Edinburgh in Exile wrote:Haha, Christ. Fair fucks Fiji, they were well worth that. We were a bit abject in attack there. Not sure what's happened to the backs shape.
Besides Taylor and Price who would even get a look in of that lot? The backs were either out of form, playing low level rugby or inexperienced. And whilst I appreciate Vissers merits he needs a dominant team to create opportunities for him - given the aforementioned points was that ever going to happen? Perhaps Jones or Hughes would have been better picks.
The decision to send Dunbar home and release Finn is looking f*cking idiotic right now.
Aye, backs didn't fire at all today. Goes to show our complete lack of depth at fly half.
Yup, although we needed to give another 10 game time even if we lack depth there.
Not a good way to finish the tour.
We consostently miss too many tackles but 30 is outrageously bad.
Wouldn't necessarily be writing individuals off (although 1 or 2 maybe should be) because the backline was so vastly different. Perhaps an early lessen for Toonie that you can't change that much at this level at one time.
Just woken up after going back to sleep, I'm not sure if I care we lost because it was clearly a team designed to see who can step up and who can't.
Pyrgos - poor
Horne - average, needs quality around him
Visser - see above
Taylor - didn't notice a lot of him
Grigg - seemed to get caught and smashed a few times
Hoyland - couldn't tackle and looked out his depth
Jackson - offered nothing in attack
Forwards did their job but were not top of their game
whatisthejava wrote:Just woken up after going back to sleep, I'm not sure if I care we lost because it was clearly a team designed to see who can step up and who can't.
Pyrgos - poor aye
Horne - average, needs quality around him aye
Visser - see above aye, again
Taylor - didn't notice a lot of him didnt get much ball. Off injured earlybsecond half
Grigg - seemed to get caught and smashed a few times they all did tbf, though only remember one on Grigg. When they did the smart thing and gave him the ball flat and at pace he damn near got over the line
Hoyland - couldn't tackle and looked out his depth he's never going to be a big guy but it's his decision making in defence that needs work most imo
Jackson - offered nothing in attack or defence..
Forwards did their job but were not top of their game
Don't want to single folks out though. Fagerson and maybe Brown and Watson are my only pass marks.
whatisthejava wrote:Just woken up after going back to sleep, I'm not sure if I care we lost because it was clearly a team designed to see who can step up and who can't.
Pyrgos - poor aye
Horne - average, needs quality around him aye
Visser - see above aye, again
Taylor - didn't notice a lot of him didnt get much ball. Off injured earlybsecond half
Grigg - seemed to get caught and smashed a few times they all did tbf, though only remember one on Grigg. When they did the smart thing and gave him the ball flat and at pace he damn near got over the line
Hoyland - couldn't tackle and looked out his depth he's never going to be a big guy but it's his decision making in defence that needs work most imo
Jackson - offered nothing in attack or defence..
Forwards did their job but were not top of their game
Don't want to single folks out though. Fagerson and maybe Brown and Watson are my only pass marks.
Oh god. Missed this one as I had no internet. Sounds fucking horrendous. Maybe a lesson to Toonie about dicking around with the team so much at this sort of level?
Leaving out Watson, Price and maybe a better centre combo sounds like it was a bad idea now.
Pyrgos has been gash for quite a while, no surprise to hear he was again today. Shame for Grigg and Allan to get their first involvements in a game like that, how did they go?
If there was one lesson that I took from that with my dodgy stream it was that we go or not depending on whether Russell is in the team and playing well. Without him we don't have anyone to bring players onto the ball flat and without that we look unable to create a bit of space.
The other miss is of course Hogg but in that sort of game we'd be looking to him for a bit of magic.
Hate to say it but Greg was actually right. Take the early points on offer and we'd have been a lot more comfortable playing that way. However I understood going for the scrum against seven men, even if it was right in front of the posts.
Frankly, it was an insult that in the first half Scotland played this like a festival match and turned down shots at goal. Experimental team minus Lions or not, it was a full test match and Scotland didn't seem to respect that. Fiji did, kicked their goals and deserved the win.
______________________
Dominating the SHMB
======================
Lizard wrote:Frankly, it was an insult that in the first half Scotland played this like a festival match and turned down shots at goal. Experimental team minus Lions or not, it was a full test match and Scotland didn't seem to respect that. Fiji did, kicked their goals and deserved the win.
Fans want to win but we have about 20 games to the wc, we know what 23-25 of the players will be, toonie has a style of play and he wasn't willing to compromise it , he now knows that some of those players are not ready.
God I'd rather be here than a few years ago when we scraped a win against Samoa with our full strength team.
Roll on the AI, let's win the best of 7 match vs the ozzies and pump the all blacks. They looked pretty Poo today and offered nothing in attack. That boy who sounds like he was named after the gaelic name of a Scottish island was pish.
Lizard wrote:Frankly, it was an insult that in the first half Scotland played this like a festival match and turned down shots at goal. Experimental team minus Lions or not, it was a full test match and Scotland didn't seem to respect that. Fiji did, kicked their goals and deserved the win.
May be an interesting lesson for Scotland to learn if that's the case, it's not a situation we've been in often.
Lizard wrote:Frankly, it was an insult that in the first half Scotland played this like a festival match and turned down shots at goal. Experimental team minus Lions or not, it was a full test match and Scotland didn't seem to respect that. Fiji did, kicked their goals and deserved the win.
As disappointed as we all are with this result, I feel we can all take solace in the fact that Baz is watching the replay of this beaut of a game, on his phone, in a Wetherspoons, in an airport. Rollover bet from the Hardie one on how long he gets into the game before checking the result and coming on here. My bet is halftime.
Hahaha. Aye, and the phone kept slipping off it's precarious perch for me to catch it and navigate away from the page. Still, at least I didn't see the lions result in the departure lounge before getting a chance to watch it.
"Scotland's options in the midfield are greater than at any point in their history. Taylor may be a scatterbrain, nicknamed Spacey, who turned up at the airport for this tour thinking his driver's licence would be sufficient to get him on the plane, but he's a fantastic rugby player and a hugely important figure for Scotland going forward."
It'll be interesting to see if Taylor can get a run and establish himself in the Sarries team. If not Burleighs deal is up at Embra next year.... [emoji13] [emoji54] [emoji56] if only.
Mikey Brown wrote:Just caught the "highlights". Pretty dismal stuff. Swinson's non-tackle on Nakawara stood out amidst a sea of crap defending.
Hard to judge anything much from a short, blurry, jolting video except that Watson must never be benched for Hardie again.
Hardie wasn't that bad. Everybody 1-23 & the coaching team need to stand up and take responsibility for that result. They under-estimated Fiji and their attitude was clearly all wrong.
Whilst everybody was at fault I felt any chance of coming back into the game was lost in the backs. There were just too many players that needed to be carried by a big game player - a Hogg, a Price, a Russell or even a Seymour/Dunbar. We were already depleted in the backs and it was the wrong decision to rotate - I think we may have just scraped a result if Price, Russell and Dunbar had been retained. Jones & Hughes would have been improvements - whilst i don't think either has the X factor they do the basics well which is something that was sorely lacking from Visser and Hoyland especially.
