All Blacks 2024
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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 -
@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.
I mostly agree with your point, but the Nonu stuff is a myth. He was only poor for the Blues and Landers, he was the fucking man at his spiritual home the Hurricanes.
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The Blues props are better at carrying the ball and our props are struggling to get over the advantage line. The Blues scrum won the most penalties in Super Rugby. On what basis do you think they aren't as good?
There's no way you can justify the selection of Bell over Ricketelli. Bell had a shocking season at the lineout and was a key reason for the Crusaders failure. Ricketelli was excellent in every facet.
TJ Perenara is going overseas so Akira should be fine to pick.
Scott Barrett hasn't been as good as Darry was in the Eden Park test. Barrett or Vaa'i should have been played at 6. There's no long term future in picking short 6's.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
The Blues props are better at carrying the ball and our props are struggling to get over the advantage line. The Blues scrum won the most penalties in Super Rugby. On what basis do you think they aren't as good?
There's no way you can justify the selection of Bell over Ricketelli. Bell had a shocking season at the lineout and was a key reason for the Crusaders failure. Ricketelli was excellent in every facet.
TJ Perenara is going overseas so Akira should be fine to pick.
Scott Barrett hasn't been as good as Darry was in the Eden Park test. Barrett or Vaa'i should have been played at 6. There's no long term future in picking short 6's.
I'm on record saying pick Riccitelli not Bell - project players piss me off, it's not a development side. But he's irrelevant because you're talking about starters and he's not getting past Taylor or Aumua (or Samisoni).
Lomax has been good. De Groot has been injured. Tamait Williams has been pretty good. Newell being selected you can debate, he's a scrummager only really, but the worst prop to my eyes has been the Blues guy, Ofa.
I also wouldn't have picked Perenara, but he has a far larger body of work at AB level than Akira, and with Smith leaving and Roigard injured they went for the experience. Would not have been my call, but I can see their thinking.
Scott Barrett has been disappointing, but he's the captain, been injured, and was never not going to be picked as the only remaining premium lock from last year. You think he was going to be surpassed on Super form?
I agree a lineout forward in one of the loosie positions is essential. Doesn't have to be 6 (e.g. Kieran Read). -
Ruck turnovers isn't a good indicator. It usually the team getting dominated in possession ( the team defending ) have more ruck turnovers which is why Billy Harmon has high ruck turnovers every year in Super Rugby - because the Highlanders get dominated at the breakdown and in possession and spend their time defending.
Over the series...
South Africa:
178 rucks won
100 rucks under 3sNew Zealand
150 rucks won
87 rucks under 3sHow is that dominating the breakdown? South Africa won more rucks and they had more rucks under 3s.
Contrast to the England test series:
England
151 rucks won
76 rucks under 3sNew Zealand
181 rucks won
101 rucks under 3sOur ruck numbers against England look similar to South Africa's against us and is it surprising to see who won those matches?
So while Cane tried hard I don't think he was as effective as some have made out. He's not very mobile and he doesn't suit Razor's game plan with width. We saw Cane improve under Foster when Schmidt came in and they played a narrower game plan.
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@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
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.
Scrums are only important when you have them. As we've seen this year you can go a full 40 mins without them. The bench selection has been terrible so far, and suggests the coaches don't even know what they want from the subs. Clearly, there is a lack of trust in the front row reserves given the minutes they get.
Charlie Faumuina was a good example of the impact a reserve prop could have, and they sacrificed scrummaging power for ball-carrying and workrate. Newell is essentially Franks MkII at the moment, and Ofa has done nothing despite all that "experience". This test is the perfect opportunity to see what Tosi can do.
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@brodean Sure if the opposition has a million rucks then Harmon can get more turnover opportunities, but in general if your forwards aren't getting to the breakdown fast enough, then you suffer ruck turnovers.
Do you have the stats for the 2 SA games separately at hand? They were pretty different games.
A ratio of ruck turnovers lost to rucks formed would be an interesting stat to me. I'd like to see some individual ruck attendance stats too.
You must admit that we've seen a lot of side to side 20+ phase ruck play from various teams over the years that have been totally ineffective? Couple that with the recent tactics of 'box kick everything away' which suggests a lot of top coaches aren't that keen on possession? (and which I fucking hate by the way)
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@nostrildamus said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
@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.
Little and Bunce for the Chiefs were another example.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
I was thinking of Laurie Mains yesterday too.
To give Mains credit he actually had the ability to realise he was wrong on occasions (Zinny especially and also Graeme Bachop) so maybe we might still see Sotutu come through.
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Over Jase Ryans dead body.
I don't see long term progress with the current forward selections and game plan.
Cotter is obviously a better people manager than Razor/Ryan if they don't think they're capable of getting the best out of those players.
I get the feeling that these coaches only know how to push one style of players buttons and hence why there is a lack of diversity in the 23 - just stacked with workrate guys. We had some success with a high impact player with Clarke in there but as soon as he went off our game plan unravelled.
I think the Crusaders coaches have a mindset about what worked for them at Super Rugby and I personally don't think its going to succeed at test level.
Test rugby is just far more physical than Super Rugby and you can't expect to win the big games with the uber workrate light weight guys. A hustling non stop action game plan gets you some of the way but not all of the way.
Now days I think that Ireland do that kind of game better than us but for them it didn't work in the RWC when physicality takes over.
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@dogmeat said in All Blacks 2024:
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.
Despite c4l's post, I don't think anyone's suggesting that. In any case...any idea how Nonu broke into the team in the first place?
And in response - if super rugby form wasn't considered for test rugby selection, greats like Retallick/Smith would have way fewer caps and we wouldn't have won back to back world cups. Oh and we definitely wouldn't need a selection panel...
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@brodean weren't you just advocating for Riccitelli? To me he is totally a workrate guy? He's certainly not as physically powerful as Aumua, Taylor, or Samisoni.
Guys like Retallick and Whitelock are gold, because they have workrate and size.
I totally agree we have too many similar loosies, and need some size there. But who do we even have, really? Hoskins should have been picked, sure - but while he is reasonably physical, it's his skills that set him apart. Akira is leaving. I have a hunch you wouldn't be keen on Grace (and nor am I). Finau was picked and given a starter's chance.
There's some young fellas with potential, but nobody who has dominated at Super - in fact most of the other super loosies are similarly small aren't they? Is Ryan right in wanting fucking Frizzel back? -
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@Nepia said in All Blacks 2024:
@reprobate said in All Blacks 2024:
Is Ryan right in wanting fucking Frizzel back?
No
Will be 33 years old in 2027.
Has a very slim body of work to even justify re-signing him to NZRU, let alone through to the next WC.
I personally think he was unlucky to get that card in the WC final, but that doesn't excuse his complete lack of impact following that. We needed him to be big - especially after losing Cane - and he was an ant.
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