Lions v New Zealand 3rd Test Match Thread

Hastentoadd

SlickRic wrote: »

It's quite simple what happened.

He blew for the penalty, because it is what he'd do every time, as it's the obvious call.
It was minute 78. This could be the deciding moment. He knew it. And the Lions knew it.
Warburton smartly played up to it, and got a review.
The ref then looked for any reason to not give a penalty. He had a perfect out by claiming accidental offside and a scrum.
He didn't want the deciding moment to be soaked in possible controversy because of him.
He bottled it.

There's nothing else to it.

Poite may or may not have bottled it, Murray Kinsella seems to think he did bottle it. But really I think Beauden Barrett cost the All Blacks the series. If he had kicked to any degree of proficiency the tests would have been out of sight for the Lions

TITANIUM.

Hastentoadd wrote: »

Poite may or may not have bottled it, Murray Kinsella seems to think he did bottle it. But really I think Beauden Barrett cost the All Blacks the series. If he had kicked to any degree of proficiency the tests would have been out of sight for the Lions

Spot om. Pure and simple they should have been out of sight. That being said he didn't kuck his penalties and he is the AB starting out half, that's their problem.

pickarooney

Hansen bottled it by leaving the tee with Beauden when he had Jordie available.

Buer

Hastentoadd wrote: »

Poite may or may not have bottled it, Murray Kinsella seems to think he did bottle it. But really I think Beauden Barrett cost the All Blacks the series. If he had kicked to any degree of proficiency the tests would have been out of sight for the Lions

As piackarooney says, Hansen made a bad call here. I can't believe how easy a ride he's getting. I've barely seen it mentioned.

Barrett is a 70% kicker (I think his test success rate is 71% to be exact). This isn't a secret and he has always been prone to flakey days with the boot. The second test was pretty much bang on with 7/10 (although even one or two of those were poor by anyone's standards).

I would strongly question the wisdom of bringing Jordie Barrett into the team and keeping the kicking duties with Beauden. It's a bizarre situation when not only is Jordie the proven better kicker with a higher percentage success rate (80%) but they play for the same team where Jordie is given the responsibility ahead of Beauden.

It was dense particularly given the poor kicking in the 2nd test and Hansen should be getting a bit of flak for that.

CMOTDibbler

Buer wrote: »

As piackarooney says, Hansen made a bad call here. I can't believe how easy a ride he's getting. I've barely seen it mentioned.

Barrett is a 70% kicker (I think his test success rate is 71% to be exact). This isn't a secret and he has always been prone to flakey days with the boot. The second test was pretty much bang on with 7/10 (although even one or two of those were poor by anyone's standards).

I would strongly question the wisdom of bringing Jordie Barrett into the team and keeping the kicking duties with Beauden. It's a bizarre situation when not only is Jordie the proven better kicker with a higher percentage success rate (80%) but they play for the same team where Jordie is given the responsibility ahead of Beauden.

It was dense particularly given the poor kicking in the 2nd test and Hansen should be getting a bit of flak for that.

I don't know what Barrett's conversion rate ended up at. But at the start of the third test, Sky had him slightly ahead of Farrell by virtue of the fact that he'd attempted one more (I think) and missed as many; three each iirc.

[Deleted User]

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

I don't know what Barrett's conversion rate ended up at. But at the start of the third test, Sky had him slightly ahead of Farrell by virtue of the fact that he'd attempted one more (I think) and missed as many; three each iirc.

Yup, Beauden went into the final test with a better percentage than Farrell. I'm pretty sure that they also said that Beauden has a better percentage than Jordie in super rugby this year.

Buer

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

I don't know what Barrett's conversion rate ended up at. But at the start of the third test, Sky had him slightly ahead of Farrell by virtue of the fact that he'd attempted one more (I think) and missed as many; three each iirc.

I vaguely recall seeing the graphic and I think that was Farrell's entire tour against Barrett's test series. In the test series Barrett was 6/6, 7/10 and 2/4.

Farrell was 2/3, 5/6, 4/4.

So 75% vs 85% and, a couple of very awkward conversions aside, I would think Barrett's kicks were generally more straightforward. Farrell knocked several over from between the 10m line and the halfway. One in the second test from the far side in the opening half was absolutely top class given the conditions.

He didn't have a very good test series overall but this tour demonstrated the importance of having the best goalkicker possible in your side. Oddly, his general play in the lead up games was very good and his kicking iffy. In the test series it was the other way around.

Buer

Basil3 wrote: »

Yup, Beauden went into the final test with a better percentage than Farrell. I'm pretty sure that they also said that Beauden has a better percentage than Jordie in super rugby this year.

Jordie Barrett is 30/40 for the Hurricanes this season (75%). Beauden is 18/29 (62%).

Source

Interested Observer

Haven't really posted much since Sat, thought the Lions got really lucky on that final call. Even just allowing play on could easily have resulted in a NZ score. It was pure dog and a bit of luck that got them through that match. At half time I couldn't understand how there were only 6 points in it, immediately after half time only 3 points in it.

