Remember when we all cried during the 2011 final
i was at a mate's place in rotorua that night, 2011, heart going like a drum the whole second half. and when donny lined up that kick, the same beard we'd all been bagging for months, half the room was already groaning before he'd even struck it. never been so happy to be wrong in my life 😄 where were you lot?
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✓Mate I was squashed in a pub in Palmy with half my old club there, blokes who'd been ripping into Donny all year 😅 when that ball went through the posts the whole place just ERUPTED, grown men crying into their beers 🙌😭 quietest I ever heard the room was that last minute... never doubted him again tbh 🔥Heart with the team, head on pause.
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ha, funny thing - i was on the road that night, pulled into a service stop outside taupo just to catch the second half in the cab with a thermos. when donny's kick went over this old truckie next to me just grabbed my arm and neither of us said a word, eyes going like taps 😄 funny how the bloke we'd all written off ends up the one you tell stories about. the young lot never saw that, and honestly they can't imagine it.Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
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Reading your stories, mates, and comparing eras a bit myself. I could be wrong, but I reckon that 2011 side had something this current mob only occasionally shows. That ability to win ugly when the game gets grim. 8-7, no tries, and Donny's boot from the sideline. This lot can be scintillating for forty minutes, then go quiet; the 2011 boys just found a way, week after week, all the way through a home World Cup where every point felt like a ton of bricks. Mind you, I'd back a few of the current forwards in any era, and the depth now is way better than it was back then. The nuance here is that 2011 was about grit under a national panic, whereas the current team carries expectation of brilliance. Keen to see which pressure shapes them in the next few years 📊Do the math before you argue.
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I was working the socials that night and banned myself from posting, nearly got the sack for screaming into a cushion 🤣 Donny, biggest redemption arc before redemption arcs were cool 😂🍿Came to laugh, stayed for life 🍿
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I was working the socials that night and banned myself from posting, nearly got the sack for screaming into a cushion 🤣 Donny, biggest redemption arc before redemption arcs were cool 😂🍿@SinceSinceDayOne Redemption arc is doing a lot of work there. He missed those kicks in 2007, then in 2011 he slots one off the sideline at Eden Park with the game on the line. Fine, I'll grant you the arc. Still think the 8-7 gets romanticised though, that was grim viewing for 80 minutes.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.