AB Blindside - past, present & future
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With the recent rumours about Frizell potentially returning to NZ and the persistent questions surrounding the AB blindside position, I thought it would be interesting to take another look at the past, present and future of the 6-jersey.
Specifically, I’m interested in the selection policies and thought processes, why exactly it’s been so hard for the selectors to find a suitable, long-term replacement for Jerome Kaino, and how current candidates in 2025 would fare in the face of historical selection patterns and requirements. In the end, it boils down to the perennial question: what is a blindside, really?
There’s a lot to unpack, as you’d expect. Apologies in advance for the rather lengthy post.
The past: a Kaino-sized hole
8 July 2017. This was the last Test start for Jerome Kaino in the #6 jersey, against the British and Irish Lions at Eden Park. Since that time, 12 players have worn the jersey across 95 tests over 7 years, with varying degrees of success and duration. This is the list of all the Tests played, the starting 6, opponent, and result.
When looking more specifically at some of the cumulative numbers of the different players – number of starts, starting streaks, and win percentages – we get the following table.
I’ve highlighted a few things, Frizell, perhaps unsurprisingly, has been the most consistent name on the team sheet, making 26 starting appearances between 2018 and ’23 as the starting six. Behind him figures Akira Ioane, with 15 starts. Ioane had a somewhat consistent spell in the jersey from 2020 onwards, only to be unceremoniously dumped ahead of the 2023 Test season.
Neither of these two players were ever obvious first-choice selections, with both only ever stringing together 5 consecutive starts. And while rotation is normal – Kaino’s longest starting streak was 9 consecutive Tests across 2 seasons, starting during the 2015 Rugby World Cup and finishing after the 2nd 2016 Test against Wales – both players often lost their place against top tier opposition, something which was much rarer for Kaino from the 2009 season onwards. So the selectors never really settled on a single player, the closest being Frizell during the 2023 Test season, where the selectors seemingly finally backed the Tongan flanker as their main man.
It certainly didn’t help that the post-Kaino heir apparent, Liam Squire, was unable to put together a consistent streak of performances due to a number of factors, only ever starting 3 Tests consecutively as the AB blindside. And while someone like Vaea Fifita had some intriguing performances around this period, the fact that Fifita was the 2nd-choice behind Squire, despite being such a different type of player, already anticipates some of the muddled thinking of then-AB selectors on what they actually wanted from their six.
So what could’ve been some of the factors in this inability to produce consistent blindside appearances? Selection policy is certainly partly to blame: players were put into the jersey without seemingly any sort of preconceived or long-term plan in mind. An example of this is someone like Dalton Papali’i being tested out in the position during a crucial Test against Ireland in Dunedin during the 2022 Test series. When the results don’t go as planned, however, the player isn’t seen in the jersey again. So why was he put there in the first place?
Perhaps the best example of this is the appearances of players in the 6-jersey during crucial World Cup matches who didn’t have any experience of playing there – Barrett against England in the 2019 semi-final, and Vaa’i against France during the 2023 group stages. There seemed to be a too strong belief in the power of tactical surprise and not enough belief in the power of future-proofing from both Hansen and Foster. Faced with obsessive planners during the World Cup – Eddie Jones with England in 2019, Fabien Galthié with France in 2023 – their response seemed to consist solely of the selectorial equivalent of throwing a spanner in the works. Particularly clever, it ain’t.
Why is it so hard for the ABs to find the right six?
Another factor surely is not so much the timing of the selections, but the selected player profiles themselves. The first two blindsides selected after Kaino are a good example of this, Squire and Fifita: one is a hard-nosed flanker who excels in the close quarter collisions; the other is at his best out wide, playing and accelerating into space. Fifita’s own interpretation of the blindside’s role – “I like six, because I can use my athleticism to do what I can do on the outside, rather just stay tight and do the hard work, like running into a brick wall and getting your body tired” – is telling in its own right.Squire, on the other hand, had a very different view on the requirements of the jersey. Speaking on James Marshall’s What A Lad-podcast, he commented: “I just wanted to run into it as hard as I could... I sort of knew if I could hit someone as hard as I possibly can each time, then I’d most likely win the contact.” It’s hard to imagine more contrasting mindsets as those of Squire and Fifita.
