Possible All Blacks 2020
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@Old-Samurai-Jack said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
Could've had Superman on the wing during that England game and it would have been irrelevant. The ABs were being dominated at the set piece and breakdown. They were killing any chance of attack.
England started at 100 miles per hour, but after the first 30 or so minutes we did pull ourselves back into the game a bit, but seemed panicked and didn't look threatening due to errors. Credit to England they played out of their skins, but I can't help but feel some more attacking threats out wide would have helped a bit. Bridge is not a player that can open up a tight test, he's really just a safe pair of hands.
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@No-Quarter said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@Old-Samurai-Jack said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
Could've had Superman on the wing during that England game and it would have been irrelevant. The ABs were being dominated at the set piece and breakdown. They were killing any chance of attack.
England started at 100 miles per hour, but after the first 30 or so minutes we did pull ourselves back into the game a bit, but seemed panicked and didn't look threatening due to errors. Credit to England they played out of their skins, but I can't help but feel some more attacking threats out wide would have helped a bit. Bridge is not a player that can open up a tight test, he's really just a safe pair of hands.
Yep, unless he's already in space he never beats the first man.
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@No-Quarter said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
Bridge is not a player that can open up a tight test, he's really just a safe pair of hands.
An All Black winger should be able to beat players with footwork. He's a good player with plenty of speed who looks good on the end of a chain. I'm not convinced he has the skillset for tight spaces that other wingers have.
He is also really hesitant when it comes to backing himself on the outside. He cuts back in way too often.If his kicking game is good enough I think he would be a very good fullback. Unfortunately won't get the opportunity to play there at the Crusaders
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@No-Quarter said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@Old-Samurai-Jack said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
Could've had Superman on the wing during that England game and it would have been irrelevant. The ABs were being dominated at the set piece and breakdown. They were killing any chance of attack.
England started at 100 miles per hour, but after the first 30 or so minutes we did pull ourselves back into the game a bit, but seemed panicked and didn't look threatening due to errors.
At the end of the day, Hansen put our fate in the hands of a bunch of young backs.
Mo'unga 25, ALB 24, Goodhue 24, Bridge 24, Reece 22.
With the benefit of hindsight, I reckon he'd regret going away from his mantra of "Experience wins World Cups" and people like Cane, Crotty, Ben Smith and Reiko might feature in the starting selections - and Beaudy might shift into 10.
I wish someone in the media would ask him about the experience thing.
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@Chris-B said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@No-Quarter said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@Old-Samurai-Jack said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
Could've had Superman on the wing during that England game and it would have been irrelevant. The ABs were being dominated at the set piece and breakdown. They were killing any chance of attack.
England started at 100 miles per hour, but after the first 30 or so minutes we did pull ourselves back into the game a bit, but seemed panicked and didn't look threatening due to errors.
At the end of the day, Hansen put our fate in the hands of a bunch of young backs.
Mo'unga 25, ALB 24, Goodhue 24, Bridge 24, Reece 22.
With the benefit of hindsight, I reckon he'd regret going away from his mantra of "Experience wins World Cups" and people like Cane, Crotty, Ben Smith and Reiko might feature in the starting selections - and Beaudy might shift into 10.
I wish someone in the media would ask him about the experience thing.
Maybe but we were smashed up front, In the end it didn't matter what the backline was you win WC semi finals upfront.The result would have been the same.
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@Chris Maybe. But, if I could change one thing in that game it would have been Sam Whitelock's push on Farrell. With more experienced and calmer heads around him - maybe Sam would have shown more composure - and we'd have had a chance to be back in the game.
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@Chris-B said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@Chris Maybe. But, if I could change one thing in that game it would have been Sam Whitelock's push on Farrell. With more experienced and calmer heads around him - maybe Sam would have shown more composure - and we'd have had a chance to be back in the game.
bro. Really? i am all for an old fashioned pile-in, but blaming a bunch of 20 year old backs for one of our most senior players having a brain fade is drawing a fucking long bow.
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@mariner4life I'm not blaming them - but, I reckon if we'd had a more general level of calm then maybe that push doesn't happen.
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@Chris-B said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@mariner4life I'm not blaming them - but, I reckon if we'd had a more general level of calm then maybe that push doesn't happen.
nup, I'm not having that. SW is supposed to bring the calm. He's an experienced player who is also a captain. It's his job to rise above the storm and provide stability for the others to feed off, not the other way around.
I'll give you that, with hindsight, there was a distinct lack of leadership across the park. And that definitely had an effect. But i will not go so far as to forgive a leader for a boneheaded play.
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@Chris-B said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@No-Quarter said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@Old-Samurai-Jack said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
Could've had Superman on the wing during that England game and it would have been irrelevant. The ABs were being dominated at the set piece and breakdown. They were killing any chance of attack.
England started at 100 miles per hour, but after the first 30 or so minutes we did pull ourselves back into the game a bit, but seemed panicked and didn't look threatening due to errors.
At the end of the day, Hansen put our fate in the hands of a bunch of young backs.
Mo'unga 25, ALB 24, Goodhue 24, Bridge 24, Reece 22.
With the benefit of hindsight, I reckon he'd regret going away from his mantra of "Experience wins World Cups" and people like Cane, Crotty, Ben Smith and Reiko might feature in the starting selections - and Beaudy might shift into 10.
I wish someone in the media would ask him about the experience thing.
It's worth pointing out that he also benched Sam Cane, betting on us being able to disrupt their line out, rather than giving us a better balance with a loose forward trio that was finally starting to work together relatively well.
