All Blacks 2024
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@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks 2024:
Narawa can't have impressed during trainings.
I think he's been unlucky. He should have replaced Reece at HT in SD to give him some meaningful minutes. And then he received two shit passes.
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@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks 2024:
Narawa can't have impressed during trainings.
Gives off the impression of being a touch casual.
Twinkletoes. -
Soooo AB career over for Christie?
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@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks 2024:
Thought they might take a 5th lock. I presume Lord will be in and out of the squad
Lord is also in the squad as an "extra".
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We seem to have a lot of fullbacks now if they are thinking of Jordan at 15 as well. Hopefully they are looking at Jordan on the wing.
It's no good being able to play multiple positions if you are not good enough in any of them. Havili shouldn't be near this squad, Crusader bias strikes again.
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@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2024:
Soooo AB career over for Christie?
Not over until it’s over. Weepu got dropped from squads and then bought back in.
But the AB selectors will have seen how the attack changed with swifter service.
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@No-Quarter said in All Blacks 2024:
We seem to have a lot of fullbacks now if they are thinking of Jordan at 15 as well. Hopefully they are looking at Jordan on the wing.
It's no good being able to play multiple positions if you are not good enough in any of them. Havili shouldn't be near this squad, Crusader bias strikes again.
All part of the master plan of rolling Havili out for the two Springbok tests.
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@No-Quarter said in All Blacks 2024:
We seem to have a lot of fullbacks now if they are thinking of Jordan at 15 as well. Hopefully they are looking at Jordan on the wing.
It's no good being able to play multiple positions if you are not good enough in any of them. Havili shouldn't be near this squad, Crusader bias strikes again.
I can't help thinking (hoping) that Perofeta is there to get some game time in case he has to play 1st-5.
If DMac goes down, we have Beauden running the show (yuck!) and nobody.
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Yes Ruben Love. Well bloody deserved. Bye bye Christie.
Love being one of the hardest working players in NZ must have impressed in camp.
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@Canes4life said in All Blacks 2024:
Yes Ruben Love. Well bloody deserved. Bye bye Christie.
Huh?
Edit: oh didn't realise the squad has been announced 🙄
Bye bye Christie. Nothing personal but it's what's good for the team
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@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2024:
Soooo AB career over for Christie?
No. Injury-prone position.
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@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2024:
@reprobate said in All Blacks 2024:
@Chris-B I could handle one of them on the bench, but why start them, why pick both?
I'm sure they will transition to the young guys - and I'll leave that up to Razor and Co. how fast they do it.
But, the most important thing at the moment is that we keep winning as much as possible (refer 2022). And, it's quite possible that the best combo to deliver consistent wins, right now, is to pick TJ and Finlay for the biggest games - even though from the outside it doesn't look like it.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Fozzie and Schmidt picked Finlay on the bench for the RWC Final and then Vern picked Finlay to start the play-off matches in Super this year.
We sort of go, WTF - but, we've had decades of All Black coaches telling us how important experience is. And decades of observing that it's harder to get dropped from the ABs than to get picked. And I think that happens for good reasons.
Hansen spent most of his tenure telling us how much experience should be valued - and then right at the end he abandoned his own philosophy - panicked and picked a rookie backline in 2019, when he could have picked experience - Beauden, SBW, Crotty, Reiko and Ben Smith (and Sam Cane). I wish someone would ask him about this (but, I digress).
We lost - and we lost in 2007 with a bunch of newbies running on among the inside backs.
To make a very ageist comment - but, fuck it, a girl at the supermarket checkout asked me if I was eligible for a gold card earlier this week
- none of the guys I mentioned earlier are 25 yet. And if I look at the sub-25 kids at my work, you barely trust them to do some filing in alphabetical order. And my bro-in-law, who's a builder, makes similar comments about his apprentices. These guys are just kids. Just because they're good at sport, doesn't mean they're proper grown ups to be entrusted with the keys to the ABs.And they'd be morons (or their agents would) to fuck off overseas at this point without racking up a bunch of test caps and ratcheting up their price.
So, I reckon, use TJ and Christie to lead them and support them this year. Develop Ratima. Bring Roigard in for the EOYT tour. Maybe take Hotham (or one of the others) on the EOYT as an apprentice.
TJ will disappear at the end of the year
If we've got three young guys ready for test rugby at the end of 2025 - with Finlay still in the mix and a couple of others knocking at the door and maybe with a couple of bench caps, that's plenty fast enough for me.
Always amusing reading posts like these with the benefit of knowing the squad (Christie dropped).
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@Bovidae said in All Blacks 2024:
I'm saddened (or perhaps disappointed is more apt) at the selection of DH, and, arguably, Blackadder (IMO him or LJ). Seems they have much more cred with the coaches than others who actually played more than a couple of games at a high level this year.
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@Canes4life said in All Blacks 2024:
Yes Ruben Love. Well bloody deserved. Bye bye Christie.
Love being one of the hardest working players in NZ must have impressed in camp.
How do you claim to know such a thing ?
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2024:
@Canes4life said in All Blacks 2024:
Yes Ruben Love. Well bloody deserved. Bye bye Christie.
Love being one of the hardest working players in NZ must have impressed in camp.
How do you claim to know such a thing ?
Well not many players invest their own $$ to go and do a training camp over in Aus while most other players are on holiday in their off-season. Love literally hasn’t stopped training since the end of Super rugby last year. Hard work paying off for the young lad.
When the top sprint coach in Aus (who coaches a dozen of the top NRL players) says his mindset is different to any other athlete he’s coached, then it’s pretty obvious he’s got the determination and work ethic that isn’t matched by many.
