The Cane vs Savea Debate
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@African-Monkey a bit like Cruden, Spencer, Donald, Barrett, Slade...the list goes on.
Very few players have made an immediate impact at test level and “been test level” from day 1. That’s not an excuse, it’s just reality. I agree running the cutter at SR level and test level is different, but habits are formed and that lower level that are transferrable and refined to the next with a bit of time and experience.
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@ACT-Crusader Yeah can't argue with that, but as I said, Barrett should be the starting 10 right now imo, not Mo'unga. I hope Mo'unga gets better at thie highest level and will get plenty of opportunities to prove himself there (he might get picked at 10 ahead of Barrett again), but right now, he's not there yet.
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@KiwiMurph said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
It's one of the issues I had with Hansen. He delayed bringing Mo'unga into the AB fray. Mounga won a Super title at 10 in 2017 - he should have been in the AB squad in 2017.
He got delayed because he had holes in his game, and BB had less.
ABs still need to pick their best players to win Tests.
Even in the semi we were hiding Mounga from his channel and it cost us dearly.
It’s up to the player to fix those issues and leapfrog the other player. BB had to fix his defence to start regularly why shouldn’t RM have had to?
Hopefully he has, as after BB and RM is a steep drop off.
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@Nepia said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@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.
Less so the benching of Cane than the selection of Barrett at 6 in order to counter England's line-out strength. Maybe Cane was collateral damage in that scenario, but do you seriously think an openside flankers' somewhat fabled tackling ability was going to make the difference? Nooo.
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@shark said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Nepia said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@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.
Less so the benching of Cane than the selection of Barrett at 6 in order to counter England's line-out strength. Maybe Cane was collateral damage in that scenario, but do you seriously think an openside flankers' somewhat fabled tackling ability was going to make the difference? Nooo.
I think we still would have lost, but won a few more moments in the Test. Barrett is fine at lock but too slow on the flank, and they punished us for it.
Cane certainly would have helped.
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@African-Monkey said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@ACT-Crusader Yeah can't argue with that, but as I said, Barrett should be the starting 10 right now imo, not Mo'unga. I hope Mo'unga gets better at thie highest level and will get plenty of opportunities to prove himself there (he might get picked at 10 ahead of Barrett again), but right now, he's not there yet.
I don’t mind that either.
Just on Barrett, he served a fairly long apprenticeship having Carter and Cruden in the squad. He was used off the bench in 20 of his first 23 tests, with starts against Italy, Japan and Argentina. Many of those as a fullback replacement too.
Sometimes it’s more about timing and who else is around that largely determines a player’s fate.
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@Kirwan Yeah perhaps - we'll never know of course - but my point in response to Nepia is that in attempting to combat England, the Barrett selection was more knee-jerk and about attempting to out-England them than replacing Cane with Savea was.
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@Stargazer said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@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.
Let me think why it didn't work...
.. the initials A,C & L seem to ring a bell
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@Kirwan said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@KiwiMurph said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
It's one of the issues I had with Hansen. He delayed bringing Mo'unga into the AB fray. Mounga won a Super title at 10 in 2017 - he should have been in the AB squad in 2017.
He got delayed because he had holes in his game, and BB had less.
ABs still need to pick their best players to win Tests.
Even in the semi we were hiding Mounga from his channel and it cost us dearly.
It’s up to the player to fix those issues and leapfrog the other player. BB had to fix his defence to start regularly why shouldn’t RM have had to?
Hopefully he has, as after BB and RM is a steep drop off.
I wasn't talking about instead of BB. I meant the AB squad at all - he wasn't including in the ABs at all in 2017 except for that ABs midweek game vs France XV where they included anyone they could find (heck Hansen even picked Akira for that game).
On the end of year tour 2017 they selected two 10s BB and Lima only despite Lima's form trending downwards throughout 2017 (including a really bad performance as 10 in the 3rd Bledisloe in Brisbane).
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@KiwiMurph said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Kirwan said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@KiwiMurph said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
It's one of the issues I had with Hansen. He delayed bringing Mo'unga into the AB fray. Mounga won a Super title at 10 in 2017 - he should have been in the AB squad in 2017.
He got delayed because he had holes in his game, and BB had less.
ABs still need to pick their best players to win Tests.
Even in the semi we were hiding Mounga from his channel and it cost us dearly.
It’s up to the player to fix those issues and leapfrog the other player. BB had to fix his defence to start regularly why shouldn’t RM have had to?
Hopefully he has, as after BB and RM is a steep drop off.
I wasn't talking about instead of BB. I meant the AB squad at all - he wasn't including in the ABs at all in 2017 except for that ABs midweek game vs France XV where they included anyone they could find (heck Hansen even picked Akira for that game).
On the end of year tour 2017 they selected two 10s BB and Lima only despite Lima's form trending downwards throughout 2017 (including a really bad performance as 10 in the 3rd Bledisloe in Brisbane).
Ahh, Lima. Talk about starting from the manor born. Showed you can hit the ground running from the start, but he didn’t maintain it.
