All Blacks v Argentina II
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@nostrildamus said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
I'll reserve judgement until the EOYT, maybe earlier if the downward slide continues, but he needs to sort the forwards mess pronto.
he won 3 games in a row as AB coach and lost a fourth is a downward slide?
Well it certainly isn't upwards, is it?
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@nostrildamus said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
I'll reserve judgement until the EOYT, maybe earlier if the downward slide continues, but he needs to sort the forwards mess pronto.
he won 3 games in a row as AB coach and lost a fourth is a downward slide?
You're only as good as your last game, as they say
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@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@darylmitchell said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
Isn't that the point? Losing 4 games wasn't a black mark, it didn't matter in the grander scheme. Not a luxury you have as AB coach.
But it's cherry-picking because you're only looking at his worst season with consistent disruptions to the squad. Crusaders dropped 1 game in 2017, 2 in 2018, 2 & 2 draws in 2019, 2 in 2020 and 2021. The downward slide only started in 2022.
Let me put it another way
If Razor had started a Crusaders season with 3 wins and 1 loss no one would bat an eye lid
Conversely all of a sudden there's some pressure on Razor in the ABs following the weekend
There's some pressure on him as there would be on any other AB coach. Possibly more put on in Robertson's case due to the hype that's followed him around.
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@darylmitchell said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
Isn't that the point? Losing 4 games wasn't a black mark, it didn't matter in the grander scheme. Not a luxury you have as AB coach.
But it's cherry-picking because you're only looking at his worst season with consistent disruptions to the squad. Crusaders dropped 1 game in 2017, 2 in 2018, 2 & 2 draws in 2019, 2 in 2020 and 2021. The slide only started in 2022, with 3 losses lol.
That's a brilliant way to admit you definitely don't understand the point of what is being said.
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@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@darylmitchell said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
Isn't that the point? Losing 4 games wasn't a black mark, it didn't matter in the grander scheme. Not a luxury you have as AB coach.
But it's cherry-picking because you're only looking at his worst season with consistent disruptions to the squad. Crusaders dropped 1 game in 2017, 2 in 2018, 2 & 2 draws in 2019, 2 in 2020 and 2021. The downward slide only started in 2022.
Let me put it another way
If Razor had started a Crusaders season with 3 wins and 1 loss no one would bat an eye lid
Conversely all of a sud
yep that's fair alright, i will admit what concerns me is the way Razor has set-up his assistants in a way that gives them seemingly too much influence over the team, in his first season at the Crusaders Razor focused on the breakdown and loose forwards and also helped with coaching the team's defense in those first few seasons.
It's also fair to say at the Crusaders he was very much top dog and took most selection responsibility upon himself, with ABs he has divided responsibility between 4 other selectors (two of which weren't known for being particularly great selectors at Blues and Canes...) this is what concerns me at the moment.
there's nothing wrong with him empowering the assistant coaches around him, but it should only be to a degree, as it risks exposing individual's weaknesses - for example, should Holland be getting a say in selections when this was the biggest complaint while he was in charge of the Canes?
Why not have him focusing solely on designing the attacking strike-plays considering this is his supposed strength area? just don't allow his coaching areas of weakness to get in any position to have influence on the team.
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@KiwiMurph Exactly. Domestic rugby, you can plod along as long as you win the games that count, at AB level, you're not only expected to win every test, but win well too.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@darylmitchell said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
Isn't that the point? Losing 4 games wasn't a black mark, it didn't matter in the grander scheme. Not a luxury you have as AB coach.
But it's cherry-picking because you're only looking at his worst season with consistent disruptions to the squad. Crusaders dropped 1 game in 2017, 2 in 2018, 2 & 2 draws in 2019, 2 in 2020 and 2021. The downward slide only started in 2022.
Let me put it another way
If Razor had started a Crusaders season with 3 wins and 1 loss no one would bat an eye lid
Conversely all of a sudden there's some pressure on Razor in the ABs following the weekend
There's some pressure on him as there would be on any other AB coach. Possibly more put on in Robertson's case due to the hype that's followed him around.
With his chief hype-artist being you.
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@Bones said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@Kiwiwomble said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
What is fascinating is being able to see how Razor reacts to being under pressure
With his enormous success at the Crusaders he is in a unique position of not having been under the sort of pressure that the ABs are under right now/will be with 2 Bok games in South Africa.
How will he handle it.
yeah, thats the real test, if it is the players that arent doing what they have been training to do then we HAVE to see some of them on the block...if they keep failing but he doesnt cut anyone then we can assume it was actually his game plan of coaching that has failed
I'm more worried that due to the loss he resists making the changes he was likely going to. We'll see if he's as stubborn as Foster in a couple of days.
This week's selection is going to tell us a lot about how this year is going to go.
If players like Blackadder can stay in the starting lineup after that sort of performance (same for TJ, Savea, Jordie, and Reece) then not only does Super Rugby form not matter, but neither does performances in the Test arena.
The worst aspect of Fosters reign was it was near on impossible to be dropped from the squad unless you got injured.
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I think the role of each of the selectors has quite possibly been massively overblown due to a few passing comments to media.
As in, while Leon MacDonald no doubt does the most scouting of the midfield and outside backs, I don't think he's the one who picks all the players. He certainly wouldn't be picking the players for match day. That likely falls to Razor, with input from the position-specific selectors - but ultimately it's still going to be his squad.
