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VIDEO: Milner-Skudder is Back

Hurricanes and New Zealand full-back Nehe Milner-Skudder

Nehe Milner-Skudder is back in action after spending three months on the sidelines through injury. The winger was in fine form as he managed to get 25 minutes of game time under his belt in Perth. He also treated All Blacks fans and selectors to a few trademark Skudder-steps as the Hurricanes ran out 34-12 winners.

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It’s a timely return for Skudder given the All Blacks squad will be announced on Thursday.  There’s plenty of competition in the back three, but having proven himself at the highest level, Hansen should find space in the squad for him.
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J
JW 3 hours ago
The revitalised Australians are pushing a Super Rugby revival

I’d have to get my head around it, but for simplicity and continuity sake, I’ll pose if we take your description and apply that it means a team like SA simply chooses to scrum and lineout more often, and perhaps take longer in doing so, then that would be a very obvious circumstance to have verified, but I have not seen anything like that. I mean we did agonize over scrums nearly taking a minute to set in that semi final, but that was two sides happy to play (at) the same game (/pace).


My assumption was it was rather a symptom of how they play, a combative tight contest results in more errors/scrums, kicking inclination and tall timber means more ball dead lineouts (playing for penalties?), if the game is '“slower” because of ‘legitimate’ factors, a low BIP is fairly irrelevant, you’re both still getting your bang for buck of a great contest, and those contests are very absorbing and energy zapping, which doesn’t align with your theory. You’re on the edge of your seat waiting to see one team get smash in the scrum, or if the other can secure good ball, just as you are waiting for a phase or two to build before pressure a ruck for a turnover etc. I’m sure they would loved a higher BIP if that was the symptom of their style, just as long as they got those rest breaks still.


But I could always have had the wrong perception of it being based on the fact I’ve only notice BIP improving when refs started stopping the clock (instead of berating the teams to hurryup), so the BIP obviously improves when doing that, but the game still looked to take as long, meaning that 1 or 2 minutes saved was always going to be largely ineffectual. It has also always appeared to me that what defines teams like SA is the amount of time the clock is stopped (even before refs tried to combat them by blowing the whistle more often) in their games, and therefor how long their games last. This is a stat/factor that I have seen analyzed and proven, but your articles have also highlighted the odd thing or two (scrum frequency dropping etc) that I would be very interested in a comprehensive analysis on effects of a test involving SA (compared to before), I certainly can’t remember any extra fatigue showing in their games last year after a raft of changes to stop scrums from being taken etc.

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