All Blacks 2023
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Mark Reason today says the ABs need a revolution in the style of the French at the 2007 World Cup:
Reason, I think misses the point. Perhaps the real issue is not that the players need to rebel against the rules imposed on them by their coaches but more that they don’t really have a clear idea of what the regime expects.
With that in mind, it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that there is a lack of clarity in communication and that this reflects deep disagreement and division between Foster, Ryan and Schmidt about selection, strategy, substitutions and tactics.
Remember the latter two were forced on Foster by NZR both as a condition for him keeping his job and as a face-saving ploy by Mark Robinson. That resolution of the crisis in mid-2022 sparked a relief rally of sorts and a period of cohesion.
But the onset of the big dance in France - and the pressure that goes with it - may have exposed the strains in what was only really designed as a workaround and a quick managerial fix. You see that in business all the time when boards spare sacking a CEO by forcing a clumsy reshuffle over his head. For a while everyone plays nice, but the internal politicking inevitably kicks in, particularly when the boss has one foot out the door.
Likewise, while keeping his job against all the odds, Foster was so wounded and weakened by the events last year it would have better for the ABs had he been put out of his misery at that point. Instead we have this Twilight Zone regime. It’s a long goodbye reminiscent of ‘A Weekend at Bernie’s’ with Ryan and Schmidt eager to introduce new ideas but forced to drag around Fozzy’s corpse for show.
Yes, the ABs currently have issues with injuries and lack of depth. But the fact is all teams are suffering untimely injuries, France included. They haven’t turned into bad players overnight.
So I would wager that the fundamental cause of the ABs’ current malaise is a worsening split among the brains trust - division and distrust that was latent but which is now out in the open.
That in turn is poisoning the culture and showing up in the directionless, listless, hesitant on-field performances from a team that in other circumstances would have been much more competitive.
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Coles "He got up and had a bit of a yarn… those little bit of hard feelings have been put to bed. He cracked a joke in classic Steve fashion.
"It was cool to have him around, it was like he never left."
His tactics certainly haven't
Rugby World Cup: Dane Coles buries hatchet with Sir Steve Hansen after ex-All Blacks coach's Wallabies dalliance | Newshub
The former All Blacks coach made a beeline for Dane Coles at training.
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@His-Bobness exactly what I have been saying to my son after these last two matches.
It seems obvious to me because players don’t just overnight forget how to play. -
@His-Bobness If either of you is right, we're doomed!
Schmidt was already part of Fozzie's team as a selector, though - and coached the ABs vs Ireland when Fozzie had covid, so he's more-or-less a promotion from within.
Might go some way towards explaining how we ended up picking five wings, though - if somehow the selectors came to a deadlock that could be resolved only by "picking both".
I'm a bit more inclined to the theory that we've gone in underdone and weakened. Almost no-one played any NPC games - and where most of the other big teams played two warm-up games, we played only one - which was a disaster.
Everyone was pretty buoyant after the Rugby Championship, which gives plenty of reason for hope, but we did see what happened when we played a weakened starting XV vs Australia.
We haven't properly developed depth - I think because Fozzie was playing every match last year with the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head.
Seems we're now in the odd situation where they invested massively in Caleb Clarke, but he's probably the third choice left wing, supplanted by two rookies - with Big Leicester starved of opportunity last year - and no realistic alternative to Beauden, who is definitely not the player he was.
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I think we are overestimating the AB performance in the RC. We beat the Wallabies in Aussie but could only really get on top of them when they were down a player or two, and then struggled to overcome them in Dunedin. Sure we beat up the Boks in Auckland (for a part of the game), but the Boks were awful. Nothing went right for them and lots went right for us.
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@Crazy-Horse I'd disregard the Dunedin Aussie game as that was our B team. The first Aussie game, they were a bit of a rabble. I'd take the SA game with a huge grain of salt as they were severely underdone and we got very, very lucky with the high ball tactic.
