All Blacks 2025
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@Machpants said in All Blacks 2025:
@Dan54 said in All Blacks 2025:
@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2025:
@Dan54 said in All Blacks 2025:
I not huge fan of Razor or otherwise, he's got the job (like Foster before) so has my complete support. The one thing I will say about his so called sticking with old players, I would of picked both Cane and TJ myself, this crap about just building for WCs, I personally disagree with.
but it wasn't just that for WC-building, but beyond this year! And Cane came back from Japan so really got a special gold card entry into the team! Were the Cane and TJP picks the best for this year, looking back? Sounds like the beginning of a hotly contested Fern thread. But they certainly are not helping 2025 All Blacks..
Agree they not helping 2025 ABs, except to perhaps help with bringing young fellas through. But not their job, their job was to do what they could to help the 2024 team win tests. See what concerns me is the idea if a player is retiring at end of this or next year we decide not to pick him, that is not how it should ever be.
There's is now way we needed cane and TJ versus Italy. That is indefensible apart from sentiment
This. I had no problem with Robertson sticking with Cane and BB and using their experience to bring new players on, but the opposite seems to have happened.
I'm sure Sititi and Lakai learned a lot from playing with Sam - but that only came about from injury. Needs to be bolder this year.
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@Chris said in All Blacks 2025:
@darylmitchell said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris South Africa U20's finished 8th, 7th, 4th, 5th, in the last 4 World Champs, heck even Arg and Australia have been doing a lot better at U20 level since 2019. And the South Africa franchises are currently getting reamed in the European Champions Cup and URC comps....
You people with this mindset there's 'no shame in losing to SA' are part of the problem. They're not the fearsome opponent you believe they are. The SA franchise Razoroverall had a lower win % in all Super Rugby matches going back to 1996 than Australian teams overall and only won 3 titles in 26 years.
You people have convinced yourself that they're worthy of so much respect, in reality, they're extremely overrated.
A lot of assumptions in your post, you don’t know what I think or feel as I have not stated anything you assume in your post.
Maybe people like you need to calm down and don’t try to force your ideas on others, and when they don’t agree with you reverting to the childish unfounded accusations in your post.mate, I remember every time we lost a test this year instead of looking at Razor's poor tactics, bench management & selections you just singled out a few non-Crusaders player's performances (like Dmac) as if it was the reason we lost, I noticed you never piped up when your guys like Taylor or S.Barrett played poorly.
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@darylmitchell said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris said in All Blacks 2025:
@darylmitchell said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris South Africa U20's finished 8th, 7th, 4th, 5th, in the last 4 World Champs, heck even Arg and Australia have been doing a lot better at U20 level since 2019. And the South Africa franchises are currently getting reamed in the European Champions Cup and URC comps....
You people with this mindset there's 'no shame in losing to SA' are part of the problem. They're not the fearsome opponent you believe they are. The SA franchise Razoroverall had a lower win % in all Super Rugby matches going back to 1996 than Australian teams overall and only won 3 titles in 26 years.
You people have convinced yourself that they're worthy of so much respect, in reality, they're extremely overrated.
A lot of assumptions in your post, you don’t know what I think or feel as I have not stated anything you assume in your post.
Maybe people like you need to calm down and don’t try to force your ideas on others, and when they don’t agree with you reverting to the childish unfounded accusations in your post.mate, I remember every time we lost a test this year instead of looking at Razor's poor tactics, bench management & selections you just singled out a few non-Crusaders player's performances (like Dmac) as if it was the reason we lost, I noticed you never piped up when your guys like Taylor or S.Barrett played poorly.
BS all I hear from you is doom and gloom you may eat your words in the long run.
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@Chris I remain unconvinced that we can win 2027 WC with this current coaching staff, look at the last 4 World Cup winners all of them had at least 1 world class assistant coach, 2011 Professor, 2015 Professor, 2019/2023 Nienaber and Felix Jones, and world rugby is only getting more competitive and the gap between NZ and European resources/money getting bigger so feel we need a genuine point of difference (like Tony Brown is) going forward.
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@darylmitchell I personally thought that Codie Taylor was one of the best and most consistent performing All Blacks this year so that maybe why you didn't see much criticism getting put on him.
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@darylmitchell said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris I remain unconvinced that we can win 2027 WC with this current coaching staff, look at the last 4 World Cup winners all of them had at least 1 world class assistant coach, 2011 Professor, 2015 Professor, 2019/2023 Nienaber and Felix Jones, and world rugby is only getting more competitive and the gap between NZ and European resources/money getting bigger so feel we need a genuine point of difference (like Tony Brown is) going forward.
Long way to the WC I am not 100% convinced either but remain optimistic something better will eventuate.
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@Chris said in All Blacks 2025:
@darylmitchell said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris I remain unconvinced that we can win 2027 WC with this current coaching staff, look at the last 4 World Cup winners all of them had at least 1 world class assistant coach, 2011 Professor, 2015 Professor, 2019/2023 Nienaber and Felix Jones, and world rugby is only getting more competitive and the gap between NZ and European resources/money getting bigger so feel we need a genuine point of difference (like Tony Brown is) going forward.
Long way to the WC I am not 100% convinced either but remain optimistic something better will eventuate.
I'm more sceptical of Razor and his team now, after being quite optimistic before he took over. He needs to improve quickly to make me less worried that our worst fears could come true, as his tenure descends into a heap on the back of blatant cronyism. But I have hope that after a pretty robust debrief over the offseason they can turn things around, as I don't believe we are that far away in terms of tactics or personnel. If we don't have hope, what do we have?