So why were both selected then? My own guess is that the AB selection criteria for the jersey suffer from a kind of schizophrenia, where the selectors really want two playing profiles for the price of one: on the one hand, they want the player to comply to the Test requirements of a proper blindside – someone who is a physical presence, dominates the collisions, while bringing a more dynamic element to core tight five roles such as cleaning and carrying up the middle. This Test blindside has size, grunt and mongrel, which needs to be used to stop mauls, bring carriers down quickly and to smash breakdowns.
This, however, isn’t enough for the voracious demands of the AB selectors, adding on game-specific requirements unique to their own game plans: their blindside needs to do all of the above, while also being comfortable as an edge forward, someone who has an offloading game, attacking vision as well as a genuine athletic edge. It’s not hard to imagine the AB selectors looking at Pieter-Steph Du Toit and telling him to work on his handling and attacking support play.
If this sounds like an unreasonable and overly long list of demands, then you’d be right. To me, one of the foundational reasons for the AB blindside-conundrum is, in other words, self-inflicted, with the requirements of the player simply being too demanding. What is described here are two players, not one. This becomes further obvious if we were to re-classify the previous blindside-suitors into two groups, those of tight and loose blindsides.
It is important to mention now that this distinction isn’t in any shape or form meant to be normative, meaning that one style is by definition better than the other. Both styles are requirements, not options, within the AB game plan. My classification here is mostly based on what I consider to be the respective player’s foremost strength, the style which fits closest to what the player themselves consider to be their bread and butter.
Furthermore, I’m also not claiming that these players aren’t able to thrive playing those other styles. Dalton Papali’i has fantastic abilities on the edge, while Ioane can be destructive in the tight. My argument is more that these players, like almost every other player, excel in a particular part and space of the game, be it in the tight or the loose.
The AB selectors, however, have made no decision on what kind of style they want their blindside to focus on. The six needs to be able to do everything, almost equally well, in their view. This is where the problems start.
The present: decisions, decisions
So what does this mean for the present and the upcoming selection of potential AB blindsides? If we were to separate these two styles, as we did above, then the New Zealand rugby landscape offers plenty of potential candidates:
This isn’t meant as an exhaustive table of potential blindside-candidates, more a selection of players who clearly fit one of these two specific playing styles. Others who are more difficult to categorize, like Jacobson, an undersized tight six candidate, I’ve left out for now.
The distinction is pretty clear: the players on the left are typically lock/6s, while the players on the right are equally comfortable at 6 and 8. The players on the left are proficient in the lineout, have high tackle numbers and prefer to spend most of their time in the middle of the field. The players on the right have a more developed attacking identity, able to play in space on the edge, have an offloading game and, importantly, possess rapid acceleration. All of these players can play blindside at Test level. But they are considerably different in their focus, style and areas of specialization.
The issues start when tight sixes are being asked to do loose six-roles, and vice versa, something which already acts as a predictor of potential issues at Test level within the AB game plan. Take the Round 10 clash between the Chiefs and the Highlanders, for example, which puts a tight six like Oliver Haig opposite a more loose six like Samipeni Finau. Very quickly, the differences between the two become apparent due to the distinctive nature of each of the two halves.
In the first half, the match was stop-start, a continuous struggle between the two forward packs for territory and possession. The ball went from set-piece to set-piece, from kick to kick, with most of the rugby being played between the 22s as a contest for the ball. This kind of style suits a player like Haig, who likes to play in a supporting role, whether it be in the tackle, carry or clean, alongside the tight forwards.
