All Blacks v Springboks
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Should we be concerned about our inability to win the close games? Contrary to the bs spouted by the media that this team has hardly been tested and placed under pressure, they actually have been under pressure quite often in recent history.
Over the last two years, this team have only managed to get the positive outcome 50% of the time in tight contests, not what you would expect from an AB team, especially one with so much talent. Here's a list of the games during that time that could have gone either way.
Wellington 2017 (loss to the BIL)
Auckland 2017 (draw with the BIL)
Dunedin 2017 (beat Australia)
Durban 2017 (beat the Boks)
Brisbane 2017 (loss to Australia)
Edinburgh 2017 (beat Scotland)
Cardiff 2017 (beat Wales)
Wellington 2018 (loss to the Boks)That's played eight, four wins, one draw and three losses.
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@akan004 cherry pick to make the sky fall?
how about looking at it like this. in 21 tests we are 17-1-3. In 13 of those tests we have hosed them.
We lost a game where we had 14 blokes for 3/4s of the game
We lost a dead rubber Bledisloe away.
We lost one of the best tests in years.You know, now i think about it, we are 0-3 where we have scored less points than the opposition. That's not what you expect from a team with this much talent.
Try looking at it this way. We never, ever lose big. if it's a loss, it's by a bee's dick. We are balls deep in every game we play. That's a pretty sweet position to be in.
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@mariner4life How have I cherry picked? I have simply gone through the close games over the last two years and reported the results. Granted we were down to 14 against the BIL but we were also up by 9 points in that game heading into the last 20 minutes. Should have closed that out. Ditto with Auckland the next week.
Bear in mind, we have had three poor results at home over a 15 month period. That's unheard of in recent times. Not as sweet as you make it out to be.
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because 3 from 21 is the real figure, not 3 from 8 with some arbitrary margin cut-off.
How many did we lose by 10+?
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@mariner4life I am judging how a team responds to pressure, and therefore looking at the tight games is the only way to get a true gauge of that.
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Whereas i see every game as pressure. We were under the pump in Sydney, down 7-0 with Aussies hammering us. We went bang before half time, bang after time, and blew the game open. We win by heaps, and you don't count it. Great response.
Pressure in test matches is not just the last 10 minutes.
And even in those metrics you have decided are dire, look at the individual games. On the weekend we were one stuck pass from bailing ourselves out. In the Lions series a spurious ref decision changes a probable win to a draw (having executed a very nice play to give us that opportunity). The Lions test we lost was another fairly innocuous penalty to lose it.
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In defence of Beauden Barrett
However, despite the missed conversions, Barrett’s performance against the Springboks was arguably his best of the year in the black jersey.
Interesting take
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Some fair enough points you raised, but I still maintain that the pressure experienced in the last ten to fifteen minutes in a tight Test is far more intense than at the 40th minute mark. Added to that, this Aussie team seems incapable of keeping up with us in the last quarter of the game unlike the Boks and the BIL. I'm not saying we are a bunch of no-hopers who crumble under pressure , but I think there are signs that this team may not be as composed as some of our prior teams. I may very well be wrong but I think it's fair to raise this as a discussion point.
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I think if you really want to do some analysis you need to look at all the tests over that period, look at the HT/FT scores as well, because IIRC there have been a number we have been down at half time and end up winning comfortably, but not included in your 'close matches' analysis, surely they have dealt with the pressure in those games?
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@akan004 said in All Blacks v Springboks:
Some fair enough points you raised, but I still maintain that the pressure experienced in the last ten to fifteen minutes in a tight Test is far more intense than what happens at 40th minute mark. Added to that, this Aussie team seems incapable of keeping up with us in the last quarter of the game unlike the Boks and the BIL. I'm not saying we are a bunch of no-hopers who crumble under pressure , but I think there are signs that this team may not be as composed as some of our prior teams. I may very well be wrong but I think it's fair to raise this as a discussion point.
i prefer to look at how the game ended. Were we in a position to win it? Or were we stuck at our own end with no chance?
The Bok game, and the drawn Lions test, we were down the right end, and only some great defense held us out. We weren't clueless how to win, or choking under the pressure, we were beaten by a team that did the right thing for just long enough. It happens.
I would be more worried if we were getting blown out of the water in those last 10 minutes.
What i find more interesting is how often we lose when we don't score 22 points. Since the start of 2015 we have failed to score 22 points 8 times. We lost 5 of those, and drew one.
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@mariner4life there were deals in the Lions test too...
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks v Springboks:
@akan004 cherry pick to make the sky fall?
how about looking at it like this. in 21 tests we are 17-1-3. In 13 of those tests we have hosed them.
We lost a game where we had 14 blokes for 3/4s of the game
We lost a dead rubber Bledisloe away.
We lost one of the best tests in years.You know, now i think about it, we are 0-3 where we have scored less points than the opposition. That's not what you expect from a team with this much talent.
Try looking at it this way. We never, ever lose big. if it's a loss, it's by a bee's dick. We are balls deep in every game we play. That's a pretty sweet position to be in.
What you say is true, except the implication that somehow winning big a lot is good.
Having a situation of lots of big wins does not reduce our chances of losing. Our winning % has not changed just because the size of the victories has.
The thing is that each game we win by 20 points is not much practice on to how to win hard games. I think that's the point of the original post.
We tend to crack "inexplicably" in exactly the same way. An AB team expecting another romp gets a hard time by an opponent who defends sturdily and does not let our counter-attack get going.
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If we finish tight games the way we did this test then we'll win far more than we lose. We were absolutely dominating the final quarter, the Boks defended for their lives but still needed a fair slice of luck to avoid defeat. As @mariner4life says, if we were camped on our own line with no chance of victory that would be concerning, but as it stands we pretty much always finish the stronger team.
If we can avoid conceding 31 points to 5 in the middle period then I think we should be OK.
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@chester-draws said in All Blacks v Springboks:
@mariner4life said in All Blacks v Springboks:
@akan004 cherry pick to make the sky fall?
how about looking at it like this. in 21 tests we are 17-1-3. In 13 of those tests we have hosed them.
We lost a game where we had 14 blokes for 3/4s of the game
We lost a dead rubber Bledisloe away.
We lost one of the best tests in years.You know, now i think about it, we are 0-3 where we have scored less points than the opposition. That's not what you expect from a team with this much talent.
Try looking at it this way. We never, ever lose big. if it's a loss, it's by a bee's dick. We are balls deep in every game we play. That's a pretty sweet position to be in.
What you say is true, except the implication that somehow winning big a lot is good.
Say what? It's bad? Since when?
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@akan004 said in All Blacks v Springboks:
Copied this from Nigel Yalden's facebook page re BBBR.
"Trust me mate, he's had a scan, even they say he hasn't. Reliably informed that he spend most of yesterday's training session running and down stair in Westpac Stadium. Picking that would jar the buggery out of any shoulder, so can't be too bad - we are inquiring though mate."
Any more news from Nigel RE BBBR?
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@unite said in All Blacks v Springboks:
@akan004 said in All Blacks v Springboks:
Copied this from Nigel Yalden's facebook page re BBBR.
"Trust me mate, he's had a scan, even they say he hasn't. Reliably informed that he spend most of yesterday's training session running and down stair in Westpac Stadium. Picking that would jar the buggery out of any shoulder, so can't be too bad - we are inquiring though mate."
Any more news from Nigel RE BBBR?
Nothing new per his fb page.
