All Blacks 2024
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
For me there are two types of players.
Those who have proven they can beat a top 5 team this year without Whitelock, Retallick, Smith etc.
And those who haven't.
Beat a top 5 side:
Ethan de Groot
Codie Taylor
Tyrel Lomax
Scott Barrett
Patrick Tuipulotu
Samipeni Finau
Dalton Papali'i
Ardie Savea
Finlay Christie
Damian McKenzie
Mark Tele'a
Jordie Barrett
Rieko Ioane
Sevu Reece
Stephen PerofetaAsafo Aumua
Ofa Tu'ungafasi
Fletcher Newell
Tupou Vaa'i
Luke Jacobson
Cortez Ratima
Anton Lienert-Brown
Beauden Barrett
TJ PerenaraApart from TJ who is moving on these are all keepers in my book. That team showed grit. There wasn't enough grit in those losses to the Puma's and the Boks.
Then there is promising:
Will Jordan
Caleb Clarke
Wallace Sititi
Pasilio Tosi
Tamaiti Williams
Sam Darry
Josh Lord
Noah Hotham
Billy ProctorThen there is promising but sick note so move on to someone more reliable:
Ethan Blackadder
How is Will Jordan only promising?....I do not understand the hate this bloke gets.
He is on course to be the top try scoring Allblack of all time.......while playing in a less than vintage bunch.
Imagine the amount tries he would have scored outside Carter, Nonu and Conrad, and with their pack giving him quick ball.
He has shown in both Bledisloes everything Barrett has not given us for 5 years.
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Jordan is promising as a test fullback. He didn't look great there initially earlier in the year and we haven't beaten a top 5 team with him at fullback.
He's also had some average games against the top teams on the wing. He can be a bit, dear I say it, mercurial.
If he were from Auckland people would call him a flat track bully.
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@brodean spot on.
Offensively great ball in hand.
But kicking, defense and even hard carries are not his visible strengths. That can change - Beauden Barrett was an absolute turnstile on defence when he started - but I am far from frothing over him at 15. He's a bit like Lelia Masaga - massive gifts going forward, but other weaknesses make him a brave choiced
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@nzzp said in All Blacks 2024:
@brodean spot on.
Offensively great ball in hand.
But kicking, defense and even hard carries are not his visible strengths. That can change - Beauden Barrett was an absolute turnstile on defence when he started - but I am far from frothing over him at 15. He's a bit like Lelia Masaga - massive gifts going forward, but other weaknesses make him a brave choiced
Masaga, Ouch!
He's a fair bit better than him, but Jordan's positioning has been really up and down - sometimes he's absolutely nowhere and at other times he's predicted play perfectly.
I'm not convinced about his kicking game which will get more important, and his ability to look for mismatches will get less likely to be successful against the better NH sides.
With him at FB there isn't an obvious wing/FB to provide help in the backfield - although, I guess we could just throw in Fihaki and problem solved
All in all, I'm still not completely sold on him at 15 - it's not clear to me yet that our best team has him at 15, especially when the other 14s look like absolute dogshit.
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2024:
Rassie is out thinking Razor right now. He realises how short the time is between RWCs, he realises a number of his senior players won't make it to the next cup. He's working hard to run the rule over his pool of young players, trying to work out who can step up, creating depth. Razor does not appear to be feeling the clock ticking, based on his selection policy to date
He has the benefit of not having a general public demand they win every game.
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Has Tele'a actually had a chance to start at 14 this year? I believe he's always been forced to play on the left wing which is not his natural side.
Him and Reece clearly have had issues under the high ball this year.
People have been bagging Tele'a but he has the highest amount of impacts per 80 minutes of any All Black this year. ( tries + try assists + clean breaks + offloads + defenders beaten + turnovers won + dominant tackles )
Apart from Narawa there isn't a 14 who has come close to his form in Super Rugby for years.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
Top 10 tackles per 80 minutes
17.24 Luke Jacobson
15.74 Ethan Blackadder
15.57 Asafo Aumua
14.24 Samipeni Finau
13.88 Sam Cane
13.57 Sam Darry
12.85 Dalton Papali'i
12.56 Ardie Savea
12.42 Codie Taylor
12.35 Ofa Tu'ungafasiI think Sititi has been brilliant. What I expected. However he doesn't have a high defensive workrate and he doesn't make big hits so is he actually good 'both sides of the ball'? Is the 'both sides of the ball' just a bunch of weasel words?
