All Blacks 2023
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I totally agree with this article. SB is not a six. The main problem is : if SB is not a six, then who will wear that jersey ? Finau is the form blindside but has no international experience, while Frizell and Jacobson are << to Ollivon, Doris and PSdT. If Blackadder stays fit, he could fill that role but a LF trio of EB, AS and SC is too smallish at the highest level. I would give Akira a last chance at the RC as he was outstanding against the Tahs. But it was only the Tahs ...
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How long have we been looking for a new Kaino or have had a settled 6 - let alone a settled 6/7/8 combination? Beggars belief.
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@Bones said in All Blacks 2023:
People bemoan the loss of Luatua, but I reckon someone that we really missed out on and was coming into his own was Hemopo. Reckon he could have been the exact player we wanted.
I like his game and he had good size to be a combo player if we needed. The limited (very limited) AB game time he got, he didn’t do anything that didn’t warrant a further look. Problem with his selection is IIRC he was only bought in as an injury cover and therefore went back down the pecking order.
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@ACT-Crusader said in All Blacks 2023:
@Bones said in All Blacks 2023:
People bemoan the loss of Luatua, but I reckon someone that we really missed out on and was coming into his own was Hemopo. Reckon he could have been the exact player we wanted.
I like his game and he had good size to be a combo player if we needed. The limited (very limited) AB game time he got, he didn’t do anything that didn’t warrant a further look. Problem with his selection is IIRC he was only bought in as an injury cover and therefore went back down the pecking order.
Ran great lines and consistently made metres, rarely went backwards, safe hands, busy and a solid defender on the fringes of the breakdown. Yes please.
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Two Cents paints a good picture of how all the halfbacks are tracking.
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@Canes4life as soon as he said he's looking at five players and only looking at one guy from each team I bowed out.
Hope Mitch Drummond wins.
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@Bones yeah Drummond is an odd one to be fair but the stats show who's in form. Fakatava probably hasn't played enough rugby this year to be in the frame.
I'd take Smith, Weber as the top 2 and then Roigard because he offers something different. I think if Perenara was fit and played this year, he'd be the third due to experience and that point of difference to those smaller halfbacks.
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@Victor-Meldrew In fairness between 2016-19, Liam Squire played 24 tests and was very good.
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@friedrugby said in All Blacks 2023:
@Victor-Meldrew In fairness between 2016-19, Liam Squire played 24 tests and was very good.
Fair to people who overrate Squire. A handful of good, a couple of very good, mostly "meh" like most of the other options since Kaino.
If he was very good then so is Ioane.
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@friedrugby said in All Blacks 2023:
@Victor-Meldrew In fairness between 2016-19, Liam Squire played 24 tests and was very good.
No he wasn't. He feasted on a Wallaby team that had a huge player exodus following RWC 2015 and a Bok team in shambles under Coetzee in 2016-17 til Rassie was parachuted in to save the day.
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@Bones What a load of nonsense. Squire was consistently awesome and started when fit, unlike Ioane who has been in and out because he has been everything but consistent. You say I overrate Frizell, Squire etc. you majorly overrate Akira Ioane.
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Cooked takes!! Get your cooked takes here!
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@Stargazer said in All Blacks 2023:
@Bones So
sportsforums, byyourdefinition, are repetitive?Yes.
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@friedrugby said in All Blacks 2023:
@Bones What a load of nonsense. Squire was consistently awesome and started when fit, unlike Ioane who has been in and out because he has been everything but consistent. You say I overrate Frizell, Squire etc. you majorly overrate Akira Ioane.
I think you're missing the point, I don't really rate Ioane at all. In fact, I rate him about as much as Squire. Someone wise once said "let's not rewrite history"....
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@KiwiMurph Haha if ever the term 'flat track bully' was to be used on someone, it was Liam Squire. You'd see him everywhere when the side was up by 40-50 points, but couldn't find him when the side really needed him to stand up.
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My abiding memory of Squire was the 2016(?) loss to Australia in Brisbane, where he barely hit a tackle, did nothing at the ruck, just stayed on the sideline and was just ghosted on the ruck fringe. Probably the worst AB performance I have seen. Well, outside of Frizell against Argentina in 2020.
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My take on squire ,
Although he was starting ,he felt like a project ,an unfinished product, the cupboard was a bit bare and they thought he had all the physical attributes they wanted and would develop as they went .
Then it started to become obvious the graph wasn’t really going up much