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@darylmitchell said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris I remain unconvinced that we can win 2027 WC with this current coaching staff, look at the last 4 World Cup winners all of them had at least 1 world class assistant coach, 2011 Professor, 2015 Professor, 2019/2023 Nienaber and Felix Jones, and world rugby is only getting more competitive and the gap between NZ and European resources/money getting bigger so feel we need a genuine point of difference (like Tony Brown is) going forward.
Jason Ryan is a very, very good forwards coach.
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@Frank said in All Blacks 2025:
@darylmitchell said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris I remain unconvinced that we can win 2027 WC with this current coaching staff, look at the last 4 World Cup winners all of them had at least 1 world class assistant coach, 2011 Professor, 2015 Professor, 2019/2023 Nienaber and Felix Jones, and world rugby is only getting more competitive and the gap between NZ and European resources/money getting bigger so feel we need a genuine point of difference (like Tony Brown is) going forward.
Jason Ryan is a very, very good forwards coach.
Doesn't seem to be able to select for shit, although they did hit the jackpot with Sititi.
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@gt12 said in All Blacks 2025:
@Frank said in All Blacks 2025:
@darylmitchell said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris I remain unconvinced that we can win 2027 WC with this current coaching staff, look at the last 4 World Cup winners all of them had at least 1 world class assistant coach, 2011 Professor, 2015 Professor, 2019/2023 Nienaber and Felix Jones, and world rugby is only getting more competitive and the gap between NZ and European resources/money getting bigger so feel we need a genuine point of difference (like Tony Brown is) going forward.
Jason Ryan is a very, very good forwards coach.
Doesn't seem to be able to select for shit, although they did hit the jackpot with Sititi.
Vaai came good too. And I have high hopes for Lakai
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@darylmitchell said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris I remain unconvinced that we can win 2027 WC with this current coaching staff, look at the last 4 World Cup winners all of them had at least 1 world class assistant coach, 2011 Professor, 2015 Professor, 2019/2023 Nienaber and Felix Jones, and world rugby is only getting more competitive and the gap between NZ and European resources/money getting bigger so feel we need a genuine point of difference (like Tony Brown is) going forward.
Bollocks. Stop making shit up. It’s just revisionism.
You don’t have any idea if this listed were be any better.
While not perfect, Ryan is a world class forwards coach and has World Cup experience so that puts your theory to bed.
I would be more confident if Schmidt was in charge but I see no reason why Razor and team can’t go and win a word cup in 3 years time
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@Frank said in All Blacks 2025:
He also selected Tosi - which seems to be paying off.
As for selections, he picks the tight five - which has been pretty good ever since he took over.
Not convinced by selections in the forwards - esp, 6/7/8 - as injury has been the best selector this year. That the likes of Sititi, Lakia, etc slotted in so seamlessly speaks well of the forwards coaching set-up, though.
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@Victor-Meldrew yeah if the newbies can get up to speed that well it shows very promising signs for when we get Frizzel, etc, back.
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@DaGrubster said in All Blacks 2025:
I would be more confident if Schmidt was in charge but I see no reason why Razor and team can’t go and win a word cup in 3 years time
This year has been underwhelming to put it mildly (and worse that Foster's 1st year IIRC). The biggest problem is the inconsistency and going to sleep/scoreless for long periods of the game we've seen for years and I've seen nothing that Robertson has any more clue than Foster on how to fix that.
TBF to Robertson it's his first season and I like his starting discussions on systemic problems e.g. overseas-based players (though I disagree on that) . But he needs to have some confidence in his players, be bolder in 2025 and take some risks. Another repeat of this year and there'll need to be some serious discussions.
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The front five have gone well, Wallace Sititi is a great find and we have a lot more depth at Half Back than I'd have thought. Those are the positives.
Beyond that though it's disappointing. Too many of our best players have had no or very little game time. Aged players are given the nod even if they are out of form and have been in decline for several years. It makes no sense when there are younger, better players. We are unusually mediocre at 6 and 8. None of our options at Ten look world class and we have perhaps our worst three-quarter line for 30 years.
If I had to sum up the All Blacks 2024 in one word it's "underwhelming."
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@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
@DaGrubster said in All Blacks 2025:
I would be more confident if Schmidt was in charge but I see no reason why Razor and team can’t go and win a word cup in 3 years time
This year has been underwhelming to put it mildly (and worse that Foster's 1st year IIRC). The biggest problem is the inconsistency and going to sleep/scoreless for long periods of the game we've seen for years and I've seen nothing that Robertson has any more clue than Foster on how to fix that.
TBF to Robertson it's his first season and I like his starting discussions on systemic problems e.g. overseas-based players (though I disagree on that) . But he needs to have some confidence in his players, be bolder in 2025 and take some risks. Another repeat of this year and there'll need to be some serious discussions.
Underwhelming, yes, but certainly not as bad as Foster's first year.
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@Mr-Fish said in All Blacks 2025:
Underwhelming, yes, but certainly not as bad as Foster's first year.
Robertson helmed 14 Tests in his 1st year and compared to Foster's first 14 Tests, it's worse. (72% win ratio compared to c. 77% for Foster).
But the fact we're even discussing this point really is the big issue, isn't it?
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@sparky said in All Blacks 2025:
The front five have gone well, Wallace Sititi is a great find and we have a lot more depth at Half Back than I'd have thought. Those are the positives.
The front 5 def. kicked on and players like Vaa'i have proved to be shrewd selections and good, long-term coaching has produced the goods.
But you have to ask if Sititi and Ratima would have been there if Blackadder and Christie hadn't been injured