Which players should start in the XV after the Tasman loss?
Word going round is the shake-up's already locked in behind closed doors 😏 Halfback changes, fresh legs in the loose forwards, word is they'll start a new-look backline to fix whatever that was down in Tasman. 26:45 a week after beating Hawke's Bay 32:17 at home. You don't cop 45 points and keep the same XV, no chance.
Those who know, know the shape they're leaning towards... and let's just say it's less pretty-footy, more brute. Harbour rocked Otago 32:21 so they'll come up the island confident. I'll leave it there, screenshot this if the team sheet reads how I reckon it will 🤫
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✓Sophie, if that whisper is right about a new-look backline, I'd want to see the halfback call first, that's where the 45 points in Nelson actually started leaking. I could be wrong, but a six-day turnaround from the Hawke's Bay win (32:17 at home on the 19th) to that Tasman hiding suggests fatigue and set-piece fade more than personnel failure, so fresh legs in the loose trio makes sense even if the names stay familiar. My XV logic: keep the tight five mostly intact, you don't rebuild a scrum that beat Hawke's Bay a week earlier, change the back row for leg speed, and yes, reshuffle the midfield because Harbour arrive off that 32:21 over Otago with confidence. The nuance here is that Canterbury only edged Harbour by a single point on the 20th, so they're beatable at the breakdown if Bay slow their service. Context matters though: this is a home fixture, and home side plus a wounded pride after 45 conceded usually means the selectors err conservative.Do the math before you argue.
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Not convinced the halfback's the leak, Chris, 26:45 six days after a 32:17 win over Hawke's Bay smells more like rotation fatigue than one bad No.9. Show me the numbers on who actually trained this week before I buy Sophie's "locked in" whisper; gut feeling about a new backline is an excuse for not naming names. I'd doubt any of them start on condition that they can prove fitness, otherwise Harbour's 32:21 form walks into the Bay and makes it ugly.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Bit daft of a question but don't laugh 😅, RobbedAgain, when you say "rotation fatigue", do you mean the coaches kept swapping players around so much that the guys never got settled as a team? Still learning this side of things 🙈 Also keen to hear if anyone knows how training actually went this week before the Harbour game on the 4th, cheers!Daft questions are my specialty.
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No daft questions here, Gramps, you've got it right. Rotation fatigue is when the coaches keep shuffling personnel so the side never builds combination - tight五 defenders miss each other's calls, the lineout takes weeks to gel. And that fits this thread: Bay won 32:17 over Hawke's Bay on 19 September, then got thumped 26:45 by Tasman six days later, so RobbedAgain's asking whether fresh names in the XV against North Harbour on 4 October fix the leak or just keep resetting the combinations. 📊Numbers > vibes.
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That makes sense now, cheers BadBeatKing 👍 So basically the Tasman loss was six days after Hawke's Bay, so tired legs plus no combos? Sorry if I'm oversimplifying 😅Learn something new every day.
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Gramps, you're oversimplifying a touch, six days between matches is standard NPC scheduling, so fatigue alone doesn't explain 45 points. Combinations matter more here.Do the math before you argue.
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FrontRowFan's right I reckon, every NPC side copes with short turnarounds 😅 More like Bay just forgot how to tackle down in Tasman. Still learning this stuff though, would fresh loose forwards actually fix that? 🤔Learning from the veterans, go easy 🙏
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Good question from Matchday_Legend, because the answer varies depending which unit we're talking about. Fresh loosies give you pursuit speed and cleanup around the ruck, sure. But shipped-in tries usually die earlier in the chain. Missed one-on-one tackles in the outside channel, misread defenders holding off each other. Six days turnaround is genuinely normal in this comp, so I'd push back slightly on the tired-legs theory everyone keeps reaching for. Notice the swing across those fortnight window results: 32 conceded against Tasman versus 17 held out against Hawke's Bay barely a week before. Same squad base, wildly different defensive shape. That screams organisation rather than gas in the tank. My call for the team list ahead of Saturday's game against North Harbour: yes, add pace to the back row, definitely bring somebody in specifically to organise the midfield defensive spacing instead of swapping bodies blind.
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Seen worse than 26:45, mind. Back in the day we used to call those "character building" afternoons 😄. Old school thinking says the midfield and rush defence get the shake-up, not the loosies, since tries ship or die out wide six phases before a fresh flanker matters. My hunch is the surprise comes at first five, someone to control the tempo Harbour will try to run after beating Otago 32:21. Ah well, we'll see.Seen it all, lads.