All Blacks 2024
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@Bones The irony that Rieko is on the verge of not being a starting All Black.
Even this last test match, (it was his best game this year) again he was the least dangerous out of everyone in the backline. I've seen people saying he had a good game but did he break a tackle? create a linebreak?
Whenever he's in space it looks like he's running in mud, I don't understand what happened to his athleticism. Is his new role now just hitting rucks, being a dummy runner and I guess doing well in scramble defense? If he's not producing ball in hand?
Important notes from a Razor interview last week.
When asked about Rieko starting..
"He's been given feedback on what it takes to be a STARTING All Black and is working through it....he gets the nod this week but the margins are razor THIN" -
@Bones Even more ironic that Narawa has been playing center the entirety of the NPC since being out of All Blacks camp (I'd say EXTREMELY likely at the request of Razor).
Would be hilarious if he usurps Rieko as starting center.
I think Narawa can be a future great All Black, reminds me a lot of Sivivatu, very high spatial awareness and game IQ. Game looks slow motion for him.
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Who are all these new posters with the hottest and shittest takes?
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2024:
Who are all these new posters with the hottest and shittest takes?
Highly-paid Rugby correspondents and journalists?
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@mariner4life 👀
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So we're not going to go through the season unbeaten, win the Rugby Championshop or re-take the Number 1 ranking this season.
So what's the objective this season?
I'd like to see us retain the Bledisloe and then go through the Northern Tour unbeaten.
It would be nice to see "tomorrow" players like Cam Roigard, Cortes Ratima, Harry Plummer, Billy Proctor and Ruben Love given more time in the Black jersey too.
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@kpkanz said in All Blacks 2024:
@Bones Even more ironic that Narawa has been playing center the entirety of the NPC since being out of All Blacks camp (I'd say EXTREMELY likely at the request of Razor).
Would be hilarious if he usurps Rieko as starting center.
I think Narawa can be a future great All Black, reminds me a lot of Sivivatu, very high spatial awareness and game IQ. Game looks slow motion for him.
I’d say it’s more to do with the fact that two of the better regular Steamer players play on the wing and having a player like Narawa that could be called up for the ABs at the drop of a hat means don’t disrupt that back 3. He has looked okay at centre though.
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@kpkanz said in All Blacks 2024:
@Bones Even more ironic that Narawa has been playing center the entirety of the NPC since being out of All Blacks camp (I'd say EXTREMELY likely at the request of Razor).
Would be hilarious if he usurps Rieko as starting center.
I think Narawa can be a future great All Black, reminds me a lot of Sivivatu, very high spatial awareness and game IQ. Game looks slow motion for him.
You're the only one.
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2024:
Who are all these new posters with the hottest and shittest takes?
Agreed. They take over all the GameDay threads too the weirdos. Its like reading stupid social media takes on that legend of marty banks page (another weirdo).
The Highlanders new fans on here are good value though.
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@African-Monkey thanks
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@ACT-Crusader said in All Blacks 2024:
@kpkanz said in All Blacks 2024:
@Bones Even more ironic that Narawa has been playing center the entirety of the NPC since being out of All Blacks camp (I'd say EXTREMELY likely at the request of Razor).
Would be hilarious if he usurps Rieko as starting center.
I think Narawa can be a future great All Black, reminds me a lot of Sivivatu, very high spatial awareness and game IQ. Game looks slow motion for him.
I’d say it’s more to do with the fact that two of the better regular Steamer players play on the wing and having a player like Narawa that could be called up for the ABs at the drop of a hat means don’t disrupt that back 3. He has looked okay at centre though.
I guess I just find it hard to believe that when an All Black is released to NPC to get some game time, that the NPC coach can override the wishes of the national coach and play them out of position, making the entire exercise pointless and potentially hindering the national team. (devils advocate, you can argue here that actually Narawa is so out of the ABs picture that Robertson let the Steamer coach know he can play him wherever he chooses, although I highly doubt that is the situation).
We've seen this before, Jordie was suddenly being played at 12 for the hurricanes well before he actually started at 12 for the ABs.
Rieko played at center for the Blues before doing so for the ABs etc.
