Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain
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just reflecting on Sam Cane. It's been a while since the AB captain wasn't a point of difference, the kind of guy most fans want on their teams. Most international fans, with some justification, would not see Cane as an upgrade on their current 7.
We all know and respect what Cane brings to the ABs, but he's a role player rather than a standout. It's a bit of a difference after the Tana-Richie-Read years (and that's a lot of years).
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@mariner4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
just reflecting on Sam Cane. It's been a while since the AB captain wasn't a point of difference, the kind of guy most fans want on their teams. Most international fans, with some justification, would not see Cane as an upgrade on their current 7.
You thought Read was a standout and point of difference when he was captain?
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@nzzp said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@mariner4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
just reflecting on Sam Cane. It's been a while since the AB captain wasn't a point of difference, the kind of guy most fans want on their teams. Most international fans, with some justification, would not see Cane as an upgrade on their current 7.
You thought Read was a standout and point of difference when he was captain?
initially, yes. It's only a couple of years since he and Retallic were the added extras that made our pack go from good to great. I can't remember the game, i think it was Bledisloe, where Aus matched us up front, except for the extra bits those two provided.
Last 2 years? Not so much. He was lucky he was the skipper, and there was literally no one else
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@mariner4life I might have agreed with you a year and a half ago when Ardie was still finding his feet and developing his game, especially on the test scene. However, last year he came on in leaps and bounds and showed he could matchup physically to anyone in the game, both defensivley and in the trenches so to speak, hence why he was named player of the year. I think that WC round robin game against the Springboks was a true reflection of how far he has come, and I still don't think he's reached his peak yet.
The bench in my view isn't the best spot for Ardie anymore due to his experience and leadership in what will be a fairly green area for the All Black's. Having both Cane and Savea on the park at the same time is the only way I can see the All Black's getting the most out of both players. For instance if you match up Cane with two loose forwards that lack any speed or gamebreaking ability, then we start to look very ordinary. Ardie is X-factor, but he has proven with his ongoing development that he can do the dirty work aswell. It will be interesting to see how things develop over the next year or so and what Foster's game plan ends up being.
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@Canes4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@mariner4life I might have agreed with you a year and a half ago when Ardie was still finding his feet and developing his game, especially on the test scene. However, last year he came on in leaps and bounds and showed he could matchup physically to anyone in the game, both defensivley and in the trenches so to speak, hence why he was named player of the year. I think that WC round robin game against the Springboks was a true reflection of how far he has come, and I still don't think he's reached his peak yet.
The bench in my view isn't the best spot for Ardie anymore due to his experience and leadership in what will be a fairly green area for the All Black's. Having both Cane and Savea on the park at the same time is the only way I can see the All Black's getting the most out of both players. For instance if you match up Cane with two loose forwards that lack any speed or gamebreaking ability, then we start to look very ordinary. Ardie is X-factor, but he has proven with his ongoing development that he can do the dirty work aswell. It will be interesting to see how things develop over the next year or so and what Foster's game plan ends up being
Defensively a lot weaker than Cane.
Not as robust against very physical teams.
Ask England. -
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@mariner4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
just reflecting on Sam Cane. It's been a while since the AB captain wasn't a point of difference, the kind of guy most fans want on their teams. Most international fans, with some justification, would not see Cane as an upgrade on their current 7.
That's because most of them are halfwits who think Pocock was god's gift to flankers. You'll never see Cane look up to see a Kaino in front of him and shovel the ball on in fear.
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@Frank Cane is a lot weaker than Ardie in most other facets. Your point? All players have their strengths and weaknesses. Not like Cane dominanted against England either, in fact he didn’t really stand out during the World Cup at all.
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@Canes4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@Frank Cane is a lot weaker than Ardie in most other facets. Your point? All players have their strengths and weaknesses. Not like Cane dominanted against England either, in fact he didn’t really stand out during the World Cup at all.
England didn't score any tries when Cane was on the field ...
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@Canes4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
Not like Cane dominanted against England either, in fact he didn’t really stand out during the World Cup at all.
He only did the second highest amount of tackles in the whole team at 95% success rate. What were you watching?
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@antipodean said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@Canes4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
Not like Cane dominanted against England either, in fact he didn’t really stand out during the World Cup at all.
He only did the second highest amount of tackles in the whole team at 95% success rate. What were you watching?
He's no flash Harry, but he does a huge amount of the grunt work
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@antipodean said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@Canes4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
Not like Cane dominanted against England either, in fact he didn’t really stand out during the World Cup at all.
He only did the second highest amount of tackles in the whole team at 95% success rate. What were you watching?
when you have your yellow goggles on...
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@mariner4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@antipodean said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@Canes4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
Not like Cane dominanted against England either, in fact he didn’t really stand out during the World Cup at all.
He only did the second highest amount of tackles in the whole team at 95% success rate. What were you watching?
when you have your yellow goggles on...
He should give the goggles to Ardie....
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@canefan said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@antipodean said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@Canes4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
Not like Cane dominanted against England either, in fact he didn’t really stand out during the World Cup at all.
He only did the second highest amount of tackles in the whole team at 95% success rate. What were you watching?
He's no flash Harry, but he does a huge amount of the grunt work
He's no Beaudy on attack, but what he brings to the team is irreplaceable and for most people highly visible. Ardie's a great player and needs to be in the squad, but not at the expense of Sam.
Having both of them means the other flanker has to be tall. Proper tall. Like taller than a Canes lock.
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@mariner4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
We all know and respect what Cane brings to the ABs, but he's a role player rather than a standout. It's a bit of a difference after the Tana-Richie-Read years (and that's a lot of years).
Tana? Never the clear best in his position world wide (BOD and Mortlock just out of the gate) and they didn’t skip a beat at centre in the following two seasons even with hyper rotation.
Read was super banged up to the point where you could reasonably say he wasn’t one of our top three lopsided.
McCaw kind of spoiled us, but shorter captaincy stints without the expectation of a full RWC cycle will hopefully become the norm.
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@antipodean people forget that John Plumtree is in the coaching setup, he won't let Ardie sit on the pine and knows full well he's too good to leave out, so it's up to Foster to find an appropriate 6.
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@rotated said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
@mariner4life said in Sam Cane - All Blacks Captain:
We all know and respect what Cane brings to the ABs, but he's a role player rather than a standout. It's a bit of a difference after the Tana-Richie-Read years (and that's a lot of years).
Tana? Never the clear best in his position world wide (BOD and Mortlock just out of the gate) and they didn’t skip a beat at centre in the following two seasons even with hyper rotation.
Read was super banged up to the point where you could reasonably say he wasn’t one of our top three lopsided.
McCaw kind of spoiled us, but shorter captaincy stints without the expectation of a full RWC cycle will hopefully become the norm.
That's a serious underrating of Tana, he was clearly the best centre by some distance in NZ and was definitely competitive with the two you mentioned.
And quite frankly we did struggle at centre until Smith got over his injury issues, it's preposterous to suggest otherwise.
I find it completely bonkers the underrating of Tana as a player in recent years (I have my suspicions it's due to his coaching record) and his captaincy served us well.
