All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour
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I think we have the players to solve for the back line and get some power play next year. Clark on a wing, like to see that Canterbury winger at centre (can’t recall his name but not selected and should have been) and RTS at 12. A back line of AS, BB, RTS, LF, CC, WJ, JB looks very dangerous to me. Lots of ifs there but we have time under the right coaching.
The forwards, that is a bigger problem.
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@dman68 said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
I think we have the players to solve for the back line and get some power play next year. Clark on a wing, like to see that Canterbury winger at centre (can’t recall his name but not selected and should have been) and RTS at 12. A back line of AS, BB, RTS, LF, CC, WJ, JB looks very dangerous to me. Lots of ifs there but we have time under the right coaching.
The forwards, that is a bigger problem.
Some pace and power in that backline, I wouldn't mind seeing that put together.
Although Reiko for Clarke for me. -
@tim said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
@dman68 said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
. A back line of AS, BB, RTS, LF, CC, WJ, JB
Yeah, the first thing they should do is drop the best player ...
…..and select players who’s name they don’t even know.
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I think we need to look for a big burly number 6 and a partner for ALB in midfield most of all. Could be a big opportunity in 2022 for Tom Robinson and Samepeni Finau. Can only play 2 of Cane Paps and Ardie in same trio and need a big busy unit to complement them. Blackadder Jacobson and Akira all similar to me and add value but I think we might find better if we want to dominate.
How would RTS go in midfield and how well does Goodhue come back? Tupaea has limited tactical vision at top level currently and Havili is more a stopgap. Rieko is a far better winger.
The next wave of props, like Williams and Norris might be 2 or 3 years away and same for 10s. -
So back to the game.
The tone was set in the first few minutes I feel
Should have been a YC in the first 10 seconds - high shot on Bridge after he received the kick off
Smith had his first high bomb which went straight to a very happy Frenchman and they ran it back at us with interest
Then Jordie had what he would probably not describe as his best touch finder
Sure we nearly got back into the game
But then we had the wrong bench. - maybe Papali’i and Jacobson should have been coming on for that last 20
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Fuck there's some wannabe Oxzzies in this thread, calling on a league player who's not played a game of Union for fucking years into the ABs starting line up. Oh and in the centre, the trickiest place to ply your trade. No way he's a) an ab next year or b) starting the big games in 2023 - tho he possibly could be in the squad.
Great League hopes, so ozzie, so 🤮
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Well, that was shit eh.
I quite like Havili as a player. He's generally smart and skilful and versatile. But he showed last week that in this ABs team, playing catch-up footy, he is prone to panic. So Foster puts him on the bench, and brings him on in precisely that situation again. A bit predictable, and unfortunate.
Mo'unga was rubbish, but he's a good player. I think maybe the 4 playmaker model may be affecting his confidence...
Barrett was rubbish, but he's a good player (now).
Ioane remains a good winger, but getting in a gap and throwing a dummy and gassing it to the line doesn't make him a centre.
Bridge was okay.
Tupaea was okay.
A week ago we kept TJ on the entire game when he was ruining our attack. This week we sub Smith at 60 mins... Webber was pretty good, but somehow last week we needed leadership but this week we don't?
Coles/Samisoni and both locks were good.
Ardie as usual had a couple of highlight moments and a fair bit of shit, including the game losing YC. Cane was solid. Akira nothing special.
Props nothing special. I thought we had slightly the better of both the French and Irish scrums, but who gives a shit if no penalties are dished out. -
@kiwiwomble said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
We’ll shit, there was some awesome rugby played from both teams…but that hurt
Two big things for me, that counter attack from their own goal, we were very much in the ascendancy but that changed everything, we went down a man and 3 points and they got their tales up for the final 20mins
And richie/Jordie/smith have no faith in each other, so many times we’d go one way from the break down and Richie or Jordie would step straight back behind the breakdown….there was one early in the second half when hot on attack, smith goes left/blind….Richie just runs back right behind the breakdown and passes to QT…who steps back left…the French forwards have very much come through by then and we loose it….take the fucking hit Richie!
This has been one of his biggest issues in test footy, IMO. Too often he looks like he isn't ready to receive the ball or doesn't want it in his hands. Hence, we see a lot of him shovelling shit outside or inside to someone flat footed and in a worse position. More concerning, it says either he's flustered and doesn't want the ball or that he's not communicating well enough to his 9 as to when and how he wants the ball.
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I don't mind our attack, as its clear when we play direct up the guts forward play before spinning it wide, we do well. You know, the sort of thing that has worked in test rugby for over 100 years. That, and not kicking it away aimlessly. Simple stuff.
What has consistently annoyed me since about 2016 is our defence. Every good team in the world, especially those that beat us, employs a rush defence. They kill our time and space. We let teams run at us and gain easy meters. When I watch the ABs defend, I wish that the opposition would defend like that when we had the ball, as we'd carve them up.
