Who is to blame?
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NZH Paywall, posted cos the numbers back up my feeling around the ABs. Although I would've gone back to Hansen failing with the Lions and not moving on as originally planned.
Tri-Nations rugby: Gregor Paul - The moment the era of All Blacks dominance ended
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The numbers are starting to tell the story that a great All Blacks era has come to an end. If it feels that the team are struggling to win with the same conviction and regularity as they used to, it's because they are. If it feels like the decline began after the All Blacks lost an entirely winnable test against South Africa in 2018, it's because it did. The numbers produced in the last 20 tests are confirming what has been apparent for the better part of two years now – which is that the All Blacks are experiencing a slow erosion of greatness.
Between late 2009 and September 2018 they produced scarcely believable figures. They were winning 90 per cent of their tests – never lost consecutively and found the most remarkable ways to salvage tests they had no business winning. After losing to South Africa in Hamilton 2009, the All Blacks embarked upon a decade of excellence. Three times in the next four years they came within a whisker of setting a record for consecutive test victories before they finally did it in 2016. In that whole period between the defeats to South Africa in 2009 and the loss in Wellington in 2018, the All Blacks won 108 of 120 tests which meant they were undefeated 91 per cent of the time they played.
The record since the All Blacks lost to South Africa in 2018 is a long way off that. They have played 23 tests, lost five and drawn three. Their win ratio is 65 per cent and if we narrow the focus further and look at it since they lost to Ireland in November 2018, it is slightly lower again. We have to go back to 2008-2009 to find a similar data set to the one produced since November 2018. In 2008 the All Blacks lost consecutive tests in the Tri-Nations and then the following year, they lost to France in Dunedin before losing three times to South Africa. Statistically, at least, it feels as if we are back in a similar zone to the one in 2009 and yet the potential of the current team and some of the rugby they have produced hints at them being a legacy generation.
The All Blacks of 2009 were held together by Richie McCaw, Ma'a Nonu, Conrad Smith, Mils Muliaina and an emerging Kieran Read with a fully restored Daniel Carter dragging them out of mediocrity when he returned from injury later in the year. The potential of that team was hard to see in 2009 and it took the arrival of Owen Franks, Sam Whitelock and the renewed confidence of Jerome Kaino to transform the pack and the selections of Israel Dagg and Cory Jane to give the backs the range of skills they needed to start ripping teams apart. The potential of the current team seems infinitely higher and easier to pick. The results haven't been great and allude to this being a team in decline but maybe it's a case of a team being rebuilt and having been through the difficult process of learning how to win tight games by a process of losing them first.
The All Blacks have been in transition since the middle of 2018. They started to see a handful of players such as Ben Smith, Owen Franks, Ryan Crotty and Sonny Bill Williams regress and the new ones such as Jack Goodhue, Richie Mo'unga, Nepo Laulala and Jordie Barrett battle to find their way into test football. Because of form and injury, they had to chop and change their set-up, never quite sure of their preferred line-up, with the picture further muddied by the fact they were short of a genuine blindside.
The defeat in Brisbane was one of the poorer All Blacks displays of the last two years such was the lack of control, patience and discipline and as much as that illustrates a lack of maturity and mental resilience, it also highlighted that the selectors had overdone the changes in regards to the personnel. And paradoxically, while that cost the All Blacks in Brisbane, it will presumably have the longer term benefit of having established what the first team now looks like and has paved the way for Ian Foster to spend the next three years refining it and building their individual and collective experience.
So the question is whether the numbers point to the nadir having been reached and the future being considerably brighter than it may seem or whether the All Blacks are still in the midst of a decline that has some way to go yet before the collective experience is built to the point where they can win more regularly than they currently are.
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And, like a lot of us here, RP agree that TJ was a large part to blame. I am a BIG fan of TJ but fuck me he's been going from game winner for the the Canes to gameplan fucker upper ffor the ABs over the last year or so
Replacing Aaron Smith with TJ Perenara put the All Blacks' backline at a massive disadvantage
I greatly admire Perenara. I haven’t always, but you can’t deny the man’s work-ethic and combativeness. He might not be the most talented player in the world, but few try harder.
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@nzzp said in Who is to blame?:
@No-Quarter said in Who is to blame?:
Overall I think we are still very vulnerable and we don't react particularly well when things aren't going our way. I think teams will back themselves to play basic, aggressive rugby and wait for us to start making mistakes
That is hard to do well for 80 minutes though. Accurate rush defences are bloody hard to break down, but hard to get right. I hope someone will find a way of unlocking them, and it'll be attack happy again, with good rugby being rewarded.
I still think it's Lions 1 - slashing diagonal runs near the base of the breakdown that'll get them. Have supporters, just make the defence go up and back, upd and back
Yep that shooter has to work pretty hard to keep going up and back when he's not the one making a tackle. Eventually, he's likely to find himself offside and conceding points for his team.
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@mariner4life said in Who is to blame?:
@ACT-Crusader said in Who is to blame?:
@mariner4life said in Who is to blame?:
@ACT-Crusader said in Who is to blame?:
@Chris-B said in Who is to blame?:
@No-Quarter said in Who is to blame?:
@Bovidae said in Who is to blame?:
@No-Quarter said in Who is to blame?:
In terms of cards we came out better off. Reece committed an obvious professional foul on our 22 in the first half, just flopping on the ball and hanging onto it to stop them clearing. Similar to Koroibete but probably worse and got away with just a penalty.