Playing tight: Haig likes to stay close to his tight forwards, contesting for possession in the middle of the field
Haig could most often be found in or around the ruck in defence, typically in partnership with either Holland or LasaqaWhile Haig seemed to enjoy this contest- and forward-focused first half, a player like Finau thrives in the open spaces with the ball in his hand. When the ball barely reaches the edge, however, due to the nature of the breakdown contest in the middle of the field, Finau finds it more difficult to involve himself in the game.
Finau, away from the ball, calling for the ball to come his way but the movement doesn’t reach the end of the chainInstead of getting caught up in the forward tussle in the middle of the field, Finau keeps his width, waiting for the ball to eventually come his way. While this width stresses the defence somewhat, it leaves the Chiefs tight five with fewer bodies to contest the breakdown battle.
Again, it’s not as if Finau doesn’t or isn’t able to effectively clean, with this dynamic clean on Renton preventing a certain turnover.
Finau clean
But it’s less of a central facet to his game than it is to Haig: if Brown doesn’t slip, Finau probably continues moving out wide to take up an attacking position rather than execute a dominant clean alongside the Chiefs openside flanker. In contrast to Haig, Finau doesn’t continuously work in pairs, like Jacobson, Brown, Vaa’i and Ah Kuoi do for the Chiefs.
If Haig felt at ease during the first half forward slog, with Finau struggling to get into the game, the roles would completely reverse in the second, with the game suddenly breaking open for the attack.
With Finau, you get a player who is incredibly comfortable in open space, who is able to see attacking opportunities unfold before they’ve happened. He also possesses a skillset which is invaluable in unlocking certain attacking movements on the fly. For the Chiefs’ first score after the break, Finau first runs a great, self-spotted line from the lineout, while then calling himself as the spontaneous backdoor passer in the following phase, when the ball shifts back to the open.
Here, Finau is at his best, acting as a crucial link player between forwards and backs. Ten minutes later, Finau’s persistence on the edge would be rewarded when McKenzie finds him with a well-executed cross-kick.
Finau try
The contrast in attacking sensibilities between Haig and Finau is strong. While the latter is like a fish in water in attacking spaces, the former looks more like a deer in headlights. In a rare moment when the ball came to him in attack on the edges, Haig struggled to move away from his natural tendency to play a supporting role and keep his width.
Early in the first half, for example, with the ball moving out wide with the Highlanders on attack, Haig needed to drift on his opposite, creating space for his inside man while providing the latter with a legitimate passing target. Instead, Haig’s tight instincts immediately kick in, looking to position himself on his inside man’s shoulder as a support and cleaning option.
Closing the space
But the unintended effect is that the space becomes shut down as well as the attack, with the Highlanders being saved from being turned over courtesy of an earlier penalty advantage.
During the second half, with the game breaking up a bit more, Finau started to thrive while Haig struggled to find his feet out wide, the latter being hooked relatively quickly in the half with TK Howden coming on.
Both Finau and Haig’s issue, in other words, is that they struggle to switch up how they play, making them relatively dependent on the in-game context for them to be effective rather than being able to impact the game no matter the type of contest. And this is where the blindside’s role becomes important. As the player who connects the tight five with the loose forwards, the blindside is a player who needs to be able to take on a multitude of roles and styles: sometimes playing creatively on the attacking edge, and sometimes playing in close support, being closely bound with the tight forwards in collective play.
More than anything, it’s what the ABs seemingly demand from the position, as someone who can play in the right style, at the right time. This is, however, far easier said than done, and Finau’s and Haig’s contrasting skillsets show why. While both have their own unique strengths, playing as the AB 6, they will be expected to be equally proficient in both the loose and the tight.
But when this isn’t a skillset which comes particularly naturally to those players, they are on a hiding to nothing. We have seen how players, when faced with the difficult demands of Test rugby and Test coaches, start playing outside of their natural game. It’s easy to imagine how both players would look to overcompensate their own perceived weaknesses in the Test arena – Finau starting to play tighter and more conservative, Haig looking to force himself to stay wide on attack – to detrimental effect.