People have claimed Finau was poor and he did nothing but he has a high defensive workrate and puts in big hits. Now I'm not going to say that Finau should be there instead of Sititi but I do think Finau actually got a raw deal and as a traditional blindside he has more potential at test level at 6 than Sititi. I personally think Sititi is better suited to 8. I wouldn't mind seeing a trio of:
- Sititi 7. Savea 6. Finau
Sititi isn't a blindside - he's a number 8 but the coaching intellect of the All Blacks insists on playing him out of position. Watching him he looks like a natural 8.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
I don't get why people think Ardie has been poor?
Because I watch the games, not form my opinions on statistics from the window licking collective called rugbypass.
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You should watch the game more closely then. Even when he's not doing freakish things he still our best loose forward.
His freak game has often been hamstrung this year by picking tight forwards who can't get over the advantage line close in and picking 4 openside sized players for each game in the loose forwards but he still actually does more than any other loose forward.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
You should watch the game more closely then. Even when he's not doing freakish things he still our best loose forward.
His freak game has often been hamstrung this year by picking tight forwards who can't get over the advantage line close in and picking 4 openside sized players for each game in the loose forwards but he still actually does more than any other loose forward.
Nah, he hasn't been. Not as bad as some say, but not our best.
I'm not sure what his freak game is - but if it is ball running then that has been hamstrung very much by him dropping the damn thing half the time, and getting bundled into touch every so often to mix it up. -
@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
You should watch the game more closely then. Even when he's not doing freakish things he still our best loose forward.
His freak game has often been hamstrung this year by picking tight forwards who can't get over the advantage line close in and picking 4 openside sized players for each game in the loose forwards but he still actually does more than any other loose forward.
Who looked like a number 8 on thee weekend? Him or Sititi?
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His freak game is the World Rugby Player of the year level form.
We really only saw glimpses of that in Auckland against Argentina.
I know the player ratings aren't much to go by but I don't think I've seen anyone rate him lower than 6 this year and more often than not it's been 7, 8, 9.
He's not been as bad as people made out.
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I'm not saying Savea should be our No 8 but that doesn't mean he's played badly.
Sititi has been great but is unproven against top teams. He went missing in the physicality stakes in the SRP final and he got bullied a bit physically in SA so he still had some development in front of him.
There are people who are creaming their panties about Sititis form against the Wallabies and these are often the same people who said Akira Ioanes motm performances against Australia don't count.
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A game we lost and failed to score any tries - the first time since 2018?
Take that with a grain of salt. For me that game was a failure. We went backwards from the first test
Despite doing some good things and growing into that test he struggled with the physicality of that game.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
A game we lost and failed to score any tries - the first time since 2018?
Despite doing some good things and growing into that test he struggled with the physicality of that game?
Not as much as most of the experienced players, so I disagree he may be unproven, but prior games against top oppo is no gaurantee of later excellence.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
I'm not saying Savea should be our No 8 but that doesn't mean he's played badly.
Let's try this another way: Do you think he deserves to be the starting 8 based on form? Submissive tackling, ruck watching, terrible ball security, getting bundled into touch? This is not the same player that was a standout in the RWC last year. Surely form counts for something?
Sititi has been great but is unproven against top teams. He went missing in the physicality stakes in the SRP final and he got bullied a bit physically in SA so he still had some development in front of him.
He was playing an alien position.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
His freak game is the World Rugby Player of the year level form.
We really only saw glimpses of that in Auckland against Argentina.
I know the player ratings aren't much to go by but I don't think I've seen anyone rate him lower than 6 this year and more often than not it's been 7, 8, 9.
He's not been as bad as people made out.
He's been rubbish mate. His defense is appalling now. The soft try that Paisami scored in B1, the poor body height for McReight to score in B2 - when is the last time you saw him fold someone? He's all about the scrag to try and get a steal, more often than not costing us metres and putting nobody on their arse ever.
In attack he has also been very poor, he's lost the ball in contact repeatedly (3x in B1), and he's been bundled into touch and/or away from support more than once.
A steal and a few post-contact metres every game is not the performance I'm looking for from our number 8.
He should be dropped to the bench.
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Yeah Savea has made more tackles for the ABs than any other player this year. More dominant tackles than any other player and he also has the highest percentage of tackles completed at 98%.
I think you guys have some confirmation bias and recency bias happening here. You've formed an opinion, ignore the good stuff, and only focused on the bad stuff. Youre not remembering the rest of the year or his career.
He definitely should get a break.