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@tewaio said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
I don't mind our attack, as its clear when we play direct up the guts forward play before spinning it wide, we do well. You know, the sort of thing that has worked in test rugby for over 100 years. That, and not kicking it away aimlessly. Simple stuff.
What has consistently annoyed me since about 2016 is our defence. Every good team in the world, especially those that beat us, employs a rush defence. They kill our time and space. We let teams run at us and gain easy meters. When I watch the ABs defend, I wish that the opposition would defend like that when we had the ball, as we'd carve them up.
Agreed.
It was sort of working until last year as we would often not give up enough opportunities, but since teams have started pushing for tries (rather than taking the 3), they’ve been getting over the magic number for beating the ABs (which is about 20) as they can defend us around that and still get a win.
We gave up 40 today, so clearly its not working anymore.
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Old Barnsey is a funny ref aye?
I liked how he may as well not have even had a TMO, unlike old.mate last week
And we got the rub.of a couple of pretty serious moments that last week I am sure would have been reviewed
But there were two crucial calls he fucked up in the first half that cost us massively. The first was that obvious obstruction that led to the big line break
The 2nd was the penalty on whitelock on their line. We contested the lineout. They won it, but we held up the halfback under the poles on the 5m mark and would have got the scrum. Instead he penalises whitelock for grabbing the arm in the air despite replays clearly showing the opposite.
Both huge calls Both went against us. And I think directly led to us playing catch up.
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
Old Barnsey is a funny ref aye?
I liked how he may as well not have even had a TMO, unlike old.mate last week
And we got the rub.of a couple of pretty serious moments that last week I am sure would have been reviewed
But there were two crucial calls he fucked up in the first half that cost us massively. The first was that obvious obstruction that led to the big line break
The 2nd was the penalty on whitelock on their line. We contested the lineout. They won it, but we held up the halfback under the poles on the 5m mark and would have got the scrum. Instead he penalises whitelock for grabbing the arm in the air despite replays clearly showing the opposite.
Both huge calls Both went against us. And I think directly led to us playing catch up.
And it had absolutely no effect because the contact with the arms was after the French had tapped the ball back.
He is a real pain in the arse, is Wayne. He lets so much go during a match but when he does blow his whistle its often for meaningless shit like that.
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
Old Barnsey is a funny ref aye?
I liked how he may as well not have even had a TMO, unlike old.mate last week
And we got the rub.of a couple of pretty serious moments that last week I am sure would have been reviewed
But there were two crucial calls he fucked up in the first half that cost us massively. The first was that obvious obstruction that led to the big line break
The 2nd was the penalty on whitelock on their line. We contested the lineout. They won it, but we held up the halfback under the poles on the 5m mark and would have got the scrum. Instead he penalises whitelock for grabbing the arm in the air despite replays clearly showing the opposite.
Both huge calls Both went against us. And I think directly led to us playing catch up.
I think the touch judge called that on whitelock. But I might be wrong.
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@nzzp said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
@chimoaus said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
This one is fucken terrible, this is the leadup play to the French try. The two lazy runners have no intention of catching the ball, they continue moving forward and the lock actually moves forward into the defending player (he actually moves to his left on purpose into the defender). the French then target the channel he is blocking which leads to the break.
are we ... GAGR?
Is running into your own player no longer accidental offside?
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@tewaio said in All Blacks v France, 2021 NH Tour:
I don't mind our attack, as its clear when we play direct up the guts forward play before spinning it wide, we do well. You know, the sort of thing that has worked in test rugby for over 100 years. That, and not kicking it away aimlessly. Simple stuff.
What has consistently annoyed me since about 2016 is our defence. Every good team in the world, especially those that beat us, employs a rush defence. They kill our time and space. We let teams run at us and gain easy meters. When I watch the ABs defend, I wish that the opposition would defend like that when we had the ball, as we'd carve them up.
We have a fixation that we can still attack best off turnover ball so our defence tries to suck runners into isolating themselves with the rest of their players out of a defensible pattern.
It simply doesn't pay off as teams are smarter now and will take a tackle then drive until support arrives and a recycle can happen.
The only time we see this ploy work now is if the opposition is chasing the game and not patient. -
Well, its' time to sit back and take stock after this test.
What was clear over the last two games is that we are done, toast for 2021. There has been a huge fall off in decision making & tactics. Physically, we have showed at times vs both Ireland & France that we not too far off the pace. But mentally, we have been way way off. I give the team huge credit for Q3 in the French game where a couple of subs / game plan change really gave us a chance to win it. But I think we are just mentally fragile. No way Ntamack should have been able to get out of the in-goal which changed the game. We should have been all over him to ensure he forced the ball - these are game standards that we used to be the pinnacle of. Ntmack hit that ball at pace from the side, the cover attack/defence should have been moving across to the right earlier.
The intercept was hard to accept & it killed the game off as mentally we just couldn't come back.
All in all, it's a great young French side and it's a poor tired AB side.