Someone like Taniela Tupou is on record as saying how he’s starting to feel like he doesn’t know how to play rugby anymore, after constantly being told to change certain parts of his game. A similar difficulty potentially awaits AB blindsides, as long as the selectors have such ambitious demands of their number six.
Future: the key(s) to the blindside position
So what is a blindside, really? From an AB perspective, more than a lineout option, a physical presence, an edge forward, or a collision specialist, the ideal blindside is essentially someone who is equally proficient in tight and loose responsibilities. And, perhaps even more importantly, is someone who has mastered the art of knowing when to play tight and when to play loose, at the right time.Wallace Sititi did an admirable job during the 2024 Test season as an interim blindside: his incessant work rate and energy allowed him to be (relatively) effective in both tight and loose situations, showing up all over the field while being a bruising physical presence. But Sititi is about as natural a number 8 as there is: he will carry relentlessly and put his team on the front foot, using both his considerable physical power as well as his skillset to break tackles and gain terrain. He seems destined to end up at the back of the AB scrum.
So what are the options available to the coaches? What the AB selectors will be looking out for, I think, is a player who falls into one of the two aforementioned categories, but who shows genuine ability in playing the other style as well. And the player who has shown the most improvement in this sense, during the 2025 SR season, has been Simon Parker. Parker has always been a player of promise, a big body who moves well and shows solid technique in the tackle, carry and clean. But what he has shown this season is a new dimension on attack, a willingness to play a central role on attack.
This moment late in the recent game against Moana Pasifika highlights Parker’s newfound confidence on attack, first throwing the wide pass before running the support line and throwing a beautiful offload for the Ratima try:
Parker double involvement on attack
To look at this development a bit more closely, the game against the Crusaders in Round 2 nicely encapsulates the growth of the Kaiwaka flanker’s game. In the first half, Parker was able to display his traditional strength, his work and physicality in the tight exchanges.
Aggressive cleans, dominant tackles, multiple involvements on both attack and defence through the middle, typically in close cooperation with the tight five
But what he has improved upon this season is his development of a genuine attacking game, running great lines, being creative in the wider channels and showing a deft array of passing.
Number 8 skills from Parker: finding gaps and keeping the attack alive
So someone like Parker will be of great interest to the AB selectors, as he fits the template of an AB blindside, currently. He is able to impact the game, no matter the type of encounter, due to his ability to be efficient in both the tight and the loose. The grunt of a lock and the soft skills of a number 8, this is, in the end, what they are looking for in a blindside flanker.
For a final note on this already way too long collection of thoughts, it’s relevant to emphasize the importance of coaching in Parker’s development. The Chiefs have been clear about how they want to play during games, taking on the opposition pack in a direct tussle during the first half in order to tire them out, before playing a more expansive game in the second. Parker clearly knows his assignments during each half, making it easier to balance between tight and loose styles of play and to make decisions on attack and defence.
Herein also lies a key directive for the AB coaches in their search for a new blindside: clarity around game plan and requirements eases the task of the blindside flanker, who already has to juggle different styles and roles across 80 minutes on the field. There are plenty of suitable candidates in NZ to be a quality number 6 at Test level: what is needed is a clear selection policy as well as a straightforward plan, which allows these varied skillsets to shine. Whether it be a tight or a loose blindside, or someone who is able to switch between the two, performance starts with the long-term planning and vision of the AB coaches. And looking at the state of the jersey for the past 7 years, it’s clear they have some work to do.
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
That's amazing Mauss. But I might need to feed it into chat gpt for a summary in 100 words or less...
He left Parker to last, I think he likes Parker.
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@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
That's amazing Mauss. But I might need to feed it into chat gpt for a summary in 100 words or less...
He left Parker to last, I think he likes Parker.
