AB Blindside - past, present & future
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@Chris-B said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@Nepia said in QF Chiefs v Blues:
@brodean said in QF Chiefs v Blues:
I remember Shannon Frizell in early parts of his career making 20 tackles when the AB's lost
Which matches are you referring to?
Have to be Argentina in 2020.
We only ever lost three games when Shannon started and one of those was his last match.
To be fair, Shannon was already three years into his AB career when he sustained his first loss.
He made 4 tackles and missed 1, not the 20+ the poster was claiming. In those 3 starting matches you mention he made a total of 10 tackles and 3 misses and 2 yellow cards. I think it;'s fair to blame all 3 losses on your missus.
And the early matches that @gt12 discussed (where he got near 20 twice) we won all those matches, where they poster was claiming they were losses (IIRC he was using that to attack Sititi).
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@Mauss said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
So I was rewatching the Chiefs-Blues game and Beehre had an impressive cameo. Not just the massive try at the death but his carrying and cleaning was really good as well. He has nimble feet and seems, to me, to be really mobile around the field.
Beehre showing nice footwork at the line before going more direct for his score at the end
Looking at his season’s stats before the Chiefs game – 9.7 carries/80, 18 attacking rucks/80 at 82.5%, 16 tackles/80 at 95%, 5.7 defensive rucks hit/80 (Opta); 178 post-contact metres, 11 defenders beaten, 3 line-breaks, 2 tries across the season (RugbyPass) – he seems to get through a decent amount of work in an effective manner.
He also seems to have a bit of a niggly edge about him and thrives in the close quarters. So a bit of an enforcer with a solid lineout game, dynamic mobility and a high volume of defensive involvements.
Perhaps this is a bit of a strange one but: Beehre as a bolter for the blindside position?
I think it could work at Test level (I’d keep him at lock for Super Rugby). If the selectors do go in the direction of a bigger body at blindside, I think he could be an intriguing option.
He’s got a rangy style that reminded me a little of Jono Gibbes and Angus MacDonald. So a bit of a lock/blindside hybrid. Certainly has looked the part this season.
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@Mauss said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@zedsdeadbaby said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
NZ Rugby currently having trouble finding big bodies - we don’t produce big bodies as a nation naturally and a lot are going to basketball.
It's something that's really noticeable at age grade level as well, for example when playing Australia. They seemingly have this endless pipeline of tall, athletic players in both the backs and forwards, despite the presence of basketball and AFL.
It makes it extra tough when players like Akira Ieremia - a big body with good coordination - leave early to places like Japan.
Funnily enough here in Melbourne, in afl , there are complaints they lose lots of tall athletes to basketball as kids, who never go back . The theory is as kids they feel quite Unco and struggle to get involved and feel valuable in football , the smaller fast kids are usually the stars at that level , in basketball it comes more natural to them and they instantly feel more valuable , it just feels like a better fit to their body type .
I would imagine a similar thing happens in rugby .
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@Frank said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@tubbyj said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
I agree no way are they not picking Ethan Blackadder as their starting 6 right through to the 2027 RWC in combo with 8. Sititi and 7, Savea. For this reason I would like to see Naitoa Ah Kuoi selected in the squad to be developed as the bench blindsie/lock cover.
Total and utter conjecture.
Where do you get all the certainty from?Two factors:
- Rozor has a four year contract.
- His unmerited inclusion in the squad last year.
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@Mr-Fish said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@gt12 said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
I cant be bothered checking the team sheets for this, as @Bovidae probably remembers off the top of his head. Has Parker started at 7 this year? I wonder if some of his greater involvement per minute just reflects him spending more time playing in the middle at 7 (arguably a great thing that he has this versatility).
Not this year.
He had a few games at 7 last season but he's been exclusively used at 6 and 8 in 2023.
The game against the Reds in Brisbane being one. Exactly the wrong conditions for Parker having to play at 7, as a big but not as mobile loose forward.
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@ACT-Crusader said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
@Mauss said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
So I was rewatching the Chiefs-Blues game and Beehre had an impressive cameo. Not just the massive try at the death but his carrying and cleaning was really good as well. He has nimble feet and seems, to me, to be really mobile around the field.