I said before I'm not a fan of the card happy refs but it didn't end up benefiting Aus.
The red card situation definitely favoured Australia. They only lost Swinton but the ABs lost Ofa and Akira. The consequence of that was that Lomax played much more minutes than he was expected to, and faded in the 2nd half, and it removed one of the better performing players through no fault of his own. Losing a front rower to a red card early in a game is always a double whammy.
That's a fair point. Though we didn't have to lose Akira. We just went with the cookie cutter "sub off your 6 if you lose a front rower" despite Akira being one of our most effective players on the park.
Teams train to play without a 6 though and I'm pretty sure it's been clearly thought through that that is where you can best hide the gap.
I guess you could have chosen Ardie instead, but that would be losing one of our best players over the past couple of years for a guy on debut who had had a bright 20 minutes.
I don't think it's a very valid argument.
And yes Sevu was having a stinker but you don’t replace a back in that circumstance unless you are willing to have a forward defend in the backline at set piece.
we took Kaino off for SBWs explosion against the Lions didn't we? That says pretty much everything.
Yep and Laumape came on.
no wonder we fucking lost.
actually, as another black mark on the many, many marks of TJP's career, if A Smith played 80 that day, we win.
And the week after too
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@Bones said in Who is to blame?:
@number9 said in Who is to blame?:
Same day travel to and from the ground does not help preparations. It is a question of mindset and regular patterns.Yeah Australia were much better prepared as a result of travelling to the ground on the same day...oh wait.
The red not taking control ffucked everything up, red and yellows sucked
Yeah Australia were much less fucked up as a result of having a different ref...oh wait. The ref was fine, quit whining.
[EDITED]
You have obviously never prepared for anything in your entire life.
The Blues play in Hamilton, they travel the night before if they just drove down the road to Edwn Park it does not mean the same thing .... [EDITED]
Now that ref had shit all control from the get go. The Sam Cane elbow to the head should have been a yellow based on how he he was dishing it out. Oh wait, he called push and shove.
[EDITED]
It is all about parity. The most telling was the red card on Ofa and Foster's decision to remove Akira and not Reece. Depowered the scrum and took away our dominace up front.
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@reprobate said in Who is to blame?:
I take it everyone suggesting taking a back off for Ofa played in the forwards then?
You cant play without a winger, unless you want to play the entire rest of the game inside your own 22.Bollocks imo. We have lose forwards like Ardie more than capable of covering the back field /wing when required.
Also
Eddie Jones’s forwards selection ploy 'quite weird', says Georgia captain
The Georgia captain, Merab Sharikadze, has described Eddie Jones’s ploy of selecting nine forwards as ‘quite weird’
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@number9 said in Who is to blame?:
@Bones said in Who is to blame?:
@number9 said in Who is to blame?:
Same day travel to and from the ground does not help preparations. It is a question of mindset and regular patterns.Yeah Australia were much better prepared as a result of travelling to the ground on the same day...oh wait.
The red not taking control ffucked everything up, red and yellows sucked
Yeah Australia were much less fucked up as a result of having a different ref...oh wait. The ref was fine, quit whining.
Yeah and oh wait your a tosser.
You have obviously never prepared for anything in your entire life.
The Blues play in Hamilton, they travel the night before if they just drove down the road to Edwn Park it does not mean the same thing .... dick head!
Now that ref had shit all control from the get go. The Sam Cane elbow to the head should have been a yellow based on how he he was dishing it out. Oh wait, he called push and shove.
Do you shower before you bang the misses???? Oh wait, your dog does. Dickhead.
It is all about parity. The most telling was the red card on Ofa and Foster's decision to remove Akira and not Reece. Depowered the scrum and took away our dominace up front.
*You’re
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@Catogrande surely it's also *dickhead?
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@Bones said in Who is to blame?:
@Catogrande surely it's also *dickhead?
No. A definite sentence albeit brief, so capital D is correct.
Wait. Are you suggesting that you’re a small d dickhead? If so apologies. You know best.
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@Catogrande one word, not two. Word economy.
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@raznomore said in Who is to blame?:
@number9 chill out mate it’s only Tuesday.
Fuck you, it’s Monday here and we all know Monday is shit. So yeah @Bones tosser and Dick head
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@Catogrande said in Who is to blame?:
@raznomore said in Who is to blame?:
@number9 chill out mate it’s only Tuesday.
Fuck you, it’s Monday here and we all know Monday is shit. So yeah @Bones tosser and Dick head
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@Catogrande said in Who is to blame?:
@raznomore said in Who is to blame?:
@number9 chill out mate it’s only Tuesday.
Fuck you, it’s Monday here and we all know Monday is shit. So yeah @Bones tosser and Dick head
What kind of posh prick showers once a week anyway?
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@Bones said in Who is to blame?:
@Catogrande said in Who is to blame?:
@raznomore said in Who is to blame?:
@number9 chill out mate it’s only Tuesday.
Fuck you, it’s Monday here and we all know Monday is shit. So yeah @Bones tosser and Dick head
What kind of posh prick showers once a week anyway?
I played rugby with a bloke like you. Awful muddy game but didn’t shower. Reason? “I had a bath this morning “. No wonder we get the rep as soap dodgers.