I'm a Canes fan, so of course I like Kirifi and Lakai. But I like the look of Parker. He looks a specimen, seems very strong at the clean out and in the tackle, I'd take them all as part of the ABs loosie group
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@canefan said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
But I might need to feed it into chat gpt for a summary in 100 words or less...
Yeah, I went a bit over the top with the word count. I suppose the summary is:
(1) Poor planning and future-proofing by AB selectors after Kaino
(2) Too many variables in selectors' demands of the position
(3) If divided into tight and loose blindside candidates, plenty of options in NZ
(4) Proper blindside: combination of tight five grunt work and number 8 soft skills
(5) Interesting option for 2025: Simon Parker.That's, I think, the gist of it.
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@Mauss said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@canefan said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
But I might need to feed it into chat gpt for a summary in 100 words or less...
Yeah, I went a bit over the top with the word count. I suppose the summary is:
(1) Poor planning and future-proofing by AB selectors after Kaino
(2) Too many variables in selectors' demands of the position
(3) If divided into tight and loose blindside candidates, plenty of options in NZ
(4) Proper blindside: combination of tight five grunt work and number 8 soft skills
(5) Interesting option for 2025: Simon Parker.That's, I think, the gist of it.
The selectors and coaches should eat a large slice of blame pie. Lack of leadership starts at the top, and without direction and good communication, how can they expect the players to perform in the way they want?
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@Mauss said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@canefan said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
But I might need to feed it into chat gpt for a summary in 100 words or less...
Yeah, I went a bit over the top with the word count. I suppose the summary is:
(1) Poor planning and future-proofing by AB selectors after Kaino
(2) Too many variables in selectors' demands of the position
(3) If divided into tight and loose blindside candidates, plenty of options in NZ
(4) Proper blindside: combination of tight five grunt work and number 8 soft skills
(5) Interesting option for 2025: Simon Parker.That's, I think, the gist of it.
I have to ask, though, isn't there the potential factor that they couldn't replace Kaino because no one was consistent enough (or, potentially, flexible enough?)
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@nostrildamus said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
I have to ask, though, isn't there the potential factor that they couldn't replace Kaino because no one was consistent enough (or, potentially, flexible enough?)
To me, part of the issue, if we’re talking about the situation immediately after Kaino’s departure (late 2017-’19), is that, in the selectors' eyes, they had already identified the perfect replacement in Squire.
The problem, of course, is that Squire suffered from injuries as well as his own personal struggles. The fact that they selected, in his absence, (1) a player who plays in a completely different manner (Fifita) and (2) a player who was very raw at the time (Frizell), tells me that they never considered that Squire might not make the World Cup.
So the question – were there no players available? – becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as they didn't test the players which could've potentially done a job. To me, there were players in Super Rugby at the time – Brad Shields, Taleni Seu, Akira Ioane – who, at least, mirrored certain aspects of Squire’s play more than someone like Fifita did. So the selectors' mistake, to me, is their overconfidence that Squire would come right and their inability to plan for a scenario where he doesn’t make it.
It’s how you end up in a semi-final of a World Cup with a completely makeshift loose forward trio, which then gets badly outplayed by their opposites.
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@Mauss said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@nostrildamus said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
I have to ask, though, isn't there the potential factor that they couldn't replace Kaino because no one was consistent enough (or, potentially, flexible enough?)
To me, part of the issue, if we’re talking about the situation immediately after Kaino’s departure (late 2017-’19), is that, in the selectors' eyes, they had already identified the perfect replacement in Squire.
The problem, of course, is that Squire suffered from injuries as well as his own personal struggles. The fact that they selected, in his absence, (1) a player who plays in a completely different manner (Fifita) and (2) a player who was very raw at the time (Frizell), tells me that they never considered that Squire might not make the World Cup.
So the question – were there no players available? – becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as they didn't test the players which could've potentially done a job. To me, there were players in Super Rugby at the time – Brad Shields, Taleni Seu, Akira Ioane – who, at least, mirrored certain aspects of Squire’s play more than someone like Fifita did. So the selectors' mistake, to me, is their overconfidence that Squire would come right and their inability to plan for a scenario where he doesn’t make it.
