AB's 2016 in Review
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NIgel Yealdens AB awards for 2016
Nigel Yalden's 2016 All Blacks Awards
And so another year of All Black rugby comes to an end. There have been 14 tests, played over six months and across five continents. We've seen the Steinl
Forward of the Year: Dane Coles. The maturity with which he led the Hurricanes to their first Super Rugby title flowed into a more senior role with the All Blacks. While we will remember fondly some of the moments of skill and the 77 minutes off the bench he was never meant to be part of in Sydney, it’s his world class ability in a hooker's core role that shouldn't be ignored. The best in the world in his position.
Runners Up: Sam Whitelock & Brodie Retallick. Just prior to the Chicago test, Sky Sport commentary legend Grant Nisbett told me that today we would see just how important Whitelock and Retallick are to the All Blacks. Nisbo was on point as always, much in the same way this duo are whenever they take to the field.
Role Player of the Year - Forwards: Owen Franks. Week in, week out, this bloke does the business without fuss or fanfare. Franks is rarely bettered at scrum time, superb at the oft-overlooked skill of lineout lifting, shifts carcasses at the breakdown, defends strongly in tough ball running channels around rucks, carries strongly himself and has the most underappreciated set of hands of all the tight forwards.
Back of the Year: Beauden Barrett. Think back to where he was at the start of the year, then fast forward to the finish. You realise his growth and maturity has been as rapid as the man himself on a chip’n’chase. Super Rugby form led to the Rugby Championship, he earned the starting first five spot on performance and then just cut capers. Not perfect by any means, but his defensive and offensive efforts in Dublin and Paris reaffirmed the growth of Barrett in 2016.
Runners Up: Israel Dagg & Ben Smith. You couldn’t have one without the other as both benefited from the change made for the second Bledisloe Cup test. Dagg has revived his international career on the right wing while Smith has been his typically rock solid self in everything he does in his best position.
Role Player of the Year: Ryan Crotty is as reliable a player as there is in the All Blacks. He reads defenses well and is an accurate tackler. On offense he runs great lines, is more than willing to straighten up the attack and is sneaky quick. As he has done all through his All Black career, just went out and did his job with those around him benefiting.
Rookie of the Year: Anton Lienert-Brown. A 21 year old with the rugby sense of the 12 year test veteran, this young man is as good, if not better than when Wayne Smith gave me his take on how talented Lienert-Brown was as an 18 year old. It didn’t matter whether he was at second five or centre, he made great decisions with or without the ball and defensively rarely missed his target.
Rookie Runners Up: Liam Squire & Scott Barrett. Two big young men with massive motors and an unrelenting willingness to throw themselves at the opposition from first whistle to last; ready-made test match rugby players.
Individual Performance of the Year: Dane Coles vs South Africa in Christchurch. 7 days after playing his “worst game in the jersey”, Coles produced his best. Lineout throwing - his undoing the week prior - was pinpoint; he scrummed well but around the field he was quite superb. Whilst he did work in and around the ruck, it was out wide where he was of most influence, highlighted by a trio of final passes on tries that were simply sublime. -
Not a bad summary and hard to argue with any of those selections.
Preseason I don't think anyone was really thinking ALB, S. Barrett and Squire would even make the ABs.
There were some that mentioned S. Barrett last year as an outside chance, but that was more pie in the sky then anything else.
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@ACT-Crusader said in AB's 2016 in Review:
Not a bad summary and hard to argue with any of those selections.
Preseason I don't think anyone was really thinking ALB, S. Barrett and Squire would even make the ABs.
There were some that mentioned S. Barrett last year as an outside chance, but that was more pie in the sky then anything else.
Even three quarters of the way through Super Rugby only a handful of us were noticing ALB but even then its was just to say he looked like a good level headed player that could one day possibly press for higher honours. Talk about right place/right time. He used the confidence gained through regular play for the Chiefs after Ngatai was injured to grab his unexpected AB chance with both hands. The fact that he did it all without being overly spectacular points to him being a long term keeper.
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@Stargazer that would be wonderful.
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@nostrildamus Yeah, I really hope he stays on after next year.
Interesting interview; reflecting on the 2016 season, the NZ "production line" & players being lured overseas or into NRL straight out of school, the NH-SH gap, the loss of coaches to the North, the "fatigue/travel factor", Eddie Jones, staying or not after the Lions tour (he doesn't answer the question).
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@taniwharugby said in AB's 2016 in Review:
Rookie of the Year: Anton Lienert-Brown. A 21 year old with the rugby sense of the 12 year test veteran, this young man is as good, if not better than when Wayne Smith gave me his take on how talented Lienert-Brown was as an 18 year old
Why am I not surprised?
Interesting infographic on allblack.com
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Interesting, the tackle percentage struck me as being a bit low at first, but then I guess if everybody is only missing 1 tackle in 10 it's fairly decent.
Kicking percentage doesn't seem as bad as it might be too. I guess one thing to consider is we don't kick as many penalty goals as other teams and those are often only taken if they're almost a sure thing, leaving the bulk of the percentage down to conversions, do we score a higher percentage of those out wide?
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That graphic shows the re-emergence off Dagg quite clearly, a guy who missed the RWC, many thought was done...fantastic really.
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Penalties are very low. Maybe we score a lot of tries under penalty advantage?
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@Stargazer said in AB's 2016 in Review:
@nostrildamus Yeah, I really hope he stays on after next year.
Interesting interview; reflecting on the 2016 season, the NZ "production line" & players being lured overseas or into NRL straight out of school, the NH-SH gap, the loss of coaches to the North, the "fatigue/travel factor", Eddie Jones, staying or not after the Lions tour (he doesn't answer the question).
Why would Eddie leave after the lions tour?
He isn't involved in it....
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@da_grubster yeah that was been discussed following the NH tests, where the penalty count stats only seem to count penalties that stop play, unlike handling errors that are counted, even if advantage gets called over.
You'd have to assume they do record actual penalty counts, rather than just those where the ref stops play and awards a penalty, just odd we don't see the numbers.
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@da_grubster said in AB's 2016 in Review:
@Stargazer said in AB's 2016 in Review:
@nostrildamus Yeah, I really hope he stays on after next year.
Interesting interview; reflecting on the 2016 season, the NZ "production line" & players being lured overseas or into NRL straight out of school, the NH-SH gap, the loss of coaches to the North, the "fatigue/travel factor", Eddie Jones, staying or not after the Lions tour (he doesn't answer the question).
Why would Eddie leave after the lions tour?
He isn't involved in it....
You missed a comma. It was a list of subjects discussed in the interview with Wayne Smith. One of those subjects was Eddie Jones, Smith staying after the lions tour (or not) was another.
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@da_grubster said in AB's 2016 in Review:
Penalties are very low. Maybe we score a lot of tries under penalty advantage?
Yep I've already raised that a couple of times when discussing lopsided penalty counts. What I'm wondering is if we score a larger percentage of our tries out wide?
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@Stargazer said in AB's 2016 in Review:
@Bones I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case, especially considering that Dagg has scored most tries for us this year.
Yeah good point - I was thinking they've probably got high confidence in being able to score tries too, so don't often work all that hard to get closer to the posts.