Beehre showing nice footwork at the line before going more direct for his score at the end
Looking at his season’s stats before the Chiefs game – 9.7 carries/80, 18 attacking rucks/80 at 82.5%, 16 tackles/80 at 95%, 5.7 defensive rucks hit/80 (Opta); 178 post-contact metres, 11 defenders beaten, 3 line-breaks, 2 tries across the season (RugbyPass) – he seems to get through a decent amount of work in an effective manner.
He also seems to have a bit of a niggly edge about him and thrives in the close quarters. So a bit of an enforcer with a solid lineout game, dynamic mobility and a high volume of defensive involvements.
Perhaps this is a bit of a strange one but: Beehre as a bolter for the blindside position?
I think it could work at Test level (I’d keep him at lock for Super Rugby). If the selectors do go in the direction of a bigger body at blindside, I think he could be an intriguing option.
He’s got a rangy style that reminded me a little of Jono Gibbes and Angus MacDonald. So a bit of a lock/blindside hybrid. Certainly has looked the part this season.
Shades of Troy Flavell too ? A guy like him with discipline would be invaluable.
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Quite a different player to Flavell. I think Beehre is a genuine blindside option whereas I thought Flavell looked out of place there and it wasn’t until he came back into the side pre-RWC 2007 that I thought he looked most comfortable and played his best footy and that was at lock.
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@ACT-Crusader said in AB Blindside - past, present & future:
Quite a different player to Flavell. I think Beehre is a genuine blindside option whereas I thought Flavell looked out of place there and it wasn’t until he came back into the side pre-RWC 2007 that I thought he looked most comfortable and played his best footy and that was at lock.
Flavell had a hell of a turn of pace but yes, he did appear slightly less nimble than some of his contemporaries at six.
But yeah, he's still one of the biggest "if only" players I can think of. I shudder to think how much time he'd spend on the sidelines in todays game.
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@Bones said in All Blacks 2025:
@Mauss get Howden to call the lineouts...
I’ll respond to this here since Howden is yet another in a long list of blindside flankers with Test potential. The thing I’d like to see from Howden, at both NPC and Super level, is greater consistency.
I really liked what I saw from Howden in the Hurricanes’ game against the Reds during Super Round last year, and since then, I’ve kept a closer eye on him, both for the Turbos and for the Highlanders. What stood out to me throughout these games, however, was the sheer degree of variation of his involvements on a game-to-game basis. This table below, for example, lists Howden’s carry, metre, tackle, lineout and beaten defender count, in every game that he’s started this SR season in the Highlanders’ 6-jersey.
Again, what is noticeable is the sheer range of numbers between individual games: between 3 and 14 carries, between 7 to 54 metres made, between 4 and 23 tackles in a game, and between 0 to 3 defenders beaten. The only thing which has been consistent is his lineout contribution, only ranging between 2 to 4 takes.
Howden's carries, tackles, lineouts won and defenders beaten per gameThis graph further highlights how Howden started his games at blindside flank as a volume defender, making 19 and 23 tackles against the Hurricanes and Brumbies in rounds 5 and 7 respectively. His carry numbers were quite low, however, which he tried to adjust and was able to bring up to 14 against the Crusaders in round 11. This game probably presents his 'target' statistical contribution, with 14 carries, 28 metres made, 17 tackles and a defender beaten.
But this increased carry game impacted his defensive contribution as the season wore on, with his tackle numbers getting quite low, despite the Highlanders putting on massive defensive showings against both the Hurricanes and Crusaders in rounds 14 and 15. Howden only put in 6 and 4 tackles in these games (missing 4 tackles against the Hurricanes as well), which isn’t really where you want your flanker to be.
So I think Howden is a player of real promise: he has size, is solid in the lineout, he’s defensively robust (usually), and is athletically gifted. But what he needs to try is provide consistency, preferably in the manner that he did against the Crusaders in round 11 (although that is a high bar to consistently reach). Once again, the key is to be able to find the right balance between contributions in the tight and the loose, between attack and defence.
If he is eventually able do this, he will be difficult to ignore for the selectors.
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Good post. That sort of sums up most of the potentially promising options - he has the size and tools but not the consistency.
That seems true for the other guys in the conversation with size - basically Finau and Parker seem to be in the same boat.
Then there are guys with consistency but they have physical limitations and we’ll continue with our imbalance.
I’d be happy with the selectors choosing two guys who have the tools and then just giving them 20 tests to see what they can get to.
