Every silver cloud n all that, taxi for Johnny
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Every silver cloud n all that, taxi for Johnny
Would have been interesting to see how Wales would have coped with the All Blacks but then again…
Bottled it. Far too passive. Well done Argentina.
Far too many mistakes, a very disjointed performance, which wasn't helped by the injuries to Biggar and Liam Williams. We struggled to compete physically during the second half in particular and ultimately the best team won.
On a brighter note, at least we don't have to face the All Blacks in the semi. They'll put between 40-50 points on Argentina.
Gutted.
Indirectly, it offered more evidence of Australia's startling decline because we got all excited in scraping past Fiji in a game where the better side lost and beating by far the worst Australia side seen since they became a real world power on the Mark Ella tour in 1984. Argentina had been distinctly ordinary until last weekend's game with Japan which, for the first time got me doubting that we could reach the Semi Final - Gatland did really well to paper over the cracks during the group phase, but there was a lack of strength in depth in the squad - how many players improved yesterday's team when they came on? Tomos Williams (thought Gareth Davies had by far his worst game of the tournament) and Rio Dyer maybe, while the lineout improved marginally with the introduction of Dewi Lake, but he was a member of a badly outplayed pack.
For the talent we had available, getting out of our group must by an acceptable outcome given the expectations most had going into the tournament.
I thought Dyer was exciting and has all the pace and talent in the world but probably the most glaring example of poor decision making in the second half… regularly overplaying things and outrunning his support and his decision not to pass in the break that eventually led to Rees-Zammit being in touch by inches was another bad one.
Maybe harsh especially given the experimental look the backs had after all the injuries, but it did feel like the subs overplayed things and were trying to win the game on their own rather than setting up a solid base to try and win a game that they were only behind by a few points at the time. I think Gatland mentioned similar in his press conference.