It’s how you end up in a semi-final of a World Cup with a completely makeshift loose forward trio, which then gets badly outplayed by their opposites.
This is the selection strategy of Fozzie and Razor (to date) in a nutshell. Either don't give players a fair go to see if they can actually make a valuable contribution (the game in Dunedin where Fozzie made wholesale changes springs to mins), or give them a few garbage minutes as lip service (Plummer, Stevenson) and cast them aside. I won't hold my breath waiting to see if Razor can select the best of our promising talent (not just from the area around Nelson and the Port Hills) an molding them into a formidable team with a clear game plan. Although this is exactly what I hoped he would do based on his apparent reputation
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Fifita seemed to lose favour because he was playing lock at the Canes. When he played lock he was a tighter player than Squire. And despite Fifitas comments around contact he was a very physical player.
I'm not sold on the categorisations of loose and tight. It's not so black and white.
For example Akira Ioane played it tight last year. Players tend to play as they're asked to by the coaches. Vern wanted Akira to play tighter and he did.
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@brodean said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
Fifita seemed to lose favour because he was playing lock at the Canes. When he played lock he was a tighter player than Squire. And despite Fifitas comments around contact he was a very physical player.
I'm not sold on the categorisations of loose and tight. It's not so black and white.
For example Akira Ioane played it tight last year. Players tend to play as they're asked to by the coaches. Vern wanted Akira to play tighter and he did.
That and Akira losing a bit of athleticism in his older years forced him to play closer last season.
Obviously something went on behind the scenes and I'm rewriting history here, but how on earth did Akira Ioane not get a go before the 2019 world cup? Hansen really knew how to hold a grudge especially with some of the bizarre selections before him (Luke Whitelock and Gareth Evans spring to mind). Hansen really began to run that team into the ground from the loss to Ireland in 2016 onwards.
Almost as bizarre as seeing Liam Squire playing so many tests. I don't think he was ever the answer and went missing in big tests once he was getting beaten up physically (Ireland 2018 springs to mind before he went off). Not saying Simon Parker is gonna follow the same fate, but his play is similar to Liam Squire, similar with Finau and Vaea Fifita (Finau Is better thought).
Another guy that wasn't taken into consideration and was treated poorly by Hansen was Steven Luatua. He really started to shine, but Hansen treated him like a prick, received bugger all feedback after being shamed in public in 2014, was the form 6 in 2017 but had already signed overseas by then and part of that was because of Hansen's poor man management towards him and sure enough, once Luatua signed overseas, Hansen had a big whinge about it.
It's taken a few years to recover from Hansen's disastrous last 2-3 years in charge and the 6 spot was one of them.
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There’s this kid Parker that might be worth having a look at
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@brodean said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
Players tend to play as they're asked to by the coaches.
Well, they'll certainly try. Every player wants, to a certain point, show their coaches that they can deliver what is asked of them.
But there's also such a thing as ingrained habits. Players have instincts which they've cultivated over years of playing the game. And it becomes exponentially harder to suppress those instincts the higher up the game you go, as the pressure increases and your window to process things becomes smaller and smaller.
At least, that's how I think of those things. It just makes sense to me. Perhaps you'll go out there and try to play exactly like your coach has told you to. But when there's 50.000 people around you and an angry Afrikaaner is coming at you at a 100 miles an hour, those instincts tend to kick in pretty quickly.
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@Mauss said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@brodean said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
Players tend to play as they're asked to by the coaches.
Well, they'll certainly try. Every player wants, to a certain point, show their coaches that they can deliver what is asked of them.
But there's also such a thing as ingrained habits. Players have instincts which they've cultivated over years of playing the game. And it becomes exponentially harder to suppress those instincts the higher up the game you go, as the pressure increases and your window to process things becomes smaller and smaller.
