There was no joy in Mudville (RWC VI)
France 20, New Zealand 18
As I'm going to have to suffer through the post mortems to the All Blacks quarter final loss to France until the next World Cup in 2011, I thought I'd get mine in early and then go invest in a large pair of noise canceling headphones.
There is no doubt that the better team lost. But, they weren't beaten so much as they failed to win. One of the persistent failings of the All Blacks is a certain arrogance in their play. When it's clear that they are winning the close physical battles, the war of attrition, they persist in trying to land the knock out punch. Of course, to stretch the analogy to breaking point, that opens up their defenses, and gives the dominated opponent the chance to retaliate.
It's an unfortunate Kiwi tendency to blame the referee for every loss, and one that I try very hard to resist. But, in this case, there's no doubt that he played a huge part. Rugby, more than any other competitive sport, is a game where the referee is very influential, partly because the rules, particularly those governing the ruck (that bit where everyone is on the ground scrambling for the ball) are hugely technical. And the refereeing in this game was, to put it kindly, inept. In the first half, he persistently penalized the All Blacks in the breakdown, taking away their dominance there. Then, in the second half he gave a 10 minute penalty to Luke McAlister because a French player ran into him and then did an Oscar-worthy dive. Short handed, the All Blacks were threatening the French line, and the French were persistently offside on the blind side, not called. And finally of course, the pass that set up the winning French try was blatantly forward. And that's not all.
But, enough about the referee. The All Blacks seemed to have a pretty good game plan in the first half, aiming at playing for territory and using their (surprising) superiority in the lineout. But the kicks weren't reaching touch, so for the most part it came to naught. With a decent advantage, that knock out punch mentality took over. Silly passes, silly kicks, and the French got a heartening penalty to finish the half.
Enough of all that, time to go wash the ashes out of my mouth.
Labels: rugby
posted by Michael Albert at 10:25 am
1 Comments:
Awful refereeing is short from what we saw. I can't believe the last sequence, where a French guy bent over and rolled the ball back to his side when a ruck had been formed 5 metres out of the goalline, and then giving advantage for a knocked on ball that Mcallister took as a drop goal, only to decide that the advantage was over...WTF!
The sin bin play was totally ridiculous and the forward pass was as clear as it gets. It makes me sick to see the French win, especially against the All Blacks, a side capable of making 3 separate plays with more than 20 phases (that was awesome to watch!)
But I have to say that I believe that NZ needn't be in that position. I think they should have attacked from everywhere instead of playing "tactical/positional rugby". They are by far superior in every aspect of the game, and I think that just trying to kick the ball into the French territory instead of counterattacking was a big mistake.
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