AB's 2016 in Review
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Im wondering whether our flatter performances since the end of RC are in fact an indirect result of the player drain from last year. The senior guys this year have had a higher workload due to both the increase in responsibility and the fact that the top side has been used for the majority of games due to injuries/lack of depth.
The newer guys might also be running a bit low on juice having not taken part in a full international season before.
Add to that the extended Super rugby seasons for many of the players having to play/travel for finals. I bet there are some guys looking forward to the offseason.
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Great post, Boo. I thought the introduction and advancement of young uns like ALB and Barrett the S to be a highlight - they both look to be the goods. Really like the way TJP and BB stepped up too. The trophies and test win record were all bonuses for a team in full rebuild.
I'll reserve judgement on the prospect of SBW being a midfield contender until he shows form and the ability to stay injury free for longer than five minutes. He was lacklustre in a disastrous sevens campaign and don't think he'll waltz back into the 15 side no matter what his fanbois say.
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@pukunui
Good point. There seemed a definite reluctance to rotate too many guys. I think you're right about it being due to that layer being gone.@Mokey @Tim
SBW is a contender at least. I'm not saying he's a definite but he adds depth and if he plays to previous standard will add some punch. He's definitely in the conversation at this stage. -
@booboo Hansen was keen to bring SBW straight into the squad after Rio (before his injury) so he must be integral to their plans. Having said that, I'm not sure the AB coaches are completely sure who their best midfield is yet, but as you say, we have some depth and options. Super rugby form might be the decider. The same for the loose forward mix.
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The only review I want to read is Canes4Life and how he explains why Matt Todd got more test starts than Ardie Savea this year
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@booboo If that was your 2c, you'd need a book with chapters for anything more. Very good.
I'd give the coaches an A-, they achieved a lot in 2016 given all the departures. Don't think they took enough selection risk though. Take last night - did we learn anything by playing Kaino at 6? Would we have learnt something by playing Luatua at 6?
The main issue in the pack is blindside, Kaino seems like 2017 will be his last season. Not convinced by Dixon, Squire or Luatua as starting blindside. Shields tends to have butter fingers at times, Taufua seems too short and so on. I would like to see the selectors pick Akira Ioane and coach him to have a higher work-rate. It will be nice to have Harris back as bench hooker too.
The midfield was always going to be somewhat of an issue, and the injuries didn't help. SBW + ALB seems maybe the best option for the Lions.
Also need some better wing options, NMS should fix that problem. And maybe Rieko Ioane too. Just to have different options to Savea/Naholo who are quite samey.
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Very bifurcated season. Though a one loss season is pretty hard to beat.
I thought we were A+ during the Wales tour, Rugby Championship and Bledisloe game. I don't honestly think we could have been much better. We made South Africa and Australia look a lot worse than they were though South Africa are now even worse than they looked. We played some of the best rugby ABs have played in the professional era.
The NH tour was a C+ for me. We underachieved and let Ireland and France live with us and bar the first 10 minutes of the second Irish test never seemed to find the extra gear excluding Italy. Fatigue definitely a factor but that makes you wonder why we we did not give more players a rest during RC. I thought selections backfired particularly badly in Chicago. If we can pick up where we left off before going on tour you have to feel pretty good.
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It's clear the players are fairly exhausted by season's end. We never offer it up as excuse for our rare defeats though.
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@ACT-Crusader said in AB's 2016 in Review:
The only review I want to read is Canes4Life and how he explains why Matt Todd got more test starts than Ardie Savea this year
You're a cruel man, has he written it yet? I could do with a laugh.
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I think a better way of reflecting on how good this season was, is to think about those fellas we lost at the end of 2015 and their 800 caps worth of experience and sheer quality and consistency they bought.
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The travel is huge for these guys, the six nations NH teams have it much, much easier than we do yet we still perform very well. It bodes well in future for World Cup's I think. I mean in the old days, who would fly to SA for one game, then fly back to NZ for a return match? We were over there for weeks and vice versa. No wonder they are shattered for the NH tour, or at least past their best every year. I know they're professional athletes but that much air travel and time zone change affects everyone.
I've been very pleased with the AB's efforts this year, the RC was a huge effort and following on from the WC win it's great to cement it with this season, the boys should be very proud.