At least, that's how I think of those things. It just makes sense to me. Perhaps you'll go out there and try to play exactly like your coach has told you to. But when there's 50.000 people around you and an angry Afrikaaner is coming at you at a 100 miles an hour, those instincts tend to kick in pretty quickly.
I dunno, it feels like a lot of it just comes down to where you stand on the field. If you're near the breakdown, you're going to be carrying into contact. If you're parked out on the wings, you're going to be running in the open field more. It's very hard to be an 'open' player if you're hitting the ball up in the middle of the field.
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@Mr-Fish said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
I dunno, it feels like a lot of it just comes down to where you stand on the field. If you're near the breakdown, you're going to be carrying into contact. If you're parked out on the wings, you're going to be running in the open field more. It's very hard to be an 'open' player if you're hitting the ball up in the middle of the field.
But the question is, how did they end up there, at that particular place on the field? And that does make a big difference. I think there’s three aspects to this: team structure from set-piece, individual decision-making and then, what I’d call, instinctive drift in multi-phase.
Most players end up in positions where they’re supposed to be from something like lineout or scrum attack. So your six might be tasked with clearing a ruck blindside before folding back to the open. That’s just structure.
Then there’s recognition of opportunities by the players themselves on the field. Someone like Finau is a good example of this: he’s constantly calling to space, running improvised lines or creating his own ‘pod’ on the fly. He does seem to play with a lot of freedom at the Chiefs, so he ends up in different places, a lot of it seemingly by his own design.
And finally, as the phases stack up in open play and structure slowly disappears, players are constantly realigning in either attack or defence. And then you see very different patterns with certain players. Some players never move far away from the source, preferring to play close to the ball. Others will naturally drift to the edge, because they’re more comfortable there. That resembles something like instinct.
So the combination of those three factors – structure, individual decision-making and drift – usually make the difference to me between a player who prefers to play tight and someone who prefers to play wider. Again, that’s just how I see it. I’d also understand if this seems like I’m overthinking things, which wouldn’t be the first time.
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Related to the discussion, though Elliot Smith generally seems to be completely full of shit (and most of his articles have no relation to reality):
Elliott Smith: The ABs selection questions hanging over Super Rugby playoffs
OPINION: Some All Blacks hopefuls are sidelined as their teams missed the playoffs.
There’s recent precedent for the playoffs helping to clear up tight selections for the All Blacks coaches, with Wallace Sititi’s wrecking-ball performance against the Hurricanes in last year’s semifinal for the Chiefs helping to earn him a spot.
Akira Ioane and Hoskins Sotutu had a line drawn through their names as the Blues pack was torn to shreds by the Crusaders the previous season, with then All Blacks coach Ian Foster admitting their performances that night had made up the selectors’ minds.
IIRC, Ioane was just returning from a Lisfranc injury.
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@Mauss said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@brodean said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
Players tend to play as they're asked to by the coaches.
Well, they'll certainly try. Every player wants, to a certain point, show their coaches that they can deliver what is asked of them.
But there's also such a thing as ingrained habits. Players have instincts which they've cultivated over years of playing the game. And it becomes exponentially harder to suppress those instincts the higher up the game you go, as the pressure increases and your window to process things becomes smaller and smaller.
At least, that's how I think of those things. It just makes sense to me. Perhaps you'll go out there and try to play exactly like your coach has told you to. But when there's 50.000 people around you and an angry Afrikaaner is coming at you at a 100 miles an hour, those instincts tend to kick in pretty quickly.
There is ingrained habits but your post assumes too much of the players. Macdonald and Foster wanted to play wider games and Akira Ioane obliged. When Vern came along and wanted to keep it close Akira Ioane immediately followed the game pattern and stuck to it all year. So in the case of Akira Ioane I think it shows that clearly they were not ingrained habits.
Also Fifita when he went back to lock for the Canes played a very tight game and was one of the most physical players in the comp. He was also one of the most physical players in the stodgy NH.
