All Blacks 2024
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An observation from watching 2024 Super Rugby was that inferior teams often were within a few points at halftime, and then the score really blew out in the 2nd half. (Especially Australian teams.)
That's probably more dramatic than the trend that Rassie Erasmus observed, but he was the first mover.
So you load the first half team with very good but lesser players, and then take advantage of the bigger points differential in the second half. You invent the "bomb squad" and win two World Cups.
Who would be in NZ's bomb squad?
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@Tim It's an interesting thought eh. Most people in NZ think that the bench is for a mix of injury cover and ball runners. Because ball runners have 'ímpact', but to me it is a bit more complex than that and requires some thought about the opposition.
We got good mileage against England by having a dominant scrum once the reserves came on. Scrum penalties are huge on relieving defensive pressure and creating attacking pressure, so if you have reserves who are significantly better than the oppositions front row reserves, then that can be an effective impact option.
Rassie has been proven right time and again that forwards get more tired than backs - that's hardly rocket science - but we can't seem to figure it out despite his example.
The 1st SA game showed that you need players on the field at the end of the game who can deal with pressure. The 2nd SA game showed that experience does not equal 'able to deal with pressure'.
Traditional NZ thinking has a guy like Aumua as a great impact sub. He may be in future, but until his lineout throwing is reliable coming on late under pressure, he's a liability despite being an amazing player.
Defences do get sloppier, so ball runners can be a good option. Rucks get messier, so a turnover merchant would get more opportunities.
I just don't think we give it enough thought at all. -
@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
Most people in NZ think that the bench is for a mix of injury cover and ball runners. Because ball runners have 'ímpact'
A very basic, and fundamental question he asked was: why couldn't the reserves come on before half time? Maybe you get 35 good minutes out of a prop? Why not do it in reverse?
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@Bones said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
I'm getting fucking sick of hearing super rugby doesn't cut it when the coaches refuse to fucking pick the best players in the competition and work with them.
Pick second rate, supposedly established players and get second rate results. Colour me surprised.
Couldn't have said it better myself. It's like form in Super Rugby means nothing and then the coaches make up some bullshit excuse as to why certain players shouldn't be selected. Prime example is Sotutu but hey, let's select about 5 guys that all do the same thing and then wonder why we don't get any go forward against bigger teams.
If the All Blacks were picked purely on Super form our 15 would look like the below. Far too many Blues for Razor's liking.
- Numia
- Aumua
- Lomax
- Tuipolotu
- Darry
- Ioane
- Papali'i
- Sotutu
- Ratima
- McKenzie
- Clarke
- Lam
- Proctor
- Reece
- Love
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@Canes4life I like the pack. Much more rigorous and physical.
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The bench was barely used. The main things we have learnt are they can't manage the bench to save themselves.
They select poorly for the bench. They don't select impact players then they don't put who they selected onto the field. The bench is full of workrate guys apart from Aumua.
Cane hasn't been an 80 minute player for years.
Picking all openside sized players has been a failure. Despite picking 3 opensides we won the least amount of rucks this year against SA. We only won 45% possession in both games. Our points in Joburg mostly came off zero phase play.
In the last 4 games we've lost 3.
We had a complete defensive failure in the first Pumas test and a complete attack failure in the last test with zero tries.
It's been years and years since we scored zero tries.
The Pumas loss was a record for points scored against.
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@African-Monkey said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
@Bones said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
I'm getting fucking sick of hearing super rugby doesn't cut it when the coaches refuse to fucking pick the best players in the competition and work with them.
Pick second rate, supposedly established players and get second rate results. Colour me surprised.
Which is ironic too as it's the only previous experience the coaches have.
Brazil! Brazil!
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@dogmeat said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
If test sides were chosen solely on Super Rugby form; greats like Nonu would have way fewer caps, we wouldn't need a selection panel and we'd have lost a lot more tests.
But Nonu was an exception and exceptional.
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@Bones said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
I'm getting fucking sick of hearing super rugby doesn't cut it when the coaches refuse to fucking pick the best players in the competition and work with them.
Pick second rate, supposedly established players and get second rate results. Colour me surprised.
THANK YOU!!!
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@Tim said in All Blacks 2024:
here are a lot of indicators that he is on a Laurie Mains 1994 trajectory. Picking zero players from the top team in the starting forward pack
Fake news. The Mains part.