Shame he left so early too. Am sure if they knew he was going to leave they would punted on RM, but who knows!
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@Kirwan said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@KiwiMurph said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
It's one of the issues I had with Hansen. He delayed bringing Mo'unga into the AB fray. Mounga won a Super title at 10 in 2017 - he should have been in the AB squad in 2017.
He got delayed because he had holes in his game, and BB had less.
ABs still need to pick their best players to win Tests.
Even in the semi we were hiding Mounga from his channel and it cost us dearly.
It’s up to the player to fix those issues and leapfrog the other player. BB had to fix his defence to start regularly why shouldn’t RM have had to?
Hopefully he has, as after BB and RM is a steep drop off.
Let's not forget that BB was the reigning World Rugby POTY at the time. It's not like we needed to find a new 10 at hat stage
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@shark said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Nepia said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@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.
Less so the benching of Cane than the selection of Barrett at 6 in order to counter England's line-out strength. Maybe Cane was collateral damage in that scenario, but do you seriously think an openside flankers' somewhat fabled tackling ability was going to make the difference? Nooo.
Lol this is joe post, right? You're seriously saying in a match where the opposition regularly gained metres and smashed us in the breakdown - which were significant contributors to the result - that having a better tackler on the field wouldn't have helped?
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@shark said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Nepia said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@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.
Less so the benching of Cane than the selection of Barrett at 6 in order to counter England's line-out strength. Maybe Cane was collateral damage in that scenario, but do you seriously think an openside flankers' somewhat fabled tackling ability was going to make the difference? Nooo.
Selection of Barrett over Cane is kinda the same thing.
Whilst I agree Cane's tackling ability has taken on mystical proportions I do think his presence in the SF would have made a difference.
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@booboo said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@shark said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Nepia said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@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.
Less so the benching of Cane than the selection of Barrett at 6 in order to counter England's line-out strength. Maybe Cane was collateral damage in that scenario, but do you seriously think an openside flankers' somewhat fabled tackling ability was going to make the difference? Nooo.
Selection of Barrett over Cane is kinda the same thing
Whilst I agree Cane's tackling ability has taken on mystical proportions I do think his presence in the SF would have made a difference.
I don’t think it was. I think (and wrongly IMO) they focused on the lineout concerns first and it was just a straight call between Ardie and Cane. The Whitelock / Retallick / Barrett trio seemed in stone. Captain at 8.
Again I think they misread it but that’s from my armchair 😎
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@ACT-Crusader said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@booboo said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@shark said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@Nepia said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@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.
Less so the benching of Cane than the selection of Barrett at 6 in order to counter England's line-out strength. Maybe Cane was collateral damage in that scenario, but do you seriously think an openside flankers' somewhat fabled tackling ability was going to make the difference? Nooo.
Selection of Barrett over Cane is kinda the same thing
Whilst I agree Cane's tackling ability has taken on mystical proportions I do think his presence in the SF would have made a difference.
I don’t think it was. I think (and wrongly IMO) they focused on the lineout concerns first and it was just a straight call between Ardie and Cane. The Whitelock / Retallick / Barrett trio seemed in stone. Captain at 8.
Again I think they misread it but that’s from my armchair 😎
This is spot on, think I said the same in another post. The core of losing this game was Whitelock/Retallick/Read coming up empty. Ardie was probably our most consistent forward last year he was always going to win the head to head with Cane. Having Savea and Cane on the field at the same time was a pretty inspired decison and it had worked so well in the previous games, I just think Hansen outsmarted himself, but was not the losing of the game.
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@ACT-Crusader said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
they focused on the lineout concerns first
Yet did little to utilise the advantage of selecting an extra lock.
Appeared we were gonna target thier line-out, but didn't, were we being trying to be tricky?
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@taniwharugby said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@ACT-Crusader said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
they focused on the lineout concerns first
Yet did little to utilise the advantage of selecting an extra lock.
Appeared we were gonna target thier line-out, but didn't, were we being trying to be tricky?
It’s basically all Scott Barrett’s fault for only providing height, he should have played a lot more like Savea AND Cane as well.
I put the blame solely on him.
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@MN5 said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@taniwharugby said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@ACT-Crusader said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
they focused on the lineout concerns first
Yet did little to utilise the advantage of selecting an extra lock.
Appeared we were gonna target thier line-out, but didn't, were we being trying to be tricky?
It’s basically all Scott Barrett’s fault for only providing height, he should have played a lot more like Savea AND Cane as well.
I put the blame solely on him.
07 was his fault too
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@Machpants said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@MN5 said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@taniwharugby said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
@ACT-Crusader said in The Cane vs Savea Debate:
they focused on the lineout concerns first
Yet did little to utilise the advantage of selecting an extra lock.
Appeared we were gonna target thier line-out, but didn't, were we being trying to be tricky?
It’s basically all Scott Barrett’s fault for only providing height, he should have played a lot more like Savea AND Cane as well.
I put the blame solely on him.
07 was his fault too
no, that was Leon MacDonald's. So was 2003.
I haven't worked out which Crusader to pin '99 on, but '95 was Mehrts.
