France vs NZ

Evening all - interesting matches so far today! Anybody know where I can watch France vs NZ?

Paris

Very good mc kay

I can't find it on TV anywhere. Anyone know of any decent streaming sites?

sent you a pm bazzer

France are putting in a credible performance today. Probably not going to pull it off, but credible for sure. Especially considering the chaos which is French Rugby.

Great game.

Congrats, Kiwi's

Commiserations, France.

I had a feeling this game was going to be close, after watching the 2nd half of France's game last week. France are starting to play like the France of old. Some wonderful rugby. Sort out the set piece and France will be strong contenders for the 6Ns.

Cant believe how crap our set piece was. line out was a shamble and our scrum was so dominated that NZ opted for the scrum twice instead of taking 3 easy points (kinda funny because it could have backfired in the end). We played a lot of rugby in the 1st half but our finishing was poor again with a few runs ending 5m from the AB line. AB were the usual clinical and basically scored from 3 out of 4 chances they had (and one was an intercept) otherwise their game plan was mainly Barett kicking behind France defensive line. Not sure ABs were at their usual level mind, probably a bit tired given the season they had.

Hard luck whocares. Scoreline looks pretty close..

France had the better of a lot of that match without knowing what to do with it. That's a problem England often had over the years, and not just under Lancaster.

Shaping up to be a tasty Six Nations. Ireland and England are in the World top 4, France showing signs of getting their act together, while Scotland look genuinely competitive. Hard to gauge Wales and Italy, but the Welsh often raise their game for this tournament, and Italy have Conor O'Shea, who may have a plan.

Rugby Fan wrote:France had the better of a lot of that match without knowing what to do with it. That's a problem England often had over the years, and not just under Lancaster.

Shaping up to be a tasty Six Nations. Ireland and England are in the World top 4, France showing signs of getting their act together, while Scotland look genuinely competitive. Hard to gauge Wales and Italy, but the Welsh often raise their game for this tournament, and Italy have Conor O'Shea, who may have a plan.

Agreed. NZ looked tired, definitely at the end of a long year. But ultimately they're a side that knows how to find a way to win most of the time.



I'm thoroughly looking forward to the 6N, there should be some great games

Hey Pete long time no see on these boards

Well what can you say?  And how can you judge these things any more that we could judge them in other years?  There'll always be reasons why the SH sides might be tired and looking forward to a break.... and why NH sides might excuse their rustiness and lack of cohesion.

But I suppose the thing we'd all agree with this time is that all SH sides will go back home with quite a few serious questions this time.  When once you'd expect the usual line about 'the gap between SH and NH is still quite big' - now that line can't honestly be the conclusion that defines this AI season.

Of course it must be said though that the SH themselves heavily influence that change - with only Wales and France using indigenous Head coaches - adding Italy if you extend it to NH coaches.

whocares wrote:Hey Pete long time no see on these boards

I dropped by for a visit. And was shocked to discover that my home web browser still remembered my login details ...

I thought France was the better, more dangerous team over 80 mins. They played heads up rugby which was refreshing to see! NZ did enough to keep them at bay though and were far more clinical. I thought Barnes officiated the match really well too.

I did have a question for other posters here though; for the scrum that led to Picamole's try, did anyone think that France had a really early shove on which should have been penalised first?

Watching the video (around the 60th minute) the scrum doesn't look steady at all when Smith is asked to put the ball in and you can see the French driving before the ball is in

Fantastic pass though by Serin....where has he been hiding?

Agree with you Mintie, that scrum was probably a bit borderline - haven't taken much attention since watching the replays of the try but I remember it was a bit of mess.

Serin, 22 years old Bordeaux area born and bred player has been in UBB ranks almost forever. he was decisive during the French U20 6N grand slam in 2014. For me he's the most naturally talented player we had In this position since Elissalde. He's a natural and deals well with pressure. Compared to him Machenaud (the starting 9) looks like a good slow working horse.
We're lucky to have a decent conveyor belt of scrum halves (there is also 20 year old Antoine Dupont of Castres who has great potential). Not so much when it comes to 10s

whocares wrote:Serin, 22 years old Bordeaux area born and bred player has been in UBB ranks almost forever. he was decisive during the French U20 6N grand slam in 2014. For me he's the most naturally talented player we had In this position since Elissalde. He's a natural and deals well with pressure. Compared to him Machenaud (the starting 9) looks like a good slow working horse.
We're lucky to have a decent conveyor belt of scrum halves (there is also 20 year old Antoine Dupont of Castres who has great potential). Not so much when it comes to 10s

Thanks - I was at the Toulouse v Bordeaux match at the start of the season. I can't say I really noticed him (if he was playing) but I was really only watching out for the kiwi players I knew. He looks a fantastic talent and a bit of a tearaway, willing to do something risky. Looking at the way France played, with the players they now have I think we can expect a resurgence from them. I look forward to it...

chewed_mintie wrote:I thought France was the better, more dangerous team over 80 mins.   They played heads up rugby which was refreshing to see!  NZ did enough to keep them at bay though and were far more clinical.  I thought Barnes officiated the match really well too.

I did have a question for other posters here though; for the scrum that led to Picamole's try, did anyone think that France had a really early shove on which should have been penalised first?

Watching the video (around the 60th minute) the scrum doesn't look steady at all when Smith is asked to put the ball in and you can see the French driving before the ball is in

Fantastic pass though by Serin....where has he been hiding?

There's a big NZ fans FB group where one member is frothing in outrage at that decision. Of course the same nutter wrote an essay last week detailing his views on why the penalty count in Dublin should have been 19-5 in NZ's favour, so I was taking it with a big pinch of salt.

Serin was impressive