34 replies to this topic

[taniwharugby]

Matt wallis, Tim Dow*, Bronson Murray
Pat O'Connor, Mark Burman
Dean Budd, Cam Eyre, Dan Pryor
Rhyan Caine, David Holwell,
Aaron Bancroft, Jared Payne ©
Iwi Hauraki*, Lachie Munro, Rene Ranger

Mikaele Tu'u, Ross Wright, Roy Griffin, Cam Goodhue, Luke Hamilton, Aden Dewes, Mateo Malupo

*indicates changes from starting line-up last week.

Joel McKenty is playing for the Dev Side this weekend

[kev]

Simon Munro out still, and one less prop in the reserves. I hope they are fired up because Southland will grind them out of the game if they give away possession.

[taniwharugby]

lets just hope the Bronson doesnt fall over, I dont expect either of the other 3 props we have could do 80 mins, let alone with the workrate of Bronson!

Edited by taniwharugby, 02 September 2010 - 06:16 PM.

[rugbynut]

Been talking to Clarke. Poor bastard has pulled his hammy and got through training the other day only to pull it again. He's itching to play and Im thinking it will be for the dsquad till he's back to full fitness........

Still like to see him back up Caine...... his defence is better then both of them and those cover tackles were missing in the last 20min against wellington IMO.

Not sold on Iwi I think he is lucky to even be in the 22 the way he is defending!

[kev]

I thought the Sharks winger might get a lookin?

[North!and]

Not a bad article.

http://www.stuff.co....t-Stags-defence

"Northland will enter this war in Whangarei armed with some explosive artillery.

Wing Rene Ranger is one of the strongest runners out wide in New Zealand. Centre Jared Payne hits holes well and 35-year-old first five-eighth David Howell still possesses the ability to put people like Payne through those holes."

I liked that line the best ha.

[taniwharugby]

a sun shower up here at the moment, meant to be showers through the morning, but is supposed to be fine this afternoon!!

[justin77]

Great resolve from our boys, with stuff all territory and possession most sides would have conceded, but not ours!! Great ticker Northland, sets us up nicely for Canterbury next week!

Awesome to see 'Blue' back at the ground too, where's he been the last few weeks??

[Middy1]

Great game awesome to be there - Northland showed they can do it - Whole team was great - how would you pick a player of the day

[taniwharugby]

wow!! I screamed myself hoarse (half at the ref, half at the players) even from the top of the new stand I could see Budd didnt lose that ball!!

Anyhow, wow!! We broke our 3 try first half hoodoo!!

I think SOuthland were morons for turning down so many kicks at goal!! They were mashing us up front (we looked better in the 2nd half) but we fed on scraps, but they were super scraps, given we almost had another couple of tries!!

Payne should be 13 for the Blues!

[taniwharugby]

oh, and sitting right up the back of the new stand, superb view, biggest problem is the thick concrete above is not high enough to stand and punch the air....

:dance:

stil cant quite believe we won after the way they manhandled us upfront!

Edited by taniwharugby, 04 September 2010 - 08:34 PM.

[FarNthHayden]

yeah glad we won, and played for 80 minutes ,but our scrum was pretty bad, and that ref stannish was absolute rubbish

[justin77]

taniwharugby said:

oh, and sitting right up the back of the new stand, superb view, biggest problem is the thick concrete above is not high enough to stand and punch the air....

:dance:

stil cant quite believe we won after the way they manhandled us upfront!

i bet it isn't, hows the knuckles??

[taniwharugby]

skinned and bruised...but no pain at all

[Gunner]

Imagine what we could do if we won our fair share of the ball........Manawatu wouldn't be the only team on the end of a 70 point hiding!!!!

[taniwharugby]

technically, we probably did get our fair share, but I know what you mean had we got an equal share

[kev]

My first home game of the season - took my Dad & Uncle. Fantastic. Yelled myself hoarse at the ref. Sorry I couldn't catch up with you guys.

The Bad

Man we are crap at set piece. They have to get that Auckland guy into the front row even ( if unfit ) for 30 mins so that we can play some rugby. The lineout is a mystery - we have good locks, but two hookers who can't throw. I would have them practising 8 hours a day.

Iwi Hauraki - I think the writing is on the wall here. Poor defence wise and now everyone knows.

The Good

Bronson Murray - enough said.
Forwards with Ball in hand - Budd, Burman, Eyre, Prior all have good ball skills. Its easy to overlook how well they are playing in this phase.
Ranger / Payne / Bancroft / Holwell - what a combination power, pace and control. I hope Payne gets some recognition as well. He is the the "Ian Rush" of Northland rugby. Puts himself in the right position and then finishes off.

Is it correct that they are not taking Rene to Aussy - the paper indicated as much this morning ? Bloody fantastic

[Chiefy]

kev said:

My first home game of the season - took my Dad & Uncle. Fantastic. Yelled myself hoarse at the ref. Sorry I couldn't catch up with you guys.

The Bad

Man we are crap at set piece. They have to get that Auckland guy into the front row even ( if unfit ) for 30 mins so that we can play some rugby. The lineout is a mystery - we have good locks, but two hookers who can't throw. I would have them practising 8 hours a day.

Iwi Hauraki - I think the writing is on the wall here. Poor defence wise and now everyone knows.

