All Blacks Squad for France
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I think Todd's reliability and readiness counts against him, they know he can come in straight away and be useful so they will pick "potentially more potential" Savea over him. But quite frankly, how long before the Savea experiment just becomes another experiment? Has he really been improving at international level?
I do wonder about Ione-is he actually competing against Savea or Taufua? Frizell??
As to height, if Taufua is about Richie's height (who infrequently played 6 or 8 in emergency) that doesn't seem to be a problem to me, but given his low to the ground powerful frame perhaps 6 would be more suitable than 8 for Taufua? **Not sure how well he goes at the back of the scrum.
Am a bit sad not to see some of Ben Lam in action.
Also suspect NMS (one of my fave players) is a bit lucky, hopefully some of his speed has returned.. -
@bones said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@tim might have only been m4l but I thought I saw it a couple of times.
Wait on, i never said that.
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@98blueandgold said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@bovidae but Akira isn't competing against Him. He is a 6/lock, ABs obviously only see him as 8.
My point was that the AB selectors will always find something to justify the selection or omission of players that are not certain selections.
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@stargazer said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@mimic Different type of players, different teams, different roles. Stats only tell a small part of the story. People attach way too much importance to them. Where's that article of/about Wayne Smith about stats ....
Do they only count when they support your player? Couple of post showing nothing but meaningless lineout stats
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@chris-b said in All Blacks Squad for France:
If Jordie plays, then they could stick Mo'unga on the bench. If DMac is on the bench then he's presumably covering first five and fullback.
Fox strongly indicated that they see DMac filling the role BB used to under Carter, while acknowledging he isn't the finished article yet at 1st 5. Fox also made the point that DMac has been shifted to the wing if required.
I don't think you need to move BB to 15 just for the sake of it. The other thing I noticed Fox said was that some players may only get an opportunity if the series is won, so 2-0 heading into Dunners. They seem to know their preferred 23 for the 1st test.
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@bones said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@tim might have only been m4l but I thought I saw it a couple of times.
Wait on, i never said that.
You all look the same to me, sorry.
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@bovidae said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@chris-b said in All Blacks Squad for France:
If Jordie plays, then they could stick Mo'unga on the bench. If DMac is on the bench then he's presumably covering first five and fullback.
Fox strongly indicated that they see DMac filling the role BB used to under Carter, while acknowledging he isn't the finished article yet at 1st 5. Fox also made the point that DMac has been shifted to the wing if required.
Haha "not the finished product at 10". Understatement of the century.
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@stargazer said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@mimic Different type of players, different teams, different roles. Stats only tell a small part of the story. People attach way too much importance to them. Where's that article of/about Wayne Smith about stats ....
Do they only count when they support your player? Couple of post showing nothing but meaningless lineout stats
I only used those stats to show that they use certain players for line-outs, because that was the question asked.
I didn't post those stats to show whether they're any good at it. For that, they are indeed meaningless, because you don't know how many line-outs a team has had, where on the field the line-outs were taken, and how often that player was involved in the line-out.
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@bones said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@mn5 said in All Blacks Squad for France:
@tim said in All Blacks Squad for France:
Wynne Gray with some cutting insight:
Rugby has changed immensely since the 1987 RWC, the game we thought was fast then is very different from the one we see now.
Christ he's an old bore. He makes Phil Gifford look good.
Looking forward to seeing Frizell play cos I sure as shit haven't thus far.
Most surprising statement in the whole thread.
Your insults are as tired as they are predictable.
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@stargazer said in All Blacks Squad for France:
Feed the Backs: All Blacks squad naming special
What's up with JKs Mr Magoo glasses?
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Very Shelley Berman
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@machpants said in All Blacks Squad for France:
Just diggin the knife in!
Is it possible, with Akira joining the squad in the last EOYT, that he didn't impress the selectors in training/touring and they're seeing if his attitude etc has improved there? Juat a thought as to why. I have no idea how awesome Frizzell has been, only watch home Highlander games, but not read anything about how great he is up until very recently.
One thing which seems to have passed unnoticed here is that Akira is still only a boy of 22. The others are several years older. Suspect the ABs are playing the long game: based on JK he's got another 13 years in him!
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@machpants I thought it was simply because there was only room for 3 locks in the squad because they wanted to include an extra loosie?
Edited to add this article about the players that didn't make the squad:
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All Blacks coach Steve Hansen says his 2018 squad to face France next month has been the toughest to select of his career, due to the sheer number of quality players currently plying their trade in New Zealand. With today's 33 man squad announcement, a number of standout players from Super Rugby have been left out of Hansen's reckoning, including top try-scorer Ben Lam, as well as the consistent duo of Matt Todd and Akira Ioane just some of those to miss out. Speaking to media, Hansen spoke about the difficulties his selection group faced. "Most of them are tough (to pick) because we've got some talented people and we're always leaving somebody out that you wish you could put in," he said. "A guy like Luke Romano, he's been really solid for us over a number of years, so to ring him and tell him he's not in is difficult."
