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Crusaders absent from Super Rugby Team of the Season
By Sam Smith
SANZAAR has named their official Super Rugby Team of the Season for 2017 based on a range of player stats. No one from the champion Crusaders outfit has made the cut, and although the TOTS are a pretty strong side on paper, you wouldn't pick them to beat the men from Canterbury in a final.
Whatever algorithms they are applying to the numbers may be unreliable, or perhaps they're not even looking at the right kinds of numbers? Nevertheless, I would have picked Seta Tamanivalu in the 14 jumper any day of the week.
#SuperRugby Team of the Year: Agree or disagree the season stats have delivered a strong team on paper full details https://t.co/H1EmL2EifK pic.twitter.com/yA3heseDPO
— Super Rugby (@SuperRugby) August 9, 2017
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There is nothing particularly significant about Ireland in this regard compared to other Tier 1 nations. To look at 'strategy' for illegal play its best to see what teams push boundaries with new laws. SA have milked two tries at ruck block downs. The strategy is to charge the first few before the ball is out at about 4 seconds but pull out and put up hands in reigned apology. The referees usually allow the scum half to clear without awarding a penalty in this scenario. The problem with that being that the scrumhalf is now taking over 5 seconds through no fault of his own. Having achieved a few slow balls > 5s , the SA forward can now pick a scrum to charge dead on 5s. Now if the scrum half waits, he will concede a penalty, as we saw against Scotland. With the new rule in place, any early charge should result in an immediate penalty.
SA also got an offside block against England which was pivotal again after a couple of 'apologetic' offside aborted charges forcing England to clear slowly.
Go to commentsYep, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed are you?
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