The Cane vs Savea Debate
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Harriet is Sam's other half, posting as @antipodean
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@shark said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@mofitzy_ So you're saying it's the openside flankers' role to provide all that physicality?
Yes. It's in fact the job of everyone in the pack to show some physicality. And it doesn't only mean smashing people with ball in hand or in the tackle (although that's obviously a significant part of it), it also means cleaning out opposition players and winning the ruck quickly and cleanly (and conversely not being cleaned out quickly and cleanly when defending). It's a cliche that rugby is a game of inches, but it's true and Cane is one of our best at winning those all important inches. Being a 7 is not all side steps or ball steals - if it was we wouldn't have been so critical of Pocock.
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@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@antipodean said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
And Ardie is in no way passive. His hits are more often dominant than cane in SRA
Nonsense.
Whelp, that's what the stats said.
Cane's Super Rugby Aotearoa stats show that he has made the third-most tackles in the competition, behind fellow open sides Dalton Papalii and Dillon Hunt, despite sitting out the opening two rounds.
He is making dominant tackles at a solid rate of 19%, but that sits below other loose forwards Ardie Savea (31%), Mitch Brown (28%), Papalii (25%), Du'Plessis Kirifi (25%), and Tom Christie (25%).
How many dominant tackles does that equate to over the course of a match, then? Because I can make 50% dominant tackles, bu if i only make two tackles per match then it really means fuck all
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@junior said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@antipodean said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
And Ardie is in no way passive. His hits are more often dominant than cane in SRA
Nonsense.
Whelp, that's what the stats said.
Cane's Super Rugby Aotearoa stats show that he has made the third-most tackles in the competition, behind fellow open sides Dalton Papalii and Dillon Hunt, despite sitting out the opening two rounds.
He is making dominant tackles at a solid rate of 19%, but that sits below other loose forwards Ardie Savea (31%), Mitch Brown (28%), Papalii (25%), Du'Plessis Kirifi (25%), and Tom Christie (25%).
How many dominant tackles does that equate to over the course of a match, then? Because I can make 50% dominant tackles, bu if i only make two tackles per match then it really means fuck all
It doesn't mean 'fuck all' but it is a good point. Ardie wasn't the main tackler for the canes, like cane is for chiefs. Playing in 8 is part of the reason, and the loose trio balance. But the fact that when he tackles Ardie is dominant 1 out of 3 times, compared to canes 1 out of 5, is not meaningless. However, Ardie's massive attacking upside is very important compared to cane's minor defensive upside and tits for hands
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@shark said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@gt12 Savea was playing 8, and Cane 7. So it's even less apples for apples. Which is then followed up with making a point based solely on an assumption (the stuff about the last 30 mins).
Excellent point, that’s a great reason why Savea shouldn’t be playing 7 for the ABs.
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All this discussion about 'dominant tackling' has made me realise that my initial top of the head comment about Cane possibly contains the key.
I said that Cane was the more dominant tackler 'in the loose' and by that I mean tackles other than the front on close to breakdown ones.
For me Cane gets himself into stronger positions to make harder hits when covering while Ardie gets there and tackles but it is slightly more side on and doesn't stop the carrier in their tracks as much.
That makes a huge difference as even slight momentum after being tackled can allow overall momentum to regenerate. If runners have to check their runs it slows down the impetus.
Not saying that Ardie is poor in this regard just that Cane is a little better.
That semifinal where England were able to just roll forward and make ground at will was embarrassing in this regard. -
@gt12 said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@shark said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@gt12 Savea was playing 8, and Cane 7. So it's even less apples for apples. Which is then followed up with making a point based solely on an assumption (the stuff about the last 30 mins).
Excellent point, that’s a great reason why Savea shouldn’t be playing 7 for the ABs.
Nonsense.
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@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@junior said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@antipodean said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
And Ardie is in no way passive. His hits are more often dominant than cane in SRA
Nonsense.
Whelp, that's what the stats said.
Cane's Super Rugby Aotearoa stats show that he has made the third-most tackles in the competition, behind fellow open sides Dalton Papalii and Dillon Hunt, despite sitting out the opening two rounds.