All in all, at the WC, they were guessing and betting on unproven players.
Foxy essentially said that Bridge would be starting at the WC a year beforehand, yet they never invested in giving him the experience to be really effective there. I assume they foresaw the kicking and though he would be their Corey Jane, but he's not that at all, and I think was unfairly put into the role without enough experience. I think the same of Mo'unga, who is world class, but is not a world class defender, and that was so was easily found out in that semi final, it wasn't even funny.
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@gt12 said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
It's worth pointing out that he also benched Sam Cane, betting on us being able to disrupt their line out
wasnt that just speculation, given we didn't target thier lineout (even though we should have)
It was the perfect storm of things that didnt work for us, and that did for England.
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Hindsight is a great thing. Bridge and Reece fully deserved to be picked ahead of Rieko and BFA at the time they were picked. At the time, it seemed the right decision. Especially Rieko hadn't shown anything to deserve a starting spot and BFA looked no more than a slow, old version of himself.
It's also funny how the RWC performance of some players seems to be judged mainly on the lost RWC semi-final, even after beating South Africa in the first pool game and Australia in Bledisloe 2. Selective memory is, of course, a thing on the Fern (esp if tribal support plays a role).
Also, as others have said, that semi-final was lost in the forwards, not backs. Maybe selecting more experienced players like Crotty and BFA would have helped, but I seriously doubt it. A better loose-forward mix would probably have had more impact, but we'll never know. Would we really have been able to match England's physicality with the mix of players that we had available? Was our game plan on point? The coaching? The mindset?
Anyway, this is all a regurgitation of the old SF match thread and other post-RWC threads with all their finger-pointing.
Everyone can, of course, write down their subjective/personal wish-lists for a 2020 squad, but it's waaaaayyyyy too early to make predictions about which players are really in contention for filling the vacancies and spots that are under pressure (whichever those spots are; we probably can't even agree on that).
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@gt12 said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
It's worth pointing out that he also benched Sam Cane
This was by far the biggest error and was one of the key factors in England getting their roll on (or their perfect storm on) ... and we got no lineout ball whatsoever.
To put it in trench warfare terms, we removed our machine gun nest and replaced it with howitzers targeted at the Germans supply tents in the rear. When they came over the top our single shot Lee Enfields weren't enough to stop the Storm Troops from crossing non mans land and then clearing our first line of trenches. (Yes, I am currently watching a Youtube series on WWI).
I love how we're going over this all again for at least the third time - it's very cathartic.
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@mariner4life said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@Chris-B said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@mariner4life I'm not blaming them - but, I reckon if we'd had a more general level of calm then maybe that push doesn't happen.
nup, I'm not having that. SW is supposed to bring the calm. He's an experienced player who is also a captain. It's his job to rise above the storm and provide stability for the others to feed off, not the other way around.
I'll give you that, with hindsight, there was a distinct lack of leadership across the park. And that definitely had an effect. But i will not go so far as to forgive a leader for a boneheaded play.
Oh, I'm not forgiving Sam for that - but, I'm saying it might not have happened if we'd had more experienced heads on the field.
In 2011, for instance, McCaw noted somewhere that he started to lose his cool "blue" head and had to be reminded by someone to get back in that mindset. Our performance looked increasingly panicked and towards the end I looked at the players we had on the field and just thought, nup - these aren't the guys who are going to bring this home.
Actually, I've already forgiven Sam - but, based on that 2015 lineout steal, we owed him one!
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@Chris-B said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
At the end of the day, Hansen put our fate in the hands of a bunch of young backs.
... after preaching for 4 years the need for experience!
And actually, depowered the forward pack to get some height, but then didn't attack the England lineout. So. Frustrating.
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@Chris-B said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@mariner4life said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@Chris-B said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@mariner4life I'm not blaming them - but, I reckon if we'd had a more general level of calm then maybe that push doesn't happen.
nup, I'm not having that. SW is supposed to bring the calm. He's an experienced player who is also a captain. It's his job to rise above the storm and provide stability for the others to feed off, not the other way around.
I'll give you that, with hindsight, there was a distinct lack of leadership across the park. And that definitely had an effect. But i will not go so far as to forgive a leader for a boneheaded play.
Oh, I'm not forgiving Sam for that - but, I'm saying it might not have happened if we'd had more experienced heads on the field.
In 2011, for instance, McCaw noted somewhere that he started to lose his cool "blue" head and had to be reminded by someone to get back in that mindset. Our performance looked increasingly panicked and towards the end I looked at the players we had on the field and just thought, nup - these aren't the guys who are going to bring this home.
Actually, I've already forgiven Sam - but, based on that 2015 lineout steal, we owed him one!
Kieran Read always got a wild look in his eyes and started flapping his arms around when things weren't working. Great player, but won't go down as a great captain.
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@Duluth said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
@No-Quarter said in Possible All Blacks 2020:
Bridge is not a player that can open up a tight test, he's really just a safe pair of hands.
An All Black winger should be able to beat players with footwork. He's a good player with plenty of speed who looks good on the end of a chain. I'm not convinced he has the skillset for tight spaces that other wingers have.
He is also really hesitant when it comes to backing himself on the outside. He cuts back in way too often.If his kicking game is good enough I think he would be a very good fullback. Unfortunately won't get the opportunity to play there at the Crusaders
Are you still talking about Bridge or have you switched to Caleb Ralph? 😉