It's clear to me though that our game plan needs some adjustment in the face of the type of performances that Ireland and France laid out over the last couple of weeks. If we don't get the ball, or don't keep the ball long enough, we're not going to score as freely in the future. Not concerned it's just a tactical change we'll need to adapt to and try to counter. I'm not sure we're committing enough numbers to the breakdown in situations where we can't win the ball back and opposition is not making mistakes. Need to be quicker to adapt to those situations than doggedly stick to a game plan if it's not working. Not helped of course with Cane injured and a new guy covering.
I'd give the AB's an A- for the year, only marred by losing to Ireland for the first time is 112 years or whatever it is. Still, if the AB's hadn't relaxed, and had squeaked by would we have seen the massive improvement in defence we saw in the last two games? Probably not.
How long do we have to wait for Super Rugby??
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@LagerLout I think players in the NH play more games, or have more games they could play, but obviously don't have the travel schedule like the SH teams, which you can see why some do head to the NH comps where a 3 hour flight might be a long one...
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some more stats;
According to the numbers, this year was one of the All Blacks best.
13 wins from 14. A total of 80 tries with an average of 5.70 per game.
562 points for and just 221 against for a differential of +341.
On the way, they broke the record for most consecutive wins by a tier one rugby nation and they gave 11 new players the chance to call themselves All Blacks.
But while as a team they have stood out, individuals deserve their time in the spotlight.
Below is the best of the best from the All Blacks 2016 stats.
Tries
WINNER - Israel Dagg (10)
Dagg came back to the All Blacks setup in 2016 with a vengeance. He missed just two games - the first against Wales in June and Ireland in Chicago.
In the 12 games he did play, he was the first try scorer for the All Blacks on six occasions and only had four games in which he didn't score.
Second Place - Beauden Barrett (9)
Third Place - Ben Smith (8)
Try Assists
WINNER - Beauden Barrett (10)
He doesn't just score them, he creates them.
It's no secret, the story this year has been the explosion of Beauden Barrett, and the fact he rounds out most of the offensive stat categories shows how potent he's been.
Second Place - Anton Lienert-Brown (7)
A big mention for the youngster who burst on the All Blacks scene this year. He frequently found himself getting his arms free in impossible situations to setup some pearlers.
Third Place - Ben Smith (6)
Metres Gained
WINNER - Israel Dagg (880m)
This might surprise some.
The fact Ben Smith played more minutes than pretty much any other back in the game would suggest he'd top this category.
However, 252m in one game - the last test against Wales in June - propelled Dagg to the top of the ladder.
Second Place - Ben Smith (871m)
Third Place - Beauden Barrett (805m)
Clean Breaks
WINNER - Israel Dagg (23)
The above comments again stick true. How Dagg was able to out perform those around him despite playing less minutes shows how good of a season he really had.
Second Place - Ben Smith (22)
Third Place - Julian Savea (21)
*Notable Mention - Dane Coles came in a close fourth with 18 clean breaks. Not bad for the hooker.
Defenders Beaten
WINNER - Ben Smith (47)
Finally Smith gets the win!
While only six defenders ahead of Barrett, the gulf between those two and the rest is impalpable.
Second Place - Beauden Barrett (41)
Third Place - Julian Savea (27)
Tackles
WINNER - Kieran Read (141)
Leading from the front. If there's a category you want your captain to lead, it has to be tackles.
Sam Whitelock has often held the "most tackles" label and perhaps would have done so again this year if it weren't for the tests he missed. Still, a tough act to follow from the skipper.
Second Place - Sam Whitelock (128)
Third Place - Dane Coles (118)
Conclusions
Some have said this was Beauden's year - but credit deserves to fall on the ever-loyal Israel Dagg.
Dropped from the side for the 2015 World Cup, the 28-year-old has bounced back to prove so many wrong.
He'd love to play in his preferred position at fullback, but he's done just as well adapting to the demands of being on the wing.
Meanwhile, Dane Coles seemed to dominate more offensive columns than defensive - beating the midfielders stats more often than not.
The young forward might need to figure out where his true calling really is.
- NZ Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11756105
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Not a bad year at all. When you look at what was "supposed" to happen this year, we over-achieved. We lost some great players, but won a lot of games, and won some very well.
I think the Northern Tour has put some perspective on the early part of the year. South Africa are fucking rubbish. Argentina are limited. Australia are, actually, i don't know what to make of the Wallabies.