He is making dominant tackles at a solid rate of 19%, but that sits below other loose forwards Ardie Savea (31%), Mitch Brown (28%), Papalii (25%), Du'Plessis Kirifi (25%), and Tom Christie (25%).
How many dominant tackles does that equate to over the course of a match, then? Because I can make 50% dominant tackles, bu if i only make two tackles per match then it really means fuck all
It doesn't mean 'fuck all' but it is a good point. Ardie wasn't the main tackler for the canes, like cane is for chiefs. Playing in 8 is part of the reason, and the loose trio balance. But the fact that when he tackles Ardie is dominant 1 out of 3 times, compared to canes 1 out of 5, is not meaningless. However, Ardie's massive attacking upside is very important compared to cane's minor defensive upside and tits for hands
What he said.
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@antipodean said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@antipodean said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
And Ardie is in no way passive. His hits are more often dominant than cane in SRA
Nonsense.
Whelp, that's what the stats said.
Cane's Super Rugby Aotearoa stats show that he has made the third-most tackles in the competition, behind fellow open sides Dalton Papalii and Dillon Hunt, despite sitting out the opening two rounds.
He is making dominant tackles at a solid rate of 19%, but that sits below other loose forwards Ardie Savea (31%), Mitch Brown (28%), Papalii (25%), Du'Plessis Kirifi (25%), and Tom Christie (25%).
Whose stats are those, Helen fucking Kellers? Not even Ardie's mum thinks he makes dominant tackles a third of the time.
Last time this got discussed, it was mentioned by someone in the AB coaching panel that Cane (and perhaps some of these others) operates really effectively in the close channels - they liked the fact that Cane was making dominant tackles on props and locks. I wonder what those SRA stats would look like if they were stratified on that basis.
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@Marty said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@antipodean said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@antipodean said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
And Ardie is in no way passive. His hits are more often dominant than cane in SRA
Nonsense.
Whelp, that's what the stats said.
Cane's Super Rugby Aotearoa stats show that he has made the third-most tackles in the competition, behind fellow open sides Dalton Papalii and Dillon Hunt, despite sitting out the opening two rounds.
He is making dominant tackles at a solid rate of 19%, but that sits below other loose forwards Ardie Savea (31%), Mitch Brown (28%), Papalii (25%), Du'Plessis Kirifi (25%), and Tom Christie (25%).
Whose stats are those, Helen fucking Kellers? Not even Ardie's mum thinks he makes dominant tackles a third of the time.
Last time this got discussed, it was mentioned by someone in the AB coaching panel that Cane (and perhaps some of these others) operates really effectively in the close channels - they liked the fact that Cane was making dominant tackles on props and locks. I wonder what those SRA stats would look like if they were stratified on that basis.
Good point. I'm sure Cane would love the opportunity to pad his stats against DMac running sideways.
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@shark said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
It's always worked well for the All Blacks when we've looked to alter our team structure and move away from our strengths because of another team's strength. We're going to have to import some Afrikaans.
Odd for you to bring this up in this thread considering the benching of Cane last year was this exact scenario and England’s early run might have been stopped if we had his dominant tackling.
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@antipodean Absolutely. SR and test footy are far different beasts altogether. People treat it as if it's the same level of rugby when it is anything but. Parts like set piece, the high ball and the collision are big focus points at international level unlike SR where teams like to use the ball off set phase and play away from the set piece as well as give the ball a lot of air, hence why guys like Ardie Savea and Mo'unga tend to thrive in the looser style of play and carve up their rivals, yet don't have as much success at test level where the space is harder to come by, and the physical side of the game becomes more important.
I think a lot of people are struggling to get to grips with the fact that we're not as dominant as we used to be and that doing well in SR doesn't mean a hell of a lot once you get to the higher level anymore.
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@African-Monkey Savea and Mounga aren't successful at test level?
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@Bones Mo'unga no, not yet. Think he's a better bench option at this stage personally. He's been fairly average at test level I believe. Certainly hasn't reached anywhere near the heights of SR I think that's fair to say or am I being a hater for saying that? Savea, yeah he's had some good moments at Test Level after a slow start where he got overtaken by Matt Todd at around 2017-2018 but compared to SR level where he and Mo'unga both tear sides up on their own, he hasn't reached those heights at test level yet. Not saying Ardie has been poor at all btw because he has been very good at times, I just feel he'd be better off coming off the bench against more tired opponents when the game has broken up a bit more which would also give us impact later on in games either in tandem with Cane, or as a straight swap. Starting is a different story however, and Cane is the far better starter at Test level.