Shame about the injuries to SOB and Sexton, both playing out of their skin.

Overall the tour has been great imo, going to really miss it now it's gone. News of the Lions' demise has been greatly exaggerated.

Hastentoadd

Basil3 wrote: »

Yup, Beauden went into the final test with a better percentage than Farrell. I'm pretty sure that they also said that Beauden has a better percentage than Jordie in super rugby this year.

There you go. statistics again. Unfortunately you don't get the distance, the angle, the wind so you can't really compare one kicker, truthfully, to the next

irishbucsfan

Hastentoadd wrote: »

There you go. statistics again. Unfortunately you don't get the distance, the angle, the wind so you can can compare one kicker, truthfully, to the next

This is a completely empty criticism. We know that kicking percentages are a valid indicator of the quality of a kicker over a large enough sample size, not sure why we should pretend they aren't.

Interested Observer

Hastentoadd wrote: »

There you go. statistics again. Unfortunately you don't get the distance, the angle, the wind so you can't really compare one kicker, truthfully, to the next

If you take enough kicks all this is going to come out in the wash. There are a couple of examples of guys with extreme range who will attempt kicks other kickers wouldn't, and hence miss a few, but they're outliers, Beauden certainly isn't such a kicker. I'm not really sure about Jordie.

CMOTDibbler

Hastentoadd wrote: »

There you go. statistics again. Unfortunately you don't get the distance, the angle, the wind so you can't really compare one kicker, truthfully, to the next

Well in a test series you can. If the contention is that Barrett's kicking lost them the chance of wining the series, then the opposing kicker's success rate can be a direct comparison. We're not assessing their quality as kickers, just the effect on the scoreboard.

Buer

Hastentoadd wrote: »

There you go. statistics again. Unfortunately you don't get the distance, the angle, the wind so you can't really compare one kicker, truthfully, to the next

When they're playing in the same match, in the same conditions and the guy missing the kicks is missing straightforward shots, I think it's fairly easy to make a comparison on the kicking ability.

In a one off game, it would be harsh, but over a number of games then it's completely valid. In the case of BB, it's over his career. There's plenty of concern around his kicking ability long before this test series.

It was a poor call to leave the kicking with him. If he makes just one of the five kicks he missed in the 2nd and 3rd tests, NZ win the series.

Hastentoadd

The point I was trying to make is that while there are percentage success rates, you must take into account the difficulty of the kick before you use percentages. And I do get the point that this all evens out over time. But if you take the test series Farrell was so far ahead of Barrett

Ardillaun

Hastentoadd wrote: »

The point I was trying to make is that while there are percentage success rates, you must take into account the difficulty of the kick before you use percentages. And I do get the point that this all evens out over time. But if you take the test series Farrell was so far ahead of Barrett

It's a complex business that might require computer modelling to come up with a decent answer. Percentages should be roughly comparable within the same league given that such players will be subject to the same weather over time but distance and angle would have to be factored in for a more complete comparison, perhaps ranking players from smaller sectors of the pitch. Some of Barrett's misses the other day were sitters with a fair bit of draw on them.

pickarooney

Basil3 wrote: »

Yup, Beauden went into the final test with a better percentage than Farrell. I'm pretty sure that they also said that Beauden has a better percentage than Jordie in super rugby this year.

You need to look at those kicks though. In the first six rounds of SR the Canes kicked about three penalties total. The majority of kicks Beauden took were conversions off tries Laumape, Aso and himself ran under the posts. In games where they alternated kicking, Jordie took the longer ones.

[Deleted User]

pickarooney wrote: »

You need to look at those kicks though. In the first six rounds of SR the Canes kicked about three penalties total. The majority of kicks Beauden took were conversions off tries Laumape, Aso and himself ran under the posts. In games where they alternated kicking, Jordie took the longer ones.

I do wonder who would have taken the kick if it was a penalty at the end. Cruden was on the pitch as well, but as far as I know, he's been kicking like rubbish for a while now.

Yeah_Right

Beauden was going to take he was all set ready to go I believe. Until that ****ing gutless **** of a ref bottled it. (No I'm not angry).

I'd say the reason that BB was kicking and not JB was they just wanted Jordie to concentrate on his game and not worry about the added pressure of kicking. I'm pretty sure Carter didn't kick in his first season in the ABs or at the Crusaders.

Buer

Yeah_Right wrote: »

I'd say the reason that BB was kicking and not JB was they just wanted Jordie to concentrate on his game and not worry about the added pressure of kicking. I'm pretty sure Carter didn't kick in his first season in the ABs or at the Crusaders.

Oddly, Carter kicked from the very start with NZ. He didn't kick as much with the Crusaders initially. I suppose it was because MacDonald and Mehrtens were in the 22 for the Crusaders but weren't necessarily in the 22 for NZ who had Muliaina and Spencer at 15 and 10 respectively.

Yeah_Right

^^^^
I stand corrected. I was working off my hazy memory and thought DC didn't kick for the ABs to start with.