To bookend the opening weekend of fixtures nicely, before we get stuck into Round 2, here’s a XV of the weekend, now the dust has settled AND my Top 3 players overall. what do you make of them?
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To bookend the opening weekend of fixtures nicely, before we get stuck into Round 2, here’s a XV of the weekend, now the dust has settled AND my Top 3 players overall. what do you make of them?
32 Comments
'Demain?' he said hopefully to the cute -sounding French woman😂
Cool video, feel you let a few guys out
For France Ollivon, Mauvaka and villere
For wales wainwright, Morgan, Adams, north and Tompkins
For Fiji Tagitagivalu matavesi and Lomani were all epic
George Ford has to be in the top 3 this week imo
French forwards were very impressive, they neutralised the NZ forward attack, especially Ardie Savea, the Boks struggle to stop him. It was like Savea was running into a brick wall.
Fiji are a very good 15 man team now, however their recycling of the ruck ball when on the try line was too slow which gave the Welsh time to set their defence.
Chilean players were much better than expected and scored good tries. Hopefully World Rugby will allocate some extra funds to help them grow the game there, clearly they have great passion for the game.
Content is great. 4k new subscribers in 3 days!
By the by, it’s NayaCAlevu not NayaLAcevu 👍
I am not going to make the effort to find his name now, but the nr 15 for Chile is a face to keep an eye out for. That guy was a standout amongst the Chileans.
Such a pity that creativity wasn’t mentioned until we got to outside centre. Forwards were brutal, brutal, immense! Is that all the game is these days
Yo! Keep up the good work!
Also, are you going to do a video update for the fantasy teams? Your tips were good last week and I'm top of my local team's league so I appreciate any help 😅
Smith
Totally outplayed Dupont
Reffing. The NFL review every decision by every ref (there are 6 on the field each game) in every
game, rate the refs. and retrain as appropriate. They are all rated and the top ones are used for top
games. Rugby cannot possibly afford that. So what to do?
1. Add yet another layer of control? Impractical and doesn’t really solve anything.
2. Add more refs on field, each with a special area of concern? Unlike NFL, rugby is not really
adapted to that.
3. Published independent review of decisions (or lack) flagged by head coaches with
appropriate grading and retraining ? Possible, necessary and affordable.
4. My own preference is old fashioned (and given the money etc involved nowadays I recognise
that it could be hard to swallow). The ref is always right! Swings and roundabouts to
compensate for mistakes. When I hear a reffing whinger (or coach) refusing a score for his
side because he saw a prior infringement the ref missed, then I’ll trust them! Suggestion 3
still applies.
Love your videos Tim. Just a note: you keep mucking up the pronunciation of Nayacalevu (the c comes before the l).
Great picks with good reasoning behind them all. Really nice to see Franco Mostert getting some much deserved recognition. In a Bok pack full of superstars, his work rate and skills are often overlooked!
Great XV and top 3. I could quibble with one or two but who cares. None of them were much better than your picks IMO
Thanks Tim, keep em coming!
Thought Franco Mostert was outstanding this past weekend. Think he was the best Bok.
More cultural cringe from the English. George Ford scored all his sides points, including two drop goals from the halfway line, leading 14 men for 77 minutes against a team ranked higher than them that was expected to beat them easily, and was rated either 10 or 9 by every newspaper in probably the best performance by an England outside-half in 20 years – yet he's not in your top 3 above some back-row bashers. Stop apologising for being English and give the man his due. Easily the best player of the first week.
I think Ford was perfection – surprised not in your top 3 but all mentioned were great
Aldritt was superb, and he's arguably not even the best No8 in the French Top 14 over the last couple of seasons. Not having Mercer in for England is insane
Nice. Who would have thought England would have more players in the top XV than New Zealand (albeit 1-0).
Lets agree to disagree.
That's a Nice video! I'll get my cloak 🤣
Nees video, Tim. Just an idea for you: given the gulf in class between not only the top half of the draw and the bottom, but also between the traditional giants and the “minnows”, maybe you could do two videos? The first, your Top Tier ToW, and the second, your Next Tier ToW? It would then be interesting to see a third video, being your Combined Team of the Week.
Having now watched the whole video, Tim, I’d go with a Top 3 of: =1. Grégory Alldritt / George Ford and 3. Bundee Aki. Justifications: both Alldritt and Ford looked intent upon winning the whole game for their respective teams all by themselves (and, in Ford’s case, practically did). Aki, on the other hand, was at the heart of everything good Ireland did — albeit, the quality of the opposition does have to be taken into account here. Still, if he had been wearing all black, we’d be raving about his performance and waxing lyrical about our underpants.
My team would be, George Ford at 10, at 9 I’d have George Ford. At full back, I’d have, George Ford. My tight head would be George Ford. Etc etc.
Alldritt was superb, absolutely immense. Watching that game I said many a time “I wish we had an 8 that ran that hard”
Ford controlled the game so well for us. After the 3rd drop goal, I honestly thought he was going to score 7 or 8, literally step in their half and bang.
Rowlands, those stats for his position are nuts.
“Squats, cleans and thrusters, if you’re interested” 🤣🤣
LOOK AT THE STATE OF YOU!
Pieter Steph DuToit is a weird one, i am a huge fan, but i think he plays better for the SA team than for the clubs he plays. The international games just brings the best out of him. Never let the Boks down, but disappears in club games sometimes.
No one beat more defenders than Mark Telea and he was playing France. Not Romania or Georgia. Probably deserves an honourable mention. Happy for NZ to fly under the radar though 👍🏼
Agree Aldritt made Savea look lightweight😮
I know the All Blacks didn't play great overall. But no mention of Aaron Smith, Scott Barrett or Mark Telea for example?
I am a saffa you were hard on your home nation. No 1 player of the week was George Ford, He broke Arg with the drops, fast under pressure accurate, brought a dimension that destroyed ARG's ability to cope. 27 pts, for GF, broke Farrells heart as well as Cheika's he was broken. I had Arg to win that, a performance finally from ENG & their forwards.
Mark Telea?