So that leaves us with beating Argentina. Given how they just got easily beaten by what has been a pretty mediocre England playing with 14 men, I don't think the RC is really a cause for great optimism. -
@Crazy-Horse said in All Blacks 2023:
I think we are overestimating the AB performance in the RC. We beat the Wallabies in Aussie but could only really get on top of them when they were down a player or two, and then struggled to overcome them in Dunedin. Sure we beat up the Boks in Auckland (for a part of the game), but the Boks were awful. Nothing went right for them and lots went right for us.
agreed, ive been shocked how many people have been claiming the RC is the "true ABs" and the last four years an anomaly....rather than the more likely situations which is the opposite
@reprobate but in a RWC your B team is really important unless we think out best can play 7 games on the trot
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@Kiwiwomble Nah I don't reckon it is. Our C and D teams could put away Namibia and Uruguay - and our guys aren't going to be physically battered by those games. More space between games this year too.
What is important is being able to cope with injuries and have 1 or 2 players from the B team slot seamlessly into the A team - which is why that Dunedin game was such a wasted opportunity. -
@Chris-B Agree with you about Fozzy selecting players with a gun to his head, which is why you get the sense he has been trying to avoid losing games rather than seeking to win them. But that’s once again the legacy of a poor appointment by the NZR in the first place and a patch-up solution last year that has only prolonged the agony and satisfied no-one.
As to the RC and BC wins, it’s become rapidly evident that those games earlier in the year provided a misleading picture about where the ABs were at both physically and mentally. SA were underdone going into that Mt Smart game, having split their squad - just as we were underdone going into the WC warm-ups. The wheels have clearly fallen off the Argentine chariot under Cheika, while who knows where the Wallabies are at under Fast Eddie?
I also agree with you about Beauden Barrett being well past his prime. As others have pointed out, he seems to be very wary of another head knock (understandably) and his resulting hesitancy has defused one of the remaining AB traditional strengths, which is the counter-attack from the back.
Where there had been improvements in the forwards - the new front row of last year - appear to have been more Ryan’s doing than anything. But then those players - like DeGroot and Taukei'aho - appear to have subsequently lost their mojos.
To me, it looks like poor man management and talent development. And that in turn is a reflection, in my opinion at least, of the disaster that has been the Foster regime. The fish rots from the head down, and all that. At a wider level, though, the NZR itself has been managed disastrously. That may partly reflect that it is now a servant to two masters - in the NZ public and its private equity overlords at Silver Lake.
This is not to deny the other frequently cited contributing factors to the ABs’ relative demise - such as other powerhouses in France and Ireland and elsewhere catching up, the greater financial reserves in Europe, the growing depth of talent there and the drying up of the talent pipeline in NZ, as seen by the lack of U20 titles in recent years.
But successful management in any enterprise starts with focusing on what you can control. And I still think the NZR made a monumental error in bequeathing the head coaching role to Foster four years ago because it was his turn. We stopped innovating, we ran established talent into the ground and we burned up a generation of new talent with disastrous selection policies.
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@His-Bobness I may be clutching at straws, but I'm hoping Fozzie has just thrown caution to the wind and decided that his only hope of redemption is to win the whole shooting box - hence he's geared his whole campaign towards the play-offs.
He certainly hasn't prepared like the France game was a major priority - we went into that significantly underdone, but despite the result - we showed some positive signs in the first half. Hopefully the likes of de Groot and Taukei'aho come right with gametime - though Big Samisoni appears to have gone backwards this season.
With Beauden, unfortunately, I'm pretty sure its a case of Ilea acta est. I think the logical change at 15 is DMac (shifting Jordan involves too much other juggling), but they've barely tested that.
Prerry sure they are erring in preferring experience in the case of Christie over Roigard, but there's time to rectify that.
I guess all will be revealed on QF day. If we go out like a damp squib, Fozzie's era will be pretty much marked down as a disaster. Hopefully he can battle on to a shot at redemption
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Those expecting/hoping for significant change are in for disappointment. Chris's excellent latin saying is on the money. BB will play fullback, and do 60% of the first receiver stuff. The first choice we al identified months ago will play injury-permitting. We're going out at the quarter, and we can close this shitshow out.
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@Chris-B I admire your straw clutching (and your Julius Caesar reference!). Let’s agree then that Foz really is playing the long, long game and has a hidden reserve of smarts to even outfox the wily likes of Andy Farrell, Fabian Galthie and Rassie Erasmus.
If he pulls all that off - silences doubters like me - and coaches the ABs to win the whole thing, he may justly claim Wayne Smith’s title as Uber Professor of Rugby.
But let’s (carpe diem) and beat Italy first.