The Good

Bronson Murray - enough said.
Forwards with Ball in hand - Budd, Burman, Eyre, Prior all have good ball skills. Its easy to overlook how well they are playing in this phase.
Ranger / Payne / Bancroft / Holwell - what a combination power, pace and control. I hope Payne gets some recognition as well. He is the the "Ian Rush" of Northland rugby. Puts himself in the right position and then finishes off.

Is it correct that they are not taking Rene to Aussy - the paper indicated as much this morning ? Bloody fantastic

You must have missed the B game mate. Fa'aunu was quite unimpressive to me. He looks unfit and not match fit...

The guy who replaced him (Aterea Dvis according to the Advocate) played way better and the Northland scrum absolutely smashed BoP a few times after he came on.

I have to agree on the ref, he had some strange interpretations of the advantage rule. His 'knock on' call against Budd quite rightly earned him plenty of calls about using the sponsors product.


I have to agree with everything else except you comparing Jared Payne to a Liverpool player...that's just wrong mate haha.

I think Southland showed how to beat Northland at the end of the 1st half by starving our backs of posession, which is what Welly did last week too. We really need to compete better up front. I know there is the thinking you don't change a winning team, but I would bring McKenty in for Pryor and Griffin in for Burman, those two will add alot more size and grunt to the pack.

In the backs I think if Simon Munro is fit he has to come in for Hauraki who looks out of his depth unfortunately. Maybe Malupo or Dewes to take over from Ranger on the right.

[Duluth]

taniwharugby said:

Payne should be 13 for the Blues!

Yeah he's getting better each week in that position.. good running lines and the thing that doesn't seem to get talked about much is his defence. If he is committed tot he Blues he should definitely be the starting 13 with Toeava/Rok/Rager causing havoc in the back three

I thought Northland got a few friendly calls in those scrums and Southland will be disappointed more didn't come from their domination there.

Some odd tactics from them though, Northland was not committing much to the break down and were fanning out wide but Southland kept spreading it without earning it first. Northlands defence was great but Southlands tactics and poor passing made for some easy targets

[taniwharugby]

not only his defence, but the organisation of it.

When Pryor got his try, Murray was probably lucky not to have been pinged, but we have had many a shit call against us in the past, and this game (a couple of non-existant advantages, knock that wasnt) that to have a few good ones, I'll take em!

Southland turning down so many shots was odd, that woulda always kept the scroeboard ticking over, maybe they were worried about them going up in 3's and us in 5 or 7's? But had they done that, I tink that would have been the killer blow for us after thier scrum monstered us!

Only saw last 20 or so of the b game, but a number of them dont look fit enough!

Edited by taniwharugby, 05 September 2010 - 01:57 PM.

[kev]

Chiefy said:

You must have missed the B game mate. Fa'aunu was quite unimpressive to me. He looks unfit and not match fit...

The guy who replaced him (Aterea Dvis according to the Advocate) played way better and the Northland scrum absolutely smashed BoP a few times after he came on.

We have to do something with that front row? Fa'aunu looked bloody unfit against Wellington so will take your word for it that he isn't the answer. What next? I am sick of our scrum being a joke.

Mckenty will be in next week ( at least the reserves, if not a start ) What has happened to Barker, when is he due back?

[taniwharugby]

think Barker is still struggling with his back injury.

Yeah this is not good the way we are struggling up front...just lucky our play with ball in hand is probably up there with the best in the comp right now

[Gunner]

Would have to hope that a couple of GOOD (ie; not useless fucking journeymen who can't get a game elsewhere) props are high on the shopping list for next year. It's a bloody embarassment having a scrum the goes backwards all the time like ours does!
Good to see our lineout worked better. (apart from the first one when no one jumped) But I think they are taking too long getting the ball in. From a penalty, our guys were walking in slowly, then waiting for a call once they weere aligned, why not make the call early, while the kicker is kicking the bloody thing, get to the line out and get the ball in straight away. I wonder who is leading the forward pack, it seems at times they don't know what's going on, or what option to take.

[Duluth]

With different props struggling maybe the root cause of the shitness is in the second row?

[taniwharugby]

good point, scrum did look a little better when Griffin came on for Burman, although it maybe could just have been southland had worn themselves out pushing us round so much

[Chiefy]

Possibly, which is part of the reason I think Griffin should come in for Burman. But I just don't think Wallis, Wright or Fa'aunu are scrummaging well enough as Bronson always seems to keep his side solid. We are really missing Justin Davies...maybe Northland shouldn't play him in the pre-season games next year...

[Chiefy]

Great minds TR, Great minds...

[justin77]

From Stuff.co.nz...

Quote

Rene Ranger showed the All Blacks selectors that they may have made a mistake by not taking him to Sydney for next weekend's test against the Wallabies with a stunning performance for Northland against Southland last night.

Ranger scored a try and set up two more in Northland's win at Northland Events Centre.

Despite being in the All Blacks squad he has again been left out of the touring party. But by shining as he did last night he's making it harder to be continually seen as a fringe All Black.

I may have missed the boat somewhere, but does this mean Ranger is available for Canterbury next week??

[taniwharugby]

wow...that is good if he is available, surely if he aint travelling he will only be on standby incase there is a mid-week injury?

I thought his selection meant he was going?

[taniwharugby]

is interesting there seems to be a buzz about that I havent experienced for sometime, even with the close losses!

People that I have never heard talk about rugby, talking about it...bandwagoners

apparently, the crowds for the home games are keeping ahead of budget projections too, I expect SBW will attract a few all on his own