All Blacks 2024
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If the All Blacks wanted to take a punt on someone to fill the right wing spot, I really think they could do worse than Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens. Time and time again, we have seen that speed is ultimately the most important thing for a test winger - he has it.
Just looking through the SR stats, he was 3rd for most metres carried, 8th for post-contact metres (behind Clarke, Tele'a, and 20m behind ENS, Tavatavanawai in NZ) and 9th for tackles breaks (behind the same players)... but if you adjust it for minutes played, he'd be ahead of ENS, and furthermore, he was playing in a Highlanders backline that had no creativity. Considering he is only 23, I wouldn't mind seeing it.
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@frugby said in All Blacks 2024:
"Send Sam off well" Has Razor just let a massive cat out the bag?
Well the NZ crowd can't send him off from Dublin...
Razor's comments from a few weeks back already seemed to hint that he wasn't travelling north.
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Hats off to Razor for getting Cane through to 100. He’s not playing at his peak, but I don’t believe we lost any of those games due to him. Loyalty and legacy still count for something in this day and age. A good way to end his international career.
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@Jet said in All Blacks 2024:
Patty T, Ofa, Cane, TJP, Beaudy, Havili, Reece and Telea and ALB (although he was good today) can all be upgraded.
Aumua on thin ice too.
Patty T was very strong off the bench today. Ideal impact lock but not a starter.
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@Jet said in All Blacks 2024:
- Williams
- Samisoni
- Tosi
- Fabian Holland
- Vaii
- Sititi
- Lakai
- Sotutu
- Roigard
- DMAC
- Rieko
- Clarke
- Proctor
- Narawa
- Jordan
Lets go mental in 2025.
No idea about Williams but would be intriguing to have the rest of the forward pack be open to claims of poaching.
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I'm still not convinced about Ardie Savea's place in this team looking at the long-term going forward, I think NZ's backrow will continue to get outplayed against the top sides with him at 8, especially as he's only getting older and less effective.
The Hurricanes had their best season in 8 years off the platform of their back row functioning a lot better than last year and appearing much more cohesive without his individualistic headless 'cannonball' style clogging up every play...
He has to transition into a Kwagga Smith-type utility bench option if he's to make it through to the 2027 World Cup.
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@Bones said in All Blacks 2024:
@Jet said in All Blacks 2024:
- Williams
- Samisoni
- Tosi
- Fabian Holland
- Vaii
- Sititi
- Lakai
- Sotutu
- Roigard
- DMAC
- Rieko
- Clarke
- Proctor
- Narawa
- Jordan
Lets go mental in 2025.
No idea about Williams but would be intriguing to have the rest of the forward pack be open to claims of poaching.
Whangarei apparently
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@booboo said in All Blacks 2024:
@Jet said in All Blacks 2024:
- Williams
- Samisoni
- Tosi
- Fabian Holland
- Vaii
- Sititi
- Lakai
- Sotutu
- Roigard
- DMAC
- Rieko
- Clarke
- Proctor
- Narawa
- Jordan
Lets go mental in 2025.
Where's your bench? You've only picked half a team.
I ran out of fast twitch poaches.
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Agree with this.
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2024:
I never watch a 2nd time so can't back any of this up. I do think this pattern for want of a better term absolutely fatigues us, and the opposition take advantage. South Africa replace half the team at half time. Australia starting competing in rucks (Argentina did too), and our tired guys are starting to miss assignments. I do think our replacement strategy is having a huge effect. Guys who are even playing well (possibly even especially those guys) need to come off regardless, and earlier to give their replacements time to get in to the rhythm of the game. Can we rely on DMac skinning guys for 80 minutes, AND make as many decisions as we are asking? Is replacing a winger actually helping us at all?
That's a very interesting point.
When Fozzie got asked last year about a 6-2 bench, he reckoned our guys are fit enough to play 80 minutes and that would just encourage us to make unnecessary substitutions.
But, I suspect there was also an element of resistance to being seen to be copying the Jaapies.
We would be very silly not to at least look very closely at whether 6-2 would give us an advantage - and whether we can cover all the back positions adequately. We certainly can if Beauden is playing fullback and covering first five. Not as easy to cover the midfield if Jordan is fullback.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks vs Wallabies 2:
@LatsToTheMax said in All Blacks vs Wallabies 2:
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks vs Wallabies 2:
@LatsToTheMax said in All Blacks vs Wallabies 2:
@Horatio said in All Blacks vs Wallabies 2:
This is a classic Bledisloe fluffer match for the ABs. An awful, awful Wallabies side to give them confidence they aren't on the wrong trajectory ahead of an EOYT.
A real team would have punished them for some of the silly mistakes they made out there.
It's the same Wallabies side that didn't entirely get humped by the Springboks, and won away against Argentina. For 120 minutes we owned the Springboks. It may have just been the game they needed to answer some questions.
It's the same Wallabies side that's ranked 10th in the world. The one we came close to losing to 2 weeks ago after leading 28-7 when we went to shit in the second half
In a dead rubber with nothing to lose this was the perfect game to try new players. Instead Robertson went safety-first with players past their best, learned little and, as far as questions are concerned, answered little
Some improvement in focus overall in this game (not hard considering the nadir of 2 weeks ago) but still nowhere near as good as we were this time last year.
So a 20 point win is not an improvement? Did we go to shit? Did we score points in the last quarter? Did we blank in the second half?
As I said, there was some improvement in focus, but it's bonkers to think not going to pieces and actually scoring points in the last quarter against the 10th based side is some magical, corner-turning improvement. Less than 12 months ago we came within one point of winning the RWC and - to use your words - we owned the Springboks for 75% of the game a few weeks back. Seriously?
Your memory is really short. Fosters side got humped 35-7 and was only a freak run from CamRoi from being blanked. Also lost for the first time in a pool match and almost lost to Australia twice.
Foster's gone. Live with it and focus on this teams direction.
TBF you're making comparisons with the RWC final 12 months ago. Let's face it, that RWC run was a complete anomaly for the Foster era. Give Razor Smith, Whitelock and RM and I dare say we'd be seeing some better results.
Ultimately I like what Razor is trying to achieve here, but we don't have the cattle to pull it off just yet. That's obviously on him to plan according to the strengths of what's available, but I feel there are plenty of positive signs
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I'm not convinced that Razor's game plan will bring the results we want against Ireland, France, and South Africa.
