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A weekend
in Christchurch
25th August
2005. By
Kiwipie
Another trip to Christchurch, twice as many chartered planes and
another heavy defeat for the mighty Steamers. Whereas last year, we
were outplayed by an All Black laden outfit but actually played
pretty well – this year we never really threatened and conceded too
many penalties to ever get enough territory to compete. Luckily the
Canterbury team made many errors as well which kept us in the game
until late in the second half.
In fact if a couple of refereeing calls had gone
our way we could have actually been ahead, firstly a non-existent
knock-on from Ormond that called Lutui back when he was storming for
the line and the penalty against Latu when he scooted from a ruck. I
am pretty sure the ref only called that one because it was a try,
the same thing happens many times in a game, a forward picking the
ball out of the ruck to set up the next drive.
 In
the end the try to Hamilton finished us off and the yellow card to
Ormond meant that the score blew out. Luckily Tahana scooted over
for a late try (even outpacing Reuben Thorne) for our first
5-pointer of the season.
So what is going wrong so far?
-
Too many penalties. I love the way Latu
competes at the breakdown but if the ref doesn’t penalise the
tackled player for holding on then he has to let go of the ball.
We need to trust our strong defence and force the errors from
the opposition.
-
The backline. No fluency with the changes in
personnel and the tactical kicking game has been poor. Vern also
seems unsure as to who he wants at 13 and 14.
Reasons for optimism?
-
The forward pack has been very solid, the
scrum is competing well and the loose forwards are very busy. We
just need to get down to the right areas of the field.
-
Williams will get better. We have seen what
he can do, with more experience he will improve.
Enough about the rugby! Yet again the chartered
planes were a great success, 4 737s were filled this time (or rather
the same plane filled 4 times) and on the Saturday morning
Christchurch was full of blue and gold. Thanks to Shane Kennedy
House of Travel for the great organisation, to Hori BOP for his
tireless tour guiding and to airport security for making us feel so
special. The two hotels, the Crowne Plaza and the Heritage were also
great at making us feel welcome.
Friday night was a great night for the Bay fans in the city and much
alcohol was consumed, however it has to be said that Saturday night
was a little flatter! So will we be able to celebrate winning the
Shield at all in 2005? Well … were DS Waikato to scrape past the
Cantabs in their challenge (no doubt dependent on illegal tactics
and a biased ref) then we would get the first challenge over the
Kaimais. And what a day that would be. We can but dream …… |