Unless I'm mistaken, I believe both these times it had been confirmed the AB coaches had made these requests to the super coaches. So it seems quite convenient that where Narawa had primarily played wing/fullback for the last 2 years for the steamers, he is now suddenly playing center right after leaving ABs camp and at a time that we don't have much depth at center currently.
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@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2024:
@kpkanz said in All Blacks 2024:
@Bones Even more ironic that Narawa has been playing center the entirety of the NPC since being out of All Blacks camp (I'd say EXTREMELY likely at the request of Razor).
Would be hilarious if he usurps Rieko as starting center.
I think Narawa can be a future great All Black, reminds me a lot of Sivivatu, very high spatial awareness and game IQ. Game looks slow motion for him.
You're the only one.
I'll bookmark this for when Narawa becomes our starting center by this time next year.
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A couple of points which seems to be an overall trend of the AB's rather than game specific comments.
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Our attack is ok, we're scoring more than enough points to win games, I'm getting increasingly annoyed at the commentary that "We had chances to put away the game (i.e. score more points), but didn't take them". We shipped 38 against the Argies, and 31 against SA. If the thought is that if we just simply score 50 points a game and we will win, well goodness me - that's not smart or realistic thinking in the slightest. Which leads us into...
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Our defence and disclipline has cost us badly, our poor disclipline has lead to us playing a lot of the game in the crunch moments in our own half. Our goal-line defence off the pick and go close to the line in particular has been awful, what makes this worse is that bashing the ball in close to the line is a low risk attacking method. We aren't asking teams to take chances or use high-risk plays to score points because they can bash through us playing low risk rugby This has to be fixed immediately or we will continue to lose games.
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Our bench as a whole, quite simply has been dreadful. The quibble isn't even the fact that they're coming on and having no impact but the fact that they're making things CONSIDERABLY WORSE when they get onto the field. It's very odd because if you look at the players they are all "impact" players.
Whether it's because they can't fit into the systems (player issue), or know the systems so they can fit in (coaching issue) or simpy dion't have the skills or temprement to fit into the game plan and execute (player and coaching issue) I really don't know. What I do know however is that when it comes to the use of the bench we are being outsmarted tatcially and executionally and ultimately that falls on the coachs.
So it's defence and the last 20 minutes of the game that are costing us dearly and we won't start a winning trend until we fix these.
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@Windows97 said in All Blacks 2024:
A couple of points which seems to be an overall trend of the AB's rather than game specific comments.
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Our attack is ok, we're scoring more than enough points to win games, I'm getting increasingly annoyed at the commentary that "We had chances to put away the game (i.e. score more points), but didn't take them". We shipped 38 against the Argies, and 31 against SA. If the thought is that if we just simply score 50 points a game and we will win, well goodness me - that's not smart or realistic thinking in the slightest. Which leads us into...
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Our defence and disclipline has cost us badly, our poor disclipline has lead to us playing a lot of the game in the crunch moments in our own half. Our goal-line defence off the pick and go close to the line in particular has been awful, what makes this worse is that bashing the ball in close to the line is a low risk attacking method. We aren't asking teams to take chances or use high-risk plays to score points because they can bash through us playing low risk rugby This has to be fixed immediately or we will continue to lose games.
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Our bench as a whole, quite simply has been dreadful. The quibble isn't even the fact that they're coming on and having no impact but the fact that they're making things CONSIDERABLY WORSE when they get onto the field. It's very odd because if you look at the players they are all "impact" players.
Whether it's because they can't fit into the systems (player issue), or know the systems so they can fit in (coaching issue) or simpy dion't have the skills or temprement to fit into the game plan and execute (player and coaching issue) I really don't know. What I do know however is that when it comes to the use of the bench we are being outsmarted tatcially and executionally and ultimately that falls on the coachs.
So it's defence and the last 20 minutes of the game that are costing us dearly and we won't start a winning trend until we fix these.
Sounds like Wales
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Razor forged a reputation at the Crusaders as a ruthless selector but currently his decisions around subs and selections are as bad as Foster pre-Schmidt. If we don't win this Rugby Championship (which is looking highly likely) he should introduce an independent selector like Hansen/Foster had with Grant Fox.
