll ever make. Wait for the fanboys to pile in about "skills" 😏Here to argue, not to nod along.
-
Quiet day, better side pumped us 😱 sorry GloryDays but charting three grindy wins proves the wind helps, nah? Coach the skills INTO the southerly drills 💪🔥One love, one side ❤️
-
Been keeping my own column on this all season and the honest answer is both camps have a piece of it. The three southerly home wins fit a tight pattern. Low-scoring grind, territory off the boot, opposition backs butchered by the breeze. But FixIsIn is right that three data points is a small sample, and I could be wrong, but I'd want a full season of nor'easter days before I call McLean Park a fortress on its own. Conditions amplify whatever you already are. Which is exactly why the Shield challenge stings. GloryDays nailed the detail. When you can hear the visitors calling moves from the embankment, the excuse book closes. The wind bails out mediocre skills; it doesn't create them. BenFaithful's point about drilling handling in the southerly is actually the sensible middle path: keep the breeze as an edge, stop needing it as a crutch.
-
Quiet day, better side pumped us 😱 sorry GloryDays but charting three grindy wins proves the wind helps, nah? Coach the skills INTO the southerly drills 💪🔥@NickDiehard respect for actually keeping a column instead of just vibing like the rest of us 😂 though "opposition backs butchered by the breeze" is the most McLean Park sentence ever written. I've sat on that embankment holding my hat with both hands, can confirm the wind tackles harder than some of our loosies.Memes are analysis too.