All Blacks 2024
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Has Tele'a actually had a chance to start at 14 this year? I believe he's always been forced to play on the left wing which is not his natural side.
Him and Reece clearly have had issues under the high ball this year.
People have been bagging Tele'a but he has the highest amount of impacts per 80 minutes of any All Black this year. ( tries + try assists + clean breaks + offloads + defenders beaten + turnovers won + dominant tackles )
Apart from Narawa there isn't a 14 who has come close to his form in Super Rugby for years.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
Top 10 tackles per 80 minutes
17.24 Luke Jacobson
15.74 Ethan Blackadder
15.57 Asafo Aumua
14.24 Samipeni Finau
13.88 Sam Cane
13.57 Sam Darry
12.85 Dalton Papali'i
12.56 Ardie Savea
12.42 Codie Taylor
12.35 Ofa Tu'ungafasiI think Sititi has been brilliant. What I expected. However he doesn't have a high defensive workrate and he doesn't make big hits so is he actually good 'both sides of the ball'? Is the 'both sides of the ball' just a bunch of weasel words?
People have claimed Finau was poor and he did nothing but he has a high defensive workrate and puts in big hits. Now I'm not going to say that Finau should be there instead of Sititi but I do think Finau actually got a raw deal and as a traditional blindside he has more potential at test level at 6 than Sititi. I personally think Sititi is better suited to 8. I wouldn't mind seeing a trio of:
- Sititi 7. Savea 6. Finau
Sititi isn't a blindside - he's a number 8 but the coaching intellect of the All Blacks insists on playing him out of position. Watching him he looks like a natural 8.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
I don't get why people think Ardie has been poor?
Because I watch the games, not form my opinions on statistics from the window licking collective called rugbypass.
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You should watch the game more closely then. Even when he's not doing freakish things he still our best loose forward.
His freak game has often been hamstrung this year by picking tight forwards who can't get over the advantage line close in and picking 4 openside sized players for each game in the loose forwards but he still actually does more than any other loose forward.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
You should watch the game more closely then. Even when he's not doing freakish things he still our best loose forward.
His freak game has often been hamstrung this year by picking tight forwards who can't get over the advantage line close in and picking 4 openside sized players for each game in the loose forwards but he still actually does more than any other loose forward.
Nah, he hasn't been. Not as bad as some say, but not our best.
I'm not sure what his freak game is - but if it is ball running then that has been hamstrung very much by him dropping the damn thing half the time, and getting bundled into touch every so often to mix it up. -
@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
You should watch the game more closely then. Even when he's not doing freakish things he still our best loose forward.
His freak game has often been hamstrung this year by picking tight forwards who can't get over the advantage line close in and picking 4 openside sized players for each game in the loose forwards but he still actually does more than any other loose forward.
Who looked like a number 8 on thee weekend? Him or Sititi?
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His freak game is the World Rugby Player of the year level form.
We really only saw glimpses of that in Auckland against Argentina.
I know the player ratings aren't much to go by but I don't think I've seen anyone rate him lower than 6 this year and more often than not it's been 7, 8, 9.
He's not been as bad as people made out.
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I'm not saying Savea should be our No 8 but that doesn't mean he's played badly.
Sititi has been great but is unproven against top teams. He went missing in the physicality stakes in the SRP final and he got bullied a bit physically in SA so he still had some development in front of him.
There are people who are creaming their panties about Sititis form against the Wallabies and these are often the same people who said Akira Ioanes motm performances against Australia don't count.
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A game we lost and failed to score any tries - the first time since 2018?
Take that with a grain of salt. For me that game was a failure. We went backwards from the first test
Despite doing some good things and growing into that test he struggled with the physicality of that game.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
A game we lost and failed to score any tries - the first time since 2018?
Despite doing some good things and growing into that test he struggled with the physicality of that game?
Not as much as most of the experienced players, so I disagree he may be unproven, but prior games against top oppo is no gaurantee of later excellence.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
I'm not saying Savea should be our No 8 but that doesn't mean he's played badly.
Let's try this another way: Do you think he deserves to be the starting 8 based on form? Submissive tackling, ruck watching, terrible ball security, getting bundled into touch? This is not the same player that was a standout in the RWC last year. Surely form counts for something?
Sititi has been great but is unproven against top teams. He went missing in the physicality stakes in the SRP final and he got bullied a bit physically in SA so he still had some development in front of him.
He was playing an alien position.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
His freak game is the World Rugby Player of the year level form.
We really only saw glimpses of that in Auckland against Argentina.
I know the player ratings aren't much to go by but I don't think I've seen anyone rate him lower than 6 this year and more often than not it's been 7, 8, 9.
He's not been as bad as people made out.
He's been rubbish mate. His defense is appalling now. The soft try that Paisami scored in B1, the poor body height for McReight to score in B2 - when is the last time you saw him fold someone? He's all about the scrag to try and get a steal, more often than not costing us metres and putting nobody on their arse ever.
In attack he has also been very poor, he's lost the ball in contact repeatedly (3x in B1), and he's been bundled into touch and/or away from support more than once.
A steal and a few post-contact metres every game is not the performance I'm looking for from our number 8.
He should be dropped to the bench.
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Yeah Savea has made more tackles for the ABs than any other player this year. More dominant tackles than any other player and he also has the highest percentage of tackles completed at 98%.
I think you guys have some confirmation bias and recency bias happening here. You've formed an opinion, ignore the good stuff, and only focused on the bad stuff. Youre not remembering the rest of the year or his career.
He definitely should get a break.
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@antipodean said in All Blacks 2024:
@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
I don't get why people think Ardie has been poor?
Because I watch the games, not form my opinions on statistics from the window licking collective called rugbypass.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
Yeah Savea has made more tackles for the ABs than any other player this year. More dominant tackles than any other player and he also has the highest percentage of tackles completed at 98%.
I think you guys have some confirmation bias and recency bias happening here. You've formed an opinion, ignore the good stuff, and only focused on the bad stuff. Youre not remembering the rest of the year or his career.
He definitely should get a break.
Nobody is saying he's not had a great career. His highlight reel is impressive, his workrate unquestionable.
But recency bias is exactly what is required when looking at someone's current form and position in the team. He can't survive on past glory, what he did last season is completely irrelevant to the team we pick now for a given Saturday.
I don't buy for a second that he's had more dominant tackles than anyone else btw, where did that stat come from?
I agree a break would be good for him, though I was suggesting he just get moved to the bench - he would be a wonderful bench guy, as injury cover for all 3 loose forward spots but ideally an impact player for 25-30 mins.
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Stats are from RugbyPass. Considering he's made the most tackles its not surprising he's made the most dominant tackles too.
You guys think he's been terrible.
Looking at Stuff, Rugbypass and Planet Rugby player ratings for the last two weeks he's got three 7's and three 8's.
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he's made the most tackles because he has played, by the length of the Flemington straight, the most minutes. By your own shit stats his "per 80" tackles figure is lower than basically every other loose forward.
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Personally I don't think he's been terrible, his workrate is still good - but he has made a lot of mistakes and has not been effective, so I'd still put him on the bench.
The bare facts of it are that we're getting outplayed in the loose forwards by all comers, and both our veterans are also getting outplayed by a 21 year old kid playing out of position in their own team.
