I have a Rega Planar 2 which is excellent. First brought to market in the early 70s and still being made. Low tech so super robust but with really good mechanics. The sound quality is very good Caveat: depending on your amp and speakers of course.
Cost in the UK is about £350 (bought one for Ms Cato’s birthday just over a year ago). There is a Planar 3 available but that is a bit more techy and close to twice the price.
The pressure of playing in a World Cup semi final really showed in both matches more so in this one I thought.
Canada have played an expansive game throughout the tournament and you could see they wanted to do it but fluffed several opportunities. Some paid off, but there were more chances.
England have used a narrow attacking pattern and love the forward drive but they too made a hash of several opportunities and then their defensive alignment was found wanting.
A couple of impressive tries in the match and well done to England. Really looking forward to the final.
David Campese at 14? He was a spectacular attacker when in form, but he could be flaky and sometimes disinterested and the defensive presence of a jellyfish if I recall correctly.
Not sure about that. I don’t remember much sting in his defence
Time to acknowledge that certain players I've written off have improved over their careers or their impact is much better than I expected. To that end, apologies to:
Ofa Tu'ungafasi - Couldn't scrum, gave away dumb penalties, slow to get off the ground. Today was the type of game I hope he could take into the All Blacks.
Alex Hodgman - Couldn't scrum for shit. Now not a concern, big impact around the ground which is a clear concern for the All Blacks.
Christie Finlay - Couldn't scrum, still can't. His inclusion into the All Blacks must've been last years success story. HIs option taking and speed of service at the breakdown is vastly improved to the point the ginger migrant is IMO the second best halfback in New Zealand. His improvement in the last 18 months is immense.
Luke Romano - Have to admit he's playing like he has something to prove and in doing so, his tight work and experience is benefitting the Blues. Much better than I thought he'd be.
I reserve the right to add more to this thread.
I also should've said I reserve the right to edit this thread.
Christie I was right about all along. Last year was a clear aberration.
Ofa back to being the dumb fluffybunny we all know. And with the added bonus he's forgotten how to scrum.
@dogmeat The moment the Manchester Police gave out details of the accused person's occupation and age, then this sort of thing would inevitably follow.
As per title, I use the dark theme and it constantly resets to the light theme without rhyme nor apparent reason. All tsf cookies are enabled and I'm using Opera. Anyone else experience this disturbance in the force?
Hmm, no recent changes
The plugin that does the css switch hasn't been updated for 3 years. The core forum app hasn't been updated on the tsf server for a few months
All that is happening is that button sets a key/value in the browsers local storage. So something else must be clearing it out?
The Blues have kept their place at the top of the table, and the Crusaders returned in emphatic fashion - but who were the five best players in round two of Super Rugby Aotearoa?
@Canes4life Yep agree with all the changes suggested fro next week.
Was impressed the Canes stayed in the fight though, and that (plus Jordie's boot) is what got them over the line. Compare and contrast that with tghe Chiefs who had the bloody game there for the taking ,and let it slip from right under their noses to a much hungrier Landers side.
Soooo....Canes won, but Chiefs lost huh? As opposed to NSW lost, and landers won....
Perhaps it has something to do with the Highlanders being down to 14 men for the last 13 minutes of the game......
Vaea Fifita, Ngani Laumape, Waisake Naholo, Luke Romano and Ardie Savea.
I'm annoyed Naholo isn't getting another shot, thought he was no worse (and probably) a tad better than NMS. SBW had his best game all season, but I would have also liked Laumape to get some more game time.
Let's be honest, this has nothing to do with giving frontline players a balanced workload to keep them fresh for November, this is just sending the fringe players back home (Savea excepted).
the SVG thing is interesting
he kills it around the corners, so obviously a great driver
but the drafting races, now that's tricky, and he cant crack it
but he is getting closer, i think he'll die happy if he can win just one of those races
having watched F1 Indy Supercars and Nascar, I think drafting is the most difficult MS discipline
wouldn't have said that last year
drafting is like driving with out being able to see the corners, you have to "feel" them, very tricky
it's no wonder they have so many pile ups!
SVG made the comment that he had to gain the trust of the other drivers, cause the slightest mistake drafting can take out the whole field!
A
Five of the standout stars from round two of Super Rugby Aotearoa
New Zealand Parliamentary Rugby Team
