I think it happened so fast that Murray didn’t know whether to dive at the ball or not, probably hoped for a favourable bounce to come towards him at the last second, someone posted that Murray wasn’t watching and wasn’t interested, well I posted the clip and actually Murray was furthest away out by the centre of the pitch when the ball was kicked and yet got closest to the breaking ball between him Aki and Frawley, he wasn’t caught out looking away at all at any point so it’s clear the blame isn’t with Murray, so it begs the question as to the motivation for making stuff up to blame him. Aki was closest yet completely switched off and jogged back so slowly that by the time Murray realised the danger and had to sprint across to cover for Aki not reacting it was too late. Frawley was way back, covering the backfield so no blame on him either.
That would be relevant if it was a sa vs ireland ruck ing conversation players like porter in particular make up for ir because hes unbelievabley good
I mean ya if we ignore that rucks exist and only look at specific stats mccarthy could be argued as having a better game but its an "would any kiwis make it into thr irish 15" level of blowing smoke up our ass
He is in the team for a combination of game play
You decided his "be all and end all" is carrying, that doesn't mean you are right.
In the big La Rochelle games it wasnt his ball carrying but his ability to counter ruck and defend against the big lads Skelton…..
They absolutely don't - the South Africans typically use Etzebeth as a carrier. He's a huge physical player, it's absolutely a part of his game, he just didn't have a good game carrying on Saturday.
You can't point to anything of note that Etzebeth did in the game on Saturday, and you're the one who felt the need to wade into this argument that didn't originally involve you. You have nothing to back up your piece but invisible ruck stats, from a game in which SA didn't have any noticeably more effective rucking than we did.
He can shoot out for a big hit and be disruptive at breakdowns but hes in the squad to be a big freakish carrier as iv said follow him around and watch him clear out rucks he has big deficiencys to his game his carrying is supposed to be what makes up for that t compare his carrying stats to etzebeth and feel thats reflective of the game in general is a bit silly
Agreed. Neither had games they'll be particularly happy with. Etzebeth was poor considering he's probably the best in the world. Mostert and Beirne were comfortably the best locks on the park.
No it's not in terms of McCarthy.
He is a decent ball carrier but it's not his "be all and end all"
Ah he didn't have a fine game. He had little enough impact generally and made some poor errors. Stripped by Smith in the opening minute, gave away an avoidable penalty and then dropped a lineout just before being taken off. He got around the park but there was a noticeable difference in aggression from Ryan when he entered proceedings.
If McCarthy had been playing better, he wouldn't have been removed after 49 minutes.
They play entirely different roles thats my point. Id you think they play the same role then your not really paying attention.
Mike Philips carry stats will be bettet than aaron smiths id imagine is that a better analogy for you. Either way you seem to be skipping over the actual point in favour of throwing mud
carrying almost twice as many times
So volume matters? 😉 Look, I don’t think either of them had an especially standout game.
If McCarthy goes on to have half the career Etzebeth has had (and I think he will) we’ll have a serious player on our hands.
Feel free to call my analogys strawmans if you like but dont present fairly average carry stats for a player who is primarily a carrier as a show of why he was better than a player whos not and claim your the one arguing in good faith
Says who?
The utter stupidity of that analogy beggars belief - comparing two guys who play the literal same position is comparable apparently to comparing a scrum half and a tight head prop?
Joe mccarthy plays tighthead lock but he dosent play like a tighthead lock I encourage you to follow him for ruck cleanouts its genuinely embarrassing stuff etzebeth on the other hand is a monster at it.
Your not comparing like with like at all their entirely different players. We win that game if etzebeth is playing for us
I hadnt previously realised the concept of an analogy was so confusing
I
You claimed he outplayed McCarthy, and you're talking about me ignoring rucks when you genuinely haven't the first clue what the ruck stats are for Saturday's game.
They're both tighthead locks as well, and while both were on the pitch, the Irish scrum was probably the better scrum.
Etzebeth had a relatively anonymous game on Saturday by his own standards. He had virtually no moments of note, and for all your talk of rucks, Ireland turned over SA multiple times at the ruck, and SA's best attacking moments came from finding space out wide, they struggled to generate quick ruck ball all day.
Yeah, that one. Nice, versatile front row coming together
You mean my tot shouldn't play 10 idea
Are you trying to outdo your Tom O'Toole at FH idea?
Mccarthys be all and end all is ball carrying. Etzebeths isint. Its like comparing casey and Malherbe by number of passes
Yeah, outside of the PT, Ireland were not remotely undone in the tight exchanges. Some bad errors and some lapses in defence out wide were the real killers. The pack pretty easily went toe to toe with the Springbok pack.
I thought McCarthy was fairly average, but our second row was just as good as theirs and given the team he was going against that's a good showing. I'd still consider Ryan over him for the next match, but that's hardly a sleight.
If you're Murray in that situation do you take the chance and clean Kolbe out of it off the ball, knowing you'll get binned and the team is out of scrum halves or let him in for the try? I was kind of annoyed that he did nothing but it would most likely have been a PT and YC.
This all came from one poster having a strange pop at McCarthy (not his first one), and I responded saying he'd a fine game. Statistically he was clearly a more effective ball carrier than Etzebeth - carrying almost twice as many times for almost three times as many metres.
There isn't anything else really to separate them, so on that basis it's perfectly reasonable to say McCarthy was probably the more effective, especially as I think the Irish scrum had the upper hand.
The context of where both of them are at in their careers is hugely relevant too - McCarthy is 23 years old and earning his 11th cap in that game, Etzebeth is nearly ten years his senior, and earned his 121st cap on Saturday, as well as being a double RWC winner.
I think McCarthy was probably just straight up the better player anyway on Saturday (though neither was especially prominent), but from the perspective of where the expectations should be for each of them McCarthy was far far better.
yeah Kolbe is probably rugbys closest thing to a 100m sprinter, his acceleration turnaround time to hit top end speed is insane. I still remember his block down where he sprinted from his own try line to block Jaminets kick in the World Cup.
I never said he had a special game are you responding to someone else?
Your comparing a proper tighthead lock to a carry specialist and ignoring rucks
To be fair, I don’t think this is especially good evidence that either outplayed the other tbh..
You go and look at them - you're the one claiming he'd some special game here.
Or could it be that you haven't looked at any stats and are just spoofing here?
Etzebeth plays a different role. Go look at the ruck clear outs
There is awareness and there is having eyes in the back of your head though. I find it perplexing that they weren't even trying to run over towards the line and I'm sure Lowe was expecting them to.
But anyway, to the broader point be that Lowe's error or whoever was near him there were a lot of unforced errors. The Lowe error on the kick off absolutely killed me. I think we could have won from there without it.
Looked at it again there, Kolbe is actually miles away when Lowe leaps for the ball, but is running at full tilt in anticipation. Aki is closest to him, Murray is closest to Lowe and just isn't looking at all, and Frawley is closest to the Irish line. Frawley gets closest to the ball, but Kolbe gets there first and dinks it past him.
All three (Frawley, Murray and Aki) were at fault for not watching the play and not reacting quick enough.
There isn't enough time in those instances to have a quick glance around and see where all of your support players are - you have to just assume they'll be alert too to the possibility of the kick falling short. Lowe does his job, the other three do not.
Nah, that's rubbish and is antithesis to how the game is played.
Lowe won possession of the ball through a fantastic piece of skill.
His team mates not belong awake to it is on them.
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