All Blacks vs Fiji
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@Bones said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
Tosi made almost as many tackles as Blackadder, Blackadder accounts for almost 20% of missed tackles.
Yeah he had a great game.
Or, attempted more tackles than anyone else - despite lacking match fitness and 'couldn't keep up', 'struggled with the pace'.
Meanwhile Proctor misses 3 and is the messiah who needs to urgently replace one of our best players from the WC (and I say that as a long time Ioane doubter). -
Bladder was mixed out there. Not a 7 at all. His lines were poor - usually coming in the side of the ruck. Struggled to find people to tackle. Can see why you'd consider him at 6, but at 7 it's a strong no thanks from me. Our loosies are not setting the world on fire and just seem unbalanced.
Separately, folk need to slow down a bit on reaching conclusions for the backs in particular. They got time and space you don't get against good teams. ALB (who's excellent generally) looked like the second coming of Cullen. That will not map across to a team that pressures us with rush defence.
All of our weaknesses seemed to be there still; lineouts (Aumua much improved), exits, kicking, carrying in the tight. It looks easy against a side that misses 55 tackles, but I'd be very cautious of assuming we've cracked the issues that have plagued us for so long. If you were coaching against this AB side you'd be running a simple game plan based on rush defence, kicking and contesting lineouts making us try to exit.
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@nzzp said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
All of our weaknesses seemed to be there still; lineouts (Aumua much improved), exits, kicking, carrying in the tight. It looks easy against a side that misses 55 tackles, but I'd be very cautious of assuming we've cracked the issues that have plagued us for so long. If you were coaching against this AB side you'd be running a simple game plan based on rush defence, kicking and contesting lineouts making us try to exit.
I thought we contested lineout in England 2 and this test not too badly.
Exits were pretty good in Fiji test. DMac was getting excellent distance more so than Auckland.
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@ACT-Crusader McKenzie exits fine. Better than Mo'unga and Barrett (B), so that is a clear improvement from last year. Perofeta is only okay, and the wingers Telea, Reece, Clarke are not good. Narawa has a long boot, I think? but is down the pecking order by the looks. Jordie can obviously kick it a long way.
McKenzie dropping back to do most of it makes sense, but it inevitably turns into forceback a fair bit, and if he has to chase a kick then we get left with Perofeta/Telea/Reece returning fire. Might be able to adjust the tactics slightly so that Jordie drops as the other option. -
I have a sneaky feeling the coaches/selectors are going to be fairly happy with Blackadder's game. A few plays went though him, either off the lineout or out the back of the ruck and he was pretty accurate in what he was required to do. He was on hand to support the ball carrier a fair bit as they went into contact, and he was a general nuisance at ruck time. He didn't show he was the second coming, but none of the 6.5s have screamed 'pick me' or 'drop me', and Blackadder is no exception.
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@Crazy-Horse exactly this. better link play than anyone else has shown so far.
Although I guess if link play was a priority then you'd pick Hoskins. -
@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@Crazy-Horse exactly this. better link play than anyone else has shown so far.
Although I guess if link play was a priority then you'd pick Hoskins.You mean at 6 not loosies per se? As Ardie links best...
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@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@Bones said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
Tosi made almost as many tackles as Blackadder, Blackadder accounts for almost 20% of missed tackles.
Yeah he had a great game.
Or, attempted more tackles than anyone else - despite lacking match fitness and 'couldn't keep up', 'struggled with the pace'.
Meanwhile Proctor misses 3 and is the messiah who needs to urgently replace one of our best players from the WC (and I say that as a long time Ioane doubter).Read into those stats all you like but a couple of those misses weren't necessarily one on one misses. Proctor put himself into a few situations where, because of his high work rate off the ball he made a couple lunges on the next player out after covering the guy he was marking up on. Maybe he shouldn't have made those attempts and let the player who was meant to be covering those guys take the hit, but that's the sort of player Proctor is, he always pushes hard.
He's the best defensive centre in NZ and that's the biggest reason he's been picked.
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@Crazy-Horse said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
I have a sneaky feeling the coaches/selectors are going to be fairly happy with Blackadder's game. A few plays went though him, either off the lineout or out the back of the ruck and he was pretty accurate in what he was required to do. He was on hand to support the ball carrier a fair bit as they went into contact, and he was a general nuisance at ruck time. He didn't show he was the second coming, but none of the 6.5s have screamed 'pick me' or 'drop me', and Blackadder is no exception.
Here’s Richard Knowler from Stuff.co.nz’s views on Todds son….just in case the previous superlatives weren’t silly enough.
“Ethan Blackadder was his typical robust self when he started at openside flanker against Fiji; he was uncompromising and worked like Sisyphus repeatedly rolling a big pebble up and down the hill.
Blackadder can also play at No 6, and it could yet be his best position for the All Blacks” -
One positive this year is DMac is a clear upgrade on Mo'unga. We just need to find a suitable backup now.