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@Bones said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@Kirwan I'm even more puzzled now why Cane wouldn't be used to do the same job Blackadder did on Saturday. It doesn't appear to the eye that Blackadder gets around the park more than Cane and at least Cane hits hard. Better in the lineout?
Coz Razor?
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@Bones said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@Kirwan I'm even more puzzled now why Cane wouldn't be used to do the same job Blackadder did on Saturday. It doesn't appear to the eye that Blackadder gets around the park more than Cane and at least Cane hits hard. Better in the lineout?
Blackadder gets around the park to be fair. He is into everything as much as his physical talents permit. He's not hiding or sea gulling on the wing. He doesnt hit like a Kaino or poach like a McCaw which is a problem. But I have no issue with Cane coming back. We need mongrel.
I still think Blackadder should be cut some slack as he is never fit long enough to actually see what he is like when in form. I still think we havnt seen his ceiling.
For Darry's try, which was basically McKenzie and Barrett breaking away, it's Blackadder right on Darry's shoulder as he scores. Massive props to Darry for being up there too by the way.
Im more worried that we have seen Papalii's ceiling and whether it will ever be enough.
Thats not to advocate for anyone over Papalii, just to say that maybe we dont have a vintage batch of loose forwards knocking around.
Which is scary when you think that South Africa dont even have Evan Roos or Cameron Hanekom in their squad. It's a production line of monsters. We need to find a few big lumps in high school and soon.
Id encourage anyone to watch Cameron Hanekoms performance in the URC semi against Leinster.
Keep in mind he was up agains Caelan Doris and Josh Van Der Flier that day. He is only 22. -
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@Billy-Tell said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
Do kiwis still really care to that extent about losses? I’m outside the country but I was a bit meh whatever. Lots of other countries have caught up and very, if any, players are the worlds best in their position. First year in charge I hardly expected Roberson to go undefeated. Argentina played pretty well but they still needed nz to gift them 2 tries of which the 2nd in particular was a minties moment kind of errors. In modern rugby the solution is not the “we need to be more hard” kind of fixes. All the best teams are up there in terms of physicality etc - simply being more hard rarely changes anything. This weeks test is much more interesting as we see how SR responds to a loss.
I care about losses, I'm just more mature about handling them these days, however it was the nature of the loss that was frustrating.
Also, I've always been in the we should select Razor camp, but it has been a bit funny seeing his, and it is his fucking team, flounder around like Fozzies and then see some posters try to put the blame on Fozzie or make excuses. Razor learning that test rugby isn't Super, but I expect he'll rise to the occasion.
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@Bones said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@Canes4life would be awesome to see him get a shot.
Fucking Razor from BoP trying to ruin the Bays NPC campaign.
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More power is always nice but the main thing is a lack of composure and on field strategy, I was expecting an improvement there, to be honest. By game 4, I didn't expect the headless chicken routine, or the bench timing and play to implode. Lineouts still look fragile as well.
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@Jet said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
For Darry's try, which was basically McKenzie and Barrett breaking away, it's Blackadder right on Darry's shoulder as he scores. Massive props to Darry for being up there too by the way.
So what you're saying is that this tearaway loose forward with a big motor was beaten to the punch by a to date run of the mill lock known for doing the tight stuff and not exactly having pace? 😬
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@reprobate said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@Jet Oh I'm all for winning - the rugby that is, don't really care too much who wins the toughest press conference competition. As I said it's a volume of posts from multiple people all playing amateur psychologist, rather than a single one.
The 'big dick' post was a good one, and i agreed with a fair bit of it: it analysed some rugby, lack of specialists, lack of balance caused by locked-in selections etc. Although bemoaning not enough tough guys then advocating for hotham, jordan, love did make me chuckle (they're only backs I know).I watched this video after our interaction last night and funnily enough the host Kevin Ferguson started going on about how Australia and NZ are "woke" countries and have lost our mongrel. He also joked how the Wallabies have been crap since Raelene Castle banned freedom of religious expression (Folau) and their nadir since.
Their contention was parents wrap their kids in cotton wool in Australasia and how contact sport and expressing yourself through physicality is still celebrated in South Africa. The kids arent stuck inside playing Fortnite.
They mentioned they had 22,000 fans at a Paarl boys high school game during the week and contrasted it with the poor attendances in the Cake Tin and a "sold out" Suncorp where South African fans practically outnumbered the Aussies. Drew Mitchell echoed this sentiment about the large Bok fans turnout in Brisbane on the KOKO show.
Bombastic episode, but interesting to see how things are viewed from afar, albeit barstool talk.
Scott Gibbes is a regular on the show now. Never realised he moved to South Africa.
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@Bones said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
@Jet said in All Blacks v Argentina II:
For Darry's try, which was basically McKenzie and Barrett breaking away, it's Blackadder right on Darry's shoulder as he scores. Massive props to Darry for being up there too by the way.
So what you're saying is that this tearaway loose forward with a big motor was beaten to the punch by a to date run of the mill lock known for doing the tight stuff and not exactly having pace? 😬
Thats exactly what im saying. And guess where our open side flanker was.
Standing on our own 22 with his hands on his hips.
Blackadder started from a deeper position than Papalii and Dalton didnt try a leg to get there.
Dalton top left, Darry with white head tape to the right. Blackadder just inside 22.
Watch the footage. Dalton just stops and puts hands on hips. Darry and Blackadder chase McKenzie's chip and chase, overtaking Perenara en route half way up the field. Darry looks fair quick for a lock in the footage. Well done to him.