By positions i largely agree with you. Props are pretty good, with some prospects coming back from injury next year.
Hooker is an issue. Coles plays huge minutes. Taylor is still largely untested. We don't have a third.
Lock is pretty awesome, (a position of strength in world rugby i think). 2 obvious stars. Barrett has been huge on this tour. With Patty T and Romano providing a different type of player.
Halfback all good, TJP has eased fears there. Needs to be more accurate on the pass, and his box kicking is worse than Smith's. BUT, he is physical, has a great running game, and seems to have cut out the headless chook stuff.
10 is sweet.
Midfield. Crotty and ALB went very well this year. Solid defensively, and very smart players. ALB provided a lot of attacking highlights as well. Dreaded 2nd season might undo him though, with tighter analysis of his game (he came from nowhere really). I have hopes for Moala to provide a point of difference. Good SBW would be handy. Ioane looks the part. Work in progress, but further along than i expected.
Wings. Dagg aye? Fuck who saw that coming? (hands down cantabs, you did not). Revelation. Seems to have wheels as well. Savea was up and down, but i think his last 2 tests were excellent. Naholo would be the one i would cut away if NMS comes back, he just doesn't do anything for me at test level.
FB. Well, BFA is okay i guess.I want to talk about the loosies. I think we have a bit of an issue. I think our best 3 is seen as Read, Cane and JK. Hard, solid, experienced players. BUT, i think we are falling behind a little here. Read and Kaino had some good games this year, but they had some ordinary ones as well. Read especially is our captain, and our #8, he can't afford to have quiet games, he's too important. Kaino had some good tests, but he's starting to look slow. Both can be out-worked as well. It can be covered by our ridiculously mobile locks, but that's not the point. I think we need some pace, and some dynamism in that back row. Dixon doesn't strike me as that player. Sadly, nor does Squire (i thought he might be). Savea isn't big enough or aggressive enough. I like Luatua, but he's not physical enough at the moment. At openside Todd has been better than i thought he would be, but picking him does reduce our physicality somewhat. The French and the Irish especially had rampant runners from the back row that caused us all sorts of issues. I personally think it's something we need to look at.
From a team perspective, our basics are excellent. Our set piece is a real strength, especially our lineout. Our defense is excellent, especially our ability to reorganise. All our players can use the ball. And our kicking game improved as the year went on. We were also very aggressive at times this year.
Unfortunately we gave away some dumb yellows because of that (fucking Moody). We are offside far too often, and we give away a heap of silly penalties. Considering we aren't competing in a lot of rucks, we are still giving away a lot of penalties. Our best play is punishing turnover ball, but we don't get a lot of it. I think the doddle that was the RC sort of papered over the fact that we have a couple of fundamental issues in our game plan. It's not exactly costly, because we can still score, and we don't concede many, but we found this tour pretty hard to generate a lot of points.
The above seems really negative for a team that won nearly every game, and a lot of them by daylight, but i don't think we are as good as we were made to look, and i really want to whitewash the Lions.
But, good year boys, enjoy the beach and a few brews.
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@LagerLout said in AB's 2016 in Review:
How long do we have to wait for Super Rugby??
Click or paste this in your browser for the answer:
Time since Feb 23, 2017 7:35 pm started in San Francisco
Counting time since Feb 23, 2017 7:35 pm. Showing days, hours, minutes and seconds counting up
(I hope that works)
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@mariner4life nothing wrong with having flaws, gives us plenty to work on, and I expect Hansen and Co have seen ALOT of work-ons the past 4 weeks or so.
You could put some of the end of year play down to fatigue, but it shouldn't be an excuse as this is all part of what they do, and I think for the most part we manage our player workloads pretty well.
As for the loosie thing, I wouldn't mind seeing Cane/Todd running together given Cane plays more like a 6.5....whereas the Aussies run 2 7's and a 6....
Mentally you'd think this season has mind-fudged our boys similar to a RWC year (after which they don't play again) they knocked off that record run, and you could see in that game that the record on the line meant a lot, and felt the pressure....so to have that high, then come down from there for a wee, jump on another plane and head to the Northern tour, add in all the off-field dramas for NZ Rugby (Smith aside, I don't expect most did so personally) and it has actually been a pretty tough season, physically and mentally.