Funnily enough, their best performances were when they both came off the bench at Loftus in 2018.
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@African-Monkey hah, I just feel like Mounga has hardly had a chance to prove much, then I see he's had 18 tests - it certainly doesn't "feel" like it.
I kind of see what you're saying - but couldn't you say that about pretty much most AB's? You don't see many players dominate week after week at test level - they might dominate the odd game but not as often as they would in super rugby.
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@African-Monkey said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Bones Mo'unga no, not yet. Think he's a better bench option at this stage personally. He's been fairly average at test level I believe. Certainly hasn't reached anywhere near the heights of SR I think that's fair to say or am I being a hater for saying that? Savea, yeah he's had some good moments at Test Level after a slow start where he got overtaken by Matt Todd at around 2017-2018 but compared to SR level where he and Mo'unga both tear sides up on their own, he hasn't reached those heights at test level yet. Not saying Ardie has been poor at all btw because he has been very good at times, I just feel he'd be better off coming off the bench against more tired opponents when the game has broken up a bit more which would also give us impact later on in games either in tandem with Cane, or as a straight swap. Starting is a different story however, and Cane is the far better starter at Test level.
Funnily enough, their best performances were when they both came off the bench at Loftus in 2018.
Yes, let's postpone Mo'unga starting even more! That was the whole problem. The coaches stuck to their pet-project of BB at 10 with Dmac 15 way too long. It didn't work and as a result, Mo'unga didn't have enough experience as a test starter in 2019. If there's one thing they need to do - with BB heading to Japan and getting old for a back come RWC2023 time - is give Mo'unga as many starts as possible. Mo'unga wasn't average at test level; if anything, he was inexperienced as a starter. That's what needs to change. Especially, because there is no other 10 at the moment who is showing any sign of test quality, even not Josh Ioane.
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@African-Monkey said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@antipodean Absolutely. SR and test footy are far different beasts altogether. People treat it as if it's the same level of rugby when it is anything but. Parts like set piece, the high ball and the collision are big focus points at international level unlike SR where teams like to use the ball off set phase and play away from the set piece as well as give the ball a lot of air, hence why guys like Ardie Savea and Mo'unga tend to thrive in the looser style of play and carve up their rivals, yet don't have as much success at test level where the space is harder to come by, and the physical side of the game becomes more important.
I think a lot of people are struggling to get to grips with the fact that we're not as dominant as we used to be and that doing well in SR doesn't mean a hell of a lot once you get to the higher level anymore.
To be honest that has always been the case. Just look at 98 or 2003 as great examples of S rugby not meaning a great deal.
Haven't read many posts, but I assume there's been plenty of reference to the 2019 semi trainwreck. To me the surprising thing is that it took so long for it to happen. Aus and Arg had already exposed the weaknesses there but didn't have the cattle or ability to finish the job.
One of the reasons for the success of NZ rugby is the ability to adapt and evolve, particularly when a rival does something better than us. Unfortunately that lesson wasn't learnt last year but I hope it finally has been now.
Ultimately, this is just a convoluted way of saying that Cane should always be selected if fit and that players like him will be crucial to avoid getting blown away like we did against England. I heart Ardie and he's essential for the bench, but we need big munters to win those early exchanges. With subs and better fitness we simply can't rely on better lungs and finesse to win anymore.
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@Bones said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@African-Monkey hah, I just feel like Mounga has hardly had a chance to prove much, then I see he's had 18 tests - it certainly doesn't "feel" like it.
I kind of see what you're saying - but couldn't you say that about pretty much most AB's? You don't see many players dominate week after week at test level - they might dominate the odd game but not as often as they would in super rugby.
Mo'unga has played 17 tests and one non-test match. In 2018, he played 9 tests, but only started two; against Argentina in Nelson and against Japan in Tokyo. That was his preparation for the big year that was 2019.
