All Blacks vs England I
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Looks like two players from 4-8 are doing most of the heavy lifting. Papalii is limited but he works, while Scooter continues his grunt work. From looking at that, we’ve got the continuing Savea issue, the need for Finau to get more involved across the game, and the case of Pat T who again doesn’t seem to quite bring his work rate to this level.
I feel like the last one is the more pressing issue.
They won’t do anything to address the loose forward issue, and adding Blackadder may make our 75% functioning line out even worse.
I’m prepared to say that we’d likely have gotten roughly the same out of Sotutu in the Ardie role, with the added benefit of a real line out option.
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Robertson is a breath of fresh air with the press: open, honest, doesn’t blame others, stands up for his players.
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@gt12 said in All Blacks vs England I:
Looks like two players from 4-8 are doing most of the heavy lifting. Papalii is limited but he works, while Scooter continues his grunt work. From looking at that, we’ve got the continuing Savea issue, the need for Finau to get more involved across the game, and the case of Pat T who again doesn’t seem to quite bring his work rate to this level.
I feel like the last one is the more pressing issue.
They won’t do anything to address the loose forward issue, and adding Blackadder may make our 75% functioning line out even worse.
I’m prepared to say that we’d likely have gotten roughly the same out of Sotutu in the Ardie role, with the added benefit of a real line out option.
Lol Ardie hasn't played for 2 months, he's only going to get better. Based on the WC final last year we know where Ardie can get to and that's not a ceiling Sotutu can reach IMO.
Dalton needs to do more, if he's meant to be our dominant tackler at seven then simply falling off tackles when the game is on the line isn't good enough. Same goes for Finau. That's why I wouldn't mind seeing Blackadder in the mix next week, whether it be at 6 or 7.
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@Canes4life said in All Blacks vs England I:
that's not a ceiling Sotutu can reach IMO.
is that a height joke again?
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I'd give the same forward pack another go of it at Eden Park. Some times you can do everything right and the game doesn't come to you.
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@nzzp said in All Blacks vs England I:
Finau missing by the look of it - confirms the eye test a bit
Worth noting he was only on for 60mins. So would have finished higher on various stats if he kept the same rate up.
Only his second or third test so we shouldn’t expect Kaino mkII straight away. -
@Frank. Dangerous comment. I got ridiculed for observing that without reading the thread. But seriously, me and the folks I watched with were trying to see if he was on the park still in second half. Finau was hitting the ball up until he got injured and I was looking for Patrick or Ardie to follow, but it didn't happen. And I didn't see him hungry at the rucks. He was amazing in super final, so I figured he was just feeling the knee and layoff.
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It also shows Scott Barrett is leading from the front. Couldn't ask for any more.
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@BerniesCorner said in All Blacks vs England I:
It also shows Scott Barrett is leading from the front. Couldn't ask for any more.
We'd expect any AB captain to lead from the front, TBF.
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Unbalanced loosies, slow halfbacks - I don't like it, but as expected.
Rieko being that bad was a surprise, his worst test in some time.
Good scrum. Too many lineouts lost.
Calls to replace McKenzie are retarded. He puts players in space - who else is going to do that? Just get him a decent halfback and some loosies who can create turnover ball so he has more opportunities to do it. Also excellent under the high ball.
Reece good. Perofeta surprisingly good. Telea is what he is. I don't like that style of winger, but he has a good work rate and is good in contact.
Beauden Barrett unsurprisingly poor. Noticeably worse than Perofeta positionally, and straight back to losing the kicking contests and short exits as soon as he came on.
On the loosies. Our 7 is a tackler and ruck cleaner... so he's really just a 6 who is too small. Our 8 is world player of the year, but he's just not very fucking useful. Finau quiet-ish then injured. Pretty mediocre from a country who have always had great strength in the loose, and makes a laughing stock of all the comments on here about how spoilt we were in super rugby for quality loosies. -
@mencey said in All Blacks vs England I:
@chimoaus said in All Blacks vs England I:
On the positive I enjoyed the game and really looking forward to next week. I am confident the coaches will grow over the season and adapt as they go.
This is the first test and people on here are shitting themselves. I have complete and utter confidence in Razor and his team. in 3 years and 7 years time when we are winning our 4th and 5th world cup all the criticism will be laughed at.
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Now rewatched first half.
Must say that, taken in isolation, most of the Fern whinging is excessive.
ABs ought to have been 10 up after 40. As Ray noted, several opportunities not enforced. Common themes not drawing and passing or passing to someone in worse position. Rieko the chief culprit.
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Q3 rewatch.
Scrappy. Scrum use it own goal. Could have been out of our half. Bad Smith miss.
Then good English period for about eight minutes. Passing straight to two out off rucks found holes twice, and with yardage gained ABs forced to narrow defence, which England took advantage of very well.
50-60 three soft English penalties, one of which led to three points.
DMac high kicks very good except at 60 after his blood nose. Main failing two poor Taylor throw ins, one from very promising position. Bench seemed to add some energy. -
Mounga has now opened up about coming back to NZ and playing for the ABs again.
I’m not sure if he is back earlier than his contract allows but if we can have DM develop as an international 10 with 25-30 starts at 10 under his belt and the Richie comes back to NZ, then that would be a pretty good outcome for us.
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slow motion of the JB cleanout by the way - it looks legit. Was partway through the first half and at the time I thought he may be in trouble ... but it looks like a big bloke smashing a smaller bloke. Chapeau.
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@pukunui said in All Blacks vs England I:
@nzzp said in All Blacks vs England I:
Finau missing by the look of it - confirms the eye test a bit
Worth noting he was only on for 60mins. So would have finished higher on various stats if he kept the same rate up.
Only his second or third test so we shouldn’t expect Kaino mkII straight away.One thing I noted on flicking through the game again was that he was standing just infield of - and was the first to arrive - to congratulate Reece when he scored from the cross kick. So may have been being used out wide a bit.
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While I hate to say it honestly the AB's looked pretty much like the Chiefs did all SR season, a forward pack that can't go forward so the game descends into trying to score from broken play or throwing it to Dmac and hoping that something would happen.
Our scrum was good but our line-out faultered on attack when it mattered to help put the game away.
Seemed to be quite a disconnect between our carriers and cleaners, often the worst thing the carrier could do was get go forward as they'd get isoloated. I hope it's just a team struggling to adopt a new attack pattern and get themselves in the right place - though I saw a lot of this under Fozzie too...
Credit where credit is due Perofeta had a magnificent game, I didn't agree with him being in the team but he was one of our best out there that night.
While DMac's kicking game wasn't good if you've run 10 phases into a brick wall and are kicking to a well set back 3 just sitting there waitng for you to kick then there's not much you can do except try and beat them for distance. He wasn't getting much help from anyone out there.
Our loose forwards were awful I thought, if Papps job is to clear the ruck and make tackles he should be at 6 not 7, Finau was missing, Adrie got 1 for the highlight reels but was missing at the ruck and on defence. Ineffective and garbled I would call it.
But credit to England they played clinically to their strengths (as a smart team should) and didn't let the AB's play well, they put pressure on, got their tries when they were on offer and with a more accurate boot could have won the game.
The AB's have an awful lot to do on their attack pattern and creating go-forward, we got 2 tries thanks to pieces of brilliance from DMac and Perofeta but the go forward and support of the ball carrier needs work on.
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@Windows97
Fair critique, yet we still won.
Wonder what happens when we get it right.
