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Waratahs 'to be better players' as a result of Highlanders thrashing

The Waratahs look devastated after their thrashing at the hands of the Highlanders. (Photo by Dianne Manson/Getty Images)

Departing halfback Nick Phipps has managed to unearth a positive from the Waratahs’ wretched 49-12 loss to the Highlanders in Invercargill.

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However, disillusioned supporters will need to wait until next year to see it.

A forgettable campaign ended in the deep south of New Zealand on Friday as a rampant Highlanders dominated the final-round fixture to keep their quarter-final hopes alive.

The Waratahs slumped to a 10th loss of the season and their heftiest defeat since the 96-19 embarrassment against the Crusaders in Christchurch 17 years ago.

That sort of final scoreline loomed into view when the visitors trailed 42-7 at halftime, the raw nature of their line-up exposed by the hosts’ physicality and rapid tempo.

Captain for the day Phipps was among the Waratahs’ few experienced Wallabies on show, with five others rested as part of their Rugby Australia requirements.

Coach Daryl Gibson’s fielding of several rookies and fringe candidates in such a gruelling game would bear fruit eventually, Phipps believed.

“Out there tonight there were a lot of players who are going to be taking this team forward,” he said.

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“If anything, they’re going to be better players for that. They’ve been blooded out there in one of the toughest cauldrons around.

“They stood up (in the second half) so hopefully they hold onto that through the pre-season and get ready for next year.”

Phipps is leaving next season for London Irish, along with prop Sekope Kepu and winger Curtis Rona.

Gibson has another season to run on his contract and hopes his team can improve their record in close games, something that ultimately cost them dearly.

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“We were very competitive during the year. Just losing those critical moments, that’s really telling,” he said.

“Obviously I’m pretty disappointed with where we finished and so forth.

“What we do have is an excellent crop of young New South Wales men coming through.

“You’ll see over the next couple of years those names starting to really feature for us.”

AAP

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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