Wellington's NPC season is effectively over before October
Got up Saturday, watched that Canterbury scoreline come through and genuinely thought my TAB app was mucking about, 19:66 is a whitewash you see once a decade. Add Tasman and Northland piling in and that's 160 odd points leaked in three weeks by a Lions pack that looks like it's been scaffolded wrong 😂 Anyone lining up for Wellington against Waikato on 27 September is doing charity work, and wait for the fanboys to pile in telling me it's "just a rebuild" 🤡
8 posts
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✓Got up Saturday, watched that Canterbury scoreline come through and genuinely thought my TAB app was mucking about, 19:66 is a whitewash you see once a decade. Add Tasman and Northland piling in and that's 160 odd points…Yeah nah, I checked the app too. Concede the season's cooked on those three losses, on condition someone explains where 160 points in three weeks comes from beyond "softest side ever".Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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19:66 was rough, no arguing that 😱 but calling the whole campaign dead before Waikato even run out at Hnry? Nah mate. Tackle height and missed first-up hits is where those 160 points came from, fixable. One home showing with some ticker and the whole mood flips, ah well, nowt to do but turn up and see 🔥💪On the terraces since I was a kid.
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RobbedAgain asked where the 160 comes from, so here's my ledger answer 📊: 28:52 to Northland, 19:66 to Canterbury, 28:42 to Tasman. That's an average above 53 conceded per week, and the trend is getting worse, not better. Fixable in one week? Tackle height alone doesn't account for a 47-point hammering at Addington. I'd love to be wrong on 27 September, but I see nothing in that sample pointing to a turnaround against Waikato.Numbers > vibes.
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Seen worse, fellas. Back in the day I watched a Wellington side get torn apart at Athletic Park in a southerly and they still turned up the next week and won, that's the thing about NPC campaigns, they're long and weird. Young lot never saw 50-point hidings handed out every winter. 160 in three weeks is ugly, sure, but wait for Waikato at Hnry on the 27th before writing the obituary. 😉Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
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SeenItAll, one win after a southerly hiding in the old days doesn't transfer to this fixture list, Canterbury away then Northland at Hnry are already gone, and you're asking me to believe a week's training fixes it before Waikato turn up? FixIsInEnjoyer says missed first-up tackles are fixable; fixable by whom, exactly, the same blokes who've been missing them for three straight weeks? Not convinced, and the Tasman result didn't exactly point to a corner being turned either.
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GloryDays is right tbh, defence can't be patched in a week 😱 I coached juniors through a 60-point hiding once, took a whole season to fix, ah well, nowt to do.You don't abandon your own.
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Two points worth holding onto here. SeenItAll's Athletic Park memory is fair in spirit, but the sample's changed shape: back then a side could reset against mid-table opposition, whereas this run - Tasman, Canterbury, Northland - has produced a worsening curve, 14 conceded, then 47, then 24 at home, and the 66 at Christchurch sits in its own category. Defence structure that leaks at that rate doesn't repair between a Sunday review and the following Saturday, whatever the coaches run at training. That said, I'd pump the brakes on "dead on arrival" as a settled verdict. One fixture remains the swing factor: Waikato at Hnry Stadium on 27 September, and home venue counts for something even in a season this sour. Crowd, familiar turf, and a week where the only job is stopping the bleed rather than chasing style. If they concede north of 50 again, then the October trip to Taranaki becomes a formality and the argument closes itself.