All Blacks 2021
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@canes4life said in All Blacks 2021:
@crucial I disagree, when TJ is on form he's easily the second best halfback in the country. He also offers a point of difference being a bigger halfback than the top three options currently.
On the other hand I think they shouldn't have selected TJ until he showed form for Wellington in the NPC. I'm not one for giving a player their jersey back so freely when they decided to chase the $$ in Japan, no matter who they are.
I think that’s the point though. TJ wasn’t playing that well when he left and he’s come back looking like an aids victim.
If he’s still the second best in the country he needs to show it -
@crucial exactly, I don't care who the player is, an All Black jersey to me needs to be earned whether you've played 1 test or 100. He's been away from NZ and to me he needs to show good form before he's selected again. I said the same thing with Beaudy and Brodie but unfortunately we just don't have enough world-class players in those areas to ease them back in.
@Kirwan for sure but I think he can get back to his best if he doesn't clutter his game. Will see what happens I guess.
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@dagrubster said in All Blacks 2021:
Then I wondered whether it’s because of our set up? Hansen’s last gig as a head coach was 2003 before taking the reins in 2012. Foster’s last gig as a head coach was 2010.
Is being an asst coaches for so long in an All Blacks environment really the best preparation for leading the All Blacks?
It seems very insular in its thinking to me that we have coaches wrapped up in a largely All Black winning bubble, for a long period of time, and then expect them to keep ahead of the rest of the world.Great post, I actually had this thought recently, to succeed in nearly any discipline requires practice and experience doing the thing you need to improve.
I do wonder how you can be the best coach if you only coach a handful of games each year. What coaching skills do they do for the rest of the year?
I would be curious to know how many games Tony Brown has coached in the last 2 years compared to Foster and if this has any impact on your ability to be a good coach.
In saying that Hansen was part of the AB setup for a long time and had amazing success.
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@canes4life said in All Blacks 2021:
@crucial I disagree, when TJ is on form he's easily the second best halfback in the country. He also offers a point of difference being a bigger halfback than the top three options currently.
Foster's comments about TJP on the news last night were interesting, and a fair criticism of him. That is, they wanted to see an improvement in the speed he gets to the breakdown and his passing. We're used to Smith's service and when TJP took the field it was like the hand-break was on.
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@chimoaus said in All Blacks 2021:
I would be curious to know how many games Tony Brown has coached in the last 2 years compared to Foster and if this has any impact on your ability to be a good coach.
ABs will play 15 games this year, plus have time in camp outside that. They are effectively another team...
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To me ABs look better placed going into round 1 TRC this year than last year.
If you look at the likely AB starting XV for Bledisloe 1 it looks stronger than the same team for Bledisloe 1 last year with the exception of loosehead prop. Compare the outside back 3, midfield, loosies, locks.
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@nzzp said in All Blacks 2021:
@chimoaus said in All Blacks 2021:
I would be curious to know how many games Tony Brown has coached in the last 2 years compared to Foster and if this has any impact on your ability to be a good coach.
ABs will play 15 games this year, plus have time in camp outside that. They are effectively another team...
its not even a rep team anymore, A smith might actually play more games for the AB's this year than super games
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TJP is a bit feisty, isn't he? Hopefully, that transfers onto the field. Not sure he deserves his place based on his 2020 form but he had some work-ons from the coaches to do in Japan, didn't he? He is a really good player so hopefully he can get his halfback skills up and running.
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@old-samurai-jack said in All Blacks 2021:
TJP is a bit feisty, isn't he?
He's a half back - being a feisty gobby shite is part of the job descrption!
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@dagrubster Spot on. Great analysis. Best post I've read on the Fern in a wee while. Thank you!
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@kiwimurph said in All Blacks 2021:
To me ABs look better placed going into round 1 TRC this year than last year.
If you look at the likely AB starting XV for Bledisloe 1 it looks stronger than the same team for Bledisloe 1 last year with the exception of loosehead prop. Compare the outside back 3, midfield, loosies, locks.
Don't disagree, but the first 25-30 minutes of Fiji 2 show the weaknesses of this side. Our skills execution is patchy, and our lineout was terrible. I hope we show up and smash them, but if we don't go well, I suspect we'll see the same again from this side
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@booboo said in All Blacks 2021:
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2021:
@bones said in All Blacks 2021:
@kiwimurph Jesus what a shit show. I guess Fozzie thought what's good for the goose and decided to air his opinion publicly too. But probably a pretty poor option when you've just selected that guy in your team. Fucken hell.
Was a terrible decision by Foster. No winners are ever going to come out of that. Best you get is throwing a senior all black under the bus.
Molehill, meet mountain
It is an unusual u-turn for Foster and his "coaching" team, normally they prefer to select man-mountains and turn them into molehills.
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On a more serious note, the 'let them bash us up and then we will fix it for the second game' mentality has been happening since we've been playing Deans (anybody remember him?) so I think it was even pre-Foster. But I can't tell you how the coaching has greatly changed not just since Foster took over but also when he joined, (well perhaps some position / selection decisions are more farcical) so I'd also question whether continuity has actually been good for the ABs.
But yeah, I wonder where all the strategy/ideas are, we seem to have some for key games then let the other team bash us up every second or third game...Rope-a-dope? Wrong sport to try it in the knockout part of a RWC...As a point of difference though perhaps the forwards are as good as they can be and our real bone of contention should be the increasingly hit and miss backline? Because there we really should have enough talent. For knockout RWC games, apart from not picking Cane to start, and playing a non-specialist 6 against England in 2019 (and check out all the still-familiar names https://www.allblacks.com/news/all-blacks-team-named-for-semifinal-against-england/), was there much the coaches could do? Were there other forwards who could have/should have saved the day? From memory Jacobson was picked to be at 6 (but injured) not 8 so we didn't really have an alternative for Read, A Ioane was out of favour, in the backs R Ioane was out of favour (I think)...we perhaps don't really have depth in the forwards regardless of coaching...
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@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2021:
was there much the coaches could do? Were there other forwards who could have/should have saved the day?
Losing Luatua overseas a couple of years earlier by selecting Elliot Dixon and Jordan Taufua over him comes to mind...
In the 6 jersey post RWC 2015 behind Kaino they basically put all their eggs in the Squire basket and then couldn't land on an alternative option - they selected a whole bunch of people but for a variety of reasons (sometimes injury) these players never ended up decent game time (Evans, Akira, Taufua, Dixon, Jacobson, Frizell, L Whitelock etc etc).
Basically the same story with Read and the 8 jersey (though more understandable as he was captain).
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@kiwimurph thanks for that, a name I forgot. I liked Luatua (and Vito, but perhaps he was going to leave anyway), and I think they have done ok overseas but not sure they would have made a huge difference. We are light in depth in props (who can scrum and make metres) and locking depth (here is hoping Retallick gets back up to speed, Whitelock can't do everything on his own and the miles on the clock would slow down a lesser mortal)..
Edit: and yes I never quite saw a longterm option in Squire, he was also a bit of a penalty magnet as I recall..
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As far as props go one guy I would like them to try is alex fidow. Dont play him but bring him into the squad to learn of some of the best. He offers something no others do. If they/ someone can teach him how to scrum he could become a weapon.
Having Franks next year hopefully will help tho...
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@mackerzzzz surely the likes of Norris, de Groot, Williams coming through are more worth putting work into?
