TOP 14 ROUNDUP - Champions Clermont humbled at La Rochelle

AB losses were by larger margins and lost at home, playing arguably their best sides.

In the past, the boks would lose games in the name of building. Now they win games with less than perfect performances. Even Score 7 tries playing poorly.

I’m happy with that.

And they'll be up around something like 70% next year which will see Penney get reappointed!

Maybe he has such a bad preference that that's why he's not a good center?

He's my first choice of any New Zealander for the 10 jersey with the All Blacks.

It's not about any coach being "right". I think a lot of selections can become defense and while it doesn't really apply here I really enjoyed that Andy Farrell just gave into the public demands and changed out his team for the change that had been asked for. Like why not? This is the countries team, keep them engaged. The whole reason i've only just finished watching the game was because I wasn't interested in watching any of the selected players against a team like Italy (still actually enjoyed the first half with the contest Italy made of it).

Faz leap frogs a younger half back into start. He hands the golden child the game over July's golden child. He gives an old winger a go, a new flanker and hooker. None of them really did any good, certainly not enough to suggest they should have been promoted above others, but who cares? You won, and you gave the country what they wanted, that's all that matters after all. It's for the country, not the one in charge who thinks they have to have their own pied piper tune playing.

I don't think any All Black coach has had a tougher first year than this (so to here that they did that is really poor).

They is of course the sky production, the producer behind the scenes. They select commentators to deliver on that content they're going to provide them with, which means they have to be 'yes' mean. Mills is the A grade yes man. Actually really please Mills seems to be acting stronger, more with his own personality these days, and the game day commentry teams have bee pretty good imo. Bates, Steven, Shields, even that italian player was alright last week.

The big names were flat and Jase said so. I expected that, so should have those guys!

If you ask me Scotty would have been far more lively if he'd prepared to play a new position, 6. Sititi would have had that little extra edge too playing 8. I'd think either Lord of Holland would have brought more impact that playing a starter on the bench (tough it would have been fun if Vaa'i was there instead of a back). I'm not really sure what the deal is with 10 to say he intentionally went with a sub standard guy there (though that is not part of my "players have knocked off for the season narrative"), but I would have loved new guy there (anywhere in the backs/bench I mean).

It's obviously opinion but I think players like Kirifi and the three locks (he did well to start Patrick at least) would have given a much better effort, and I rate their ability to mean we'd have seen a much better performance from the ABs as a result of those selections.

Dont' get me wrong if you haven't seen my posts this week. Definitely not in the "wring the changes" camp. Just enough to get that 30point margin instead of 20.