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2023:
Those expecting/hoping for significant change are in for disappointment. Chris's excellent latin saying is on the money. BB will play fullback, and do 60% of the first receiver stuff. The first choice we al identified months ago will play injury-permitting. We're going out at the quarter, and we can close this shitshow out.
I'm hoping for Roigard on the bench - and that they gave him the SA game gives me hope that he's in contention - otherwise, I reckon we can pretty much name the QF 23 barring injuries. I'm inclined to think Blackadder will leap over Jacobson and Papali'i to grab a bench spot, but I might be wrong there.
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@His-Bobness said in All Blacks 2023:
If he pulls all that off - silences doubters like me - and coaches the ABs to win the whole thing, he may justly claim Wayne Smith’s title as Uber Professor of Rugby.
how?! how can people be so willing for forget all the other shit, surely if he was to win the whole thing is more of a fluke, the weird draw/seeding and probably some individual moment of brilliance scaping home...hardly anything he's actually done, his whole game plan is kind of "dont have agame plan, vibe it out on the pitch"
@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2023:
He certainly hasn't prepared like the France game was a major priority - we went into that significantly underdone,
do we really think we have the ability to go from "significantly underdone" to knockout rugby winners in three games against teams like Namibia and Uruguay
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As much as I hate wishing injury on a player, I think our only chance of getting past the QF stage is for Christie and Beauden to get injured. Injury has been the greatest selector over the last 4 years under Foster and one can only hope that it will help us again over the next few weeks.
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@His-Bobness said in All Blacks 2023:
@Chris-B I admire your straw clutching (and your Julius Caesar reference!). Let’s agree then that Foz really is playing the long, long game and has a hidden reserve of smarts to even outfox the wily likes of Andy Farrell, Fabian Galthie and Rassie Erasmus.
If he pulls all that off - silences doubters like me - and coaches the ABs to win the whole thing, he may justly claim Wayne Smith’s title as Uber Professor of Rugby.
But let’s (carpe diem) and beat Italy first.
I didn't read all those Asterix books for nothing!
As earlier, I'm refusing to entertain the prospect of losing to Italy - I'm slightly concerned that if we don't make short work of them, the wily Galthie may spot an opportunity to engineer a final round result that gets rid of us. That would be a very French thing.
In the meantime, I'm going to continue with strong hopes, because at least I'll have an extra month of joy compared to those who've already sunk into despair!
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@akan004 said in All Blacks 2023:
As much as I hate wishing injury on a player, I think our only chance of getting past the QF stage is for Christie and Beauden to get injured. Injury has been the greatest selector over the last 4 years under Foster and one can only hope that it will help us again over the next few weeks.
With all due respect, Ginga and BB could both die in tragic cheese and/or baguette related accidents tommorrow and it probably won't change a thing. The issues run much deeper and wider than just the 15 and reserve 9.
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@Kiwiwomble I'm not
I've tried to be at least a bit pragmatic over the journey as i think there are some extenuating circumstances
2020 was just a fucked year
I don't think our players are as good as some do
Other teams have definitely got better
Super Rugby (both Aotearoa and Pacific) have been enormous handbrakes on our development (and that's before you throw in our attitude to it)But I'm pretty much done. Winning the WC would be a very pleasant surprise, and probably our best, and most unlikely, win ever. But we've been served up some pretty ordinary AB rugby over the past cycle. While some players have got better, there are no real signs of development across the squad. How many guys from 2019 are still there. And how many of them are any better? They weren't world beaters then FFS.
It's a shit show, and we are about to have a full reset akin to Ted's in 2004 when he had to rebuild a broken culture and a forward pack that couldn't compete.
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@Rancid-Schnitzel said in All Blacks 2023:
@akan004 said in All Blacks 2023:
As much as I hate wishing injury on a player, I think our only chance of getting past the QF stage is for Christie and Beauden to get injured. Injury has been the greatest selector over the last 4 years under Foster and one can only hope that it will help us again over the next few weeks.
With all due respect, Ginga and BB could both die in tragic cheese and/or baguette related accidents tommorrow and it probably won't change a thing. The issues run much deeper and wider than just the 15 and reserve 9.
At least Roigard off the bench and Jordan at fullback will give us a bit more punch on attack. Even with those changes we only have a low to moderate chance of winning our QF, and that's only if we get Ireland. We have no chance of beating the Boks.