Of the tests we played in 94 there were always at least 4 Aucklanders in the pack and on two occasions 5. The guys that played from outside Akl were predominantly Loe, Brewer and Ian Jones. All very good AB's. The more marginal calls were Cooksley (instead of Jones) and Larsen.
I think you probably meant 92 when Mains first came in because that's usually the example Aucklanders cite. There was one occasion when the pack featured only two Aucklanders - during the Centenary tests which were almost like trials - all manner of players were looked at and discarded - like Richard Turner for example.
By the time the Irish tests came around there were three and for the remainder of the season 4.
The reasons given for the anti Auck conspiracy were the dropping of Whetton - top call IMO and undermined by the fact that he was replaced by Robin Brooke and the choice for the first half of the season of Arran Pene over Zinny. Now obviously Zinny is a far superior player but he was out of form and Pene was voted player of the year for 92. Once he hit his straps Zinny was an ever present.
Mains was so anti - Akl he made Fitzy his captain and gave debuts to Brooke R and Olo Brown both of whom should have been at the 91 RWC.
Every coach has his favourites. Mains' were guys like Brewer and Ginge Henderson, but he moved on reasonably quickly. It remains to be seen whether Robertson will do the same.
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@brodean said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
The bench was barely used. The main things we have learnt are they can't manage the bench to save themselves.
They select poorly for the bench. They don't select impact players then they don't put who they selected onto the field. The bench is full of workrate guys apart from Aumua.
Cane hasn't been an 80 minute player for years.
Picking all openside sized players has been a failure. Despite picking 3 opensides we won the least amount of rucks this year against SA. We only won 45% possession in both games. Our points in Joburg mostly came off zero phase play.
In the last 4 games we've lost 3.
We had a complete defensive failure in the first Pumas test and a complete attack failure in the last test with zero tries.
It's been years and years since we scored zero tries.
The Pumas loss was a record for points scored against.
NZ dominated South Africa at the breakdown, particularly in the second Test. I'm not saying that's a product of the number of openside flankers picked, but total rucks won is a terrible measurement of breakdown effectiveness.
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@brodean said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
Picking all openside sized players has been a failure. Despite picking 3 opensides we won the least amount of rucks this year against SA. We only won 45% possession in both games. Our points in Joburg mostly came off zero phase play.
I'm not a fan of 3 opensides, and don't think it works for various reasons - mostly it is a lineout risk, and a lack of ball-running and physicality.
But re the ruck you're oversimplifying. You need to look at ruck speed and ruck turnovers if you want to talk about them being effective in that area, and I don't recall us being particularly poor at either. You can have fuck-all rucks simply by kicking the ball away, or by scoring early in phases, or via offloads and continuity where rucks aren't formed. Hammering away at the line for 15 rucks in a row under advantage and then doing the same again from the penalty can easily skew those stats too. The Deans-era Wallabies and Todd Blackadder's Crusaders were good examples of having a thousand rucks and going nowhere. -
@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
Maybe Ryan is worse than Mains then.
How can there be zero starting Blues players in the forwards who had the most dominant pack in Super Rugby?
The Blues props and hooker aren't as good, and Pat was a starter but has been injured. Darry has been called in.
Dalton vs Cane is neither here nor there (I'd go Dalton due to age myself).
Akira going overseas.
Hoskins competing with world player of the year.I strongly disagree with them not picking Hoskins, but the rest I don't find surprising really.
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It's certainly an interesting situation. Like so many others I think the loosies are unbalanced and are being picked on prior performances rather than form.
I guess the arguments would be Ioane has been tried repeatedly and isn't up to it and is now off to Japan, Sotutu is being kept out by the World Player of 2023 and Paps was given a chance but got injured.
Both locks have featured but a combination of injury / inexperience / better options has limited their opportunities.
Front row not really contenders despite Ofas presence on the bench.
Not saying I subscribe to the above, just being devils advocate.
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@Tim said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
Most people in NZ think that the bench is for a mix of injury cover and ball runners. Because ball runners have 'ímpact'
A very basic, and fundamental question he asked was: why couldn't the reserves come on before half time? Maybe you get 35 good minutes out of a prop? Why not do it in reverse?
I guess most people would say well what do you do if there's an injury just after half-time then?""
To which Rassie says Í'll just bring the other guys back on, nobody will even do anything if I just start running a rotating subs bench like it's basketball