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@No-Quarter said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
One positive this year is DMac is a clear upgrade on Mo'unga. We just need to find a suitable backup now.
The Cantabs are too busy with their shields up for Blackadder to take this bait.
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@nostrildamus said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@Crazy-Horse exactly this. better link play than anyone else has shown so far.
Although I guess if link play was a priority then you'd pick Hoskins.You mean at 6 not loosies per se? As Ardie links best...
No, I mean all the loosies, in the 3 tests so far this year. Not that surprising for Dalton, Jacobson, Finau.
Savea was very good in the WC, he hasn't been very good this year (yet, hopefully).The other thing Blackadder tried a few times was running a hard line one off the ruck at pace. The halfback didn't give him the ball, but thought it was worth noting due to the (correct) whinge some were making about our runners in the previous tests being static.
I don't think he was amazing or anything, just that it was a solid first outing for a while and he showed a few things that his other loosies have not this year. Honestly I'd barely give the performance two sentences if it weren't for all the absurdly negative comments on here. Bloke was picked despite injuries and it's a reasonable argument that he shouldn't have been - but that's on the selectors, not him.
And I'm not a Crusaders person.
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I personally am struggling to see why anyone would even think Ioane on the wing. I know he used to be good there, but hasn't played there for a few years that I can recall, and so we picking people on what they did 3-4 years ago is fraught with problems to me.
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@Dan54 said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
I personally am struggling to see why anyone would even think Ioane on the wing. I know he used to be good there, but hasn't played there for a few years that I can recall, and so we picking people on what they did 3-4 years ago is fraught with problems to me.
also....we dont need wings, we have a few very string options
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@Dan54 said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
I personally am struggling to see why anyone would even think Ioane on the wing. I know he used to be good there, but hasn't played there for a few years that I can recall, and so we picking people on what they did 3-4 years ago is fraught with problems to me.
Fine, we'll put him on the bench then.
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@Canes4life said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@Bones said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
Tosi made almost as many tackles as Blackadder, Blackadder accounts for almost 20% of missed tackles.
Yeah he had a great game.
Or, attempted more tackles than anyone else - despite lacking match fitness and 'couldn't keep up', 'struggled with the pace'.
Meanwhile Proctor misses 3 and is the messiah who needs to urgently replace one of our best players from the WC (and I say that as a long time Ioane doubter).Read into those stats all you like but a couple of those misses weren't necessarily one on one misses. Proctor put himself into a few situations where, because of his high work rate off the ball he made a couple lunges on the next player out after covering the guy he was marking up on. Maybe he shouldn't have made those attempts and let the player who was meant to be covering those guys take the hit, but that's the sort of player Proctor is, he always pushes hard.
He's the best defensive centre in NZ and that's the biggest reason he's been picked.
He got easily stepped and beaten in the last play of the game.
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@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@Bones said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
Tosi made almost as many tackles as Blackadder, Blackadder accounts for almost 20% of missed tackles.
Yeah he had a great game.
Or, attempted more tackles than anyone else - despite lacking match fitness and 'couldn't keep up', 'struggled with the pace'.
Meanwhile Proctor misses 3 and is the messiah who needs to urgently replace one of our best players from the WC (and I say that as a long time Ioane doubter).Proctor was on debut and also not selected in the squad when not even fit ahead of guys in brilliant form.
I expect a lot more from a guy who gets put on such a pedestal that he's even allowed to work his way back to fitness from a starting position in the ABs when there's already fit guys that have shown just as much in black.
But yeah, he plays for the crusaders I guess.
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@Crazy-Horse No worries mate, as I said, I just don't get the wing thing is all. No worries if he on bench or whatever.
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@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@Canes4life said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
@Bones said in All Blacks vs Fiji:
Tosi made almost as many tackles as Blackadder, Blackadder accounts for almost 20% of missed tackles.
Yeah he had a great game.
Or, attempted more tackles than anyone else - despite lacking match fitness and 'couldn't keep up', 'struggled with the pace'.
Meanwhile Proctor misses 3 and is the messiah who needs to urgently replace one of our best players from the WC (and I say that as a long time Ioane doubter).Read into those stats all you like but a couple of those misses weren't necessarily one on one misses. Proctor put himself into a few situations where, because of his high work rate off the ball he made a couple lunges on the next player out after covering the guy he was marking up on. Maybe he shouldn't have made those attempts and let the player who was meant to be covering those guys take the hit, but that's the sort of player Proctor is, he always pushes hard.
He's the best defensive centre in NZ and that's the biggest reason he's been picked.
He got easily stepped and beaten in the last play of the game.
What, the last play where he managed to nab back possession anyway? You’re really knit picking his performance.
It think it was quite refreshing to have a centre actually executing the core skills of a centre.
