All Blacks 2024
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@booboo said in All Blacks 2024:
@pakman said in All Blacks 2024:
fetchers
Not sure that's been a thing since early MCaw
It's not that the game changed as many NZers like to claim, it's that we didn't have any decent ones for a while. In fact the only half decent one in a long time was Lachlan Boshier. and Ardie to some extent I guess, but he hasn't been playing 7.
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given the squad, what would be the team to guarantee the most melts on here?
EdG
Taylor
Lomax
Patty T
Darry
Blackadder
Cane
Jacobson
TJP
DMac
Telea
ALB
Proctor
Jordan
PerofetaBell
Newell
Williams
Finau
DP
Hotham
Havili
BBarrett -
@mariner4life put BB at 10
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i tried to not make too many outlandish calls. Dave jumping two guys to get the 12 jersey is a bit much. People would rant less and genuinely wonder if the coaches have lost their minds.
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I would rather Havili starting at 2nd-5 than Beauden starting at 1st-5.
But your loose forwards don't trigger me, because while all the players are good, most of the alternative arrangements of them are not.
Starting Jordan at fullback would trigger a few people.
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nah, watching the incumbent get dropped will send the Blues contingent off the edge far more than Proctor not getting his call up.
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@Chester-Draws said in All Blacks 2024:
I would rather Havili starting at 2nd-5 than Beauden starting at 1st-5.
But your loose forwards don't trigger me, because while all the players are good, most of the alternative arrangements of them are not.
Starting Jordan at fullback would trigger a few people.
I’ll tag @Bones so he sees it
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@Nepia said in All Blacks 2024:
You need Ioane at centre, the Canes faction will break the internet on their own with the omission of Proctor the Great.
Haha, trolling! Even Canes4life would say Ioane deserves to start. He's the incumbent and has done nothing massively wrong to deserve to be dropped. If Proctor does make the bench I would be surprised
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2024:
@Nepia said in All Blacks 2024:
You need Ioane at centre, the Canes faction will break the internet on their own with the omission of Proctor the Great.
Haha, trolling! Even Canes4life would say Ioane deserves to start. He's the incumbent and has done nothing massively wrong to deserve to be dropped. If Proctor does make the bench I would be surprised
You sure about that ?
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2024:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2024:
@Nepia said in All Blacks 2024:
You need Ioane at centre, the Canes faction will break the internet on their own with the omission of Proctor the Great.
Haha, trolling! Even Canes4life would say Ioane deserves to start. He's the incumbent and has done nothing massively wrong to deserve to be dropped. If Proctor does make the bench I would be surprised
You sure about that ?
I think he even said as much a while back. He'll be over in a while and can speak for himself
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I think for loose forwards:
6 : Papali'i
7 : Cane
8 : Blackadder -
@Chester-Draws said in All Blacks 2024:
I would rather Havili starting at 2nd-5 than Beauden starting at 1st-5.
far out short memories people. Havili looked great at 12 against 'lighter' teams, but got smoked when the physicality went up. He hasn't changed. You'll get the same outcome.
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@nzzp said in All Blacks 2024:
@Chester-Draws said in All Blacks 2024:
I would rather Havili starting at 2nd-5 than Beauden starting at 1st-5.
far out short memories people. Havili looked great at 12 against 'lighter' teams, but got smoked when the physicality went up. He hasn't changed. You'll get the same outcome.
Except for that game in SA, the game that saved Fozzie from the axe
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I'm not suggesting Havili would be a good choice for 2nd-5. We are picking a trigger team, after all. However he did at least look great sometimes.
Meanwhile the moment Beauden stopped playing #10 our play improved significantly against all teams. Him moving back would be hugely triggering for me. It's just my opinion, but I never want to see him play #10 in black except in extreme emergencies.
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he might be right. The big change between the Irish series and SA #1 to SA #2 was the coaches finally realising BB was 100% cooked as a first 5, and fucking him off for good.
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@nzzp said in All Blacks 2024:
@Chester-Draws said in All Blacks 2024:
I would rather Havili starting at 2nd-5 than Beauden starting at 1st-5.
far out short memories people. Havili looked great at 12 against 'lighter' teams, but got smoked when the physicality went up. He hasn't changed. You'll get the same outcome.
I know I've said this before and pretty much everyone has disagreed, but IMO Havili isn't bad against more physical teams, he's bad when he's used as a battering ram against more physical teams. I'd like to think Razor is smarter than that.
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@Billy-Tell said in All Blacks 2024:
@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).
I was similarly wrong in 2022, when I said it would be a mistake to pick both of the rookies - Christie and Fakatava - ahead of TJ Perenara.
