The Silver Fern

I am surprised that, unusually, I am unable to find many positives in an AB performance. Thankfully there was at least one - WJ's try. Another is the opportunity to learn from ones mistakes.

The biggest is the Springbok disease of excessive and aimless kicking. The ABs have punished them time and again for it so why afford Ireland the same opportunity?

It does not hurt to have too much grunt up front in a test match or any rugby game for that matter. Against any serious opposition Ardie must start.

@dagrubster

AB forwards too small, not the right type. Really?

Starting pack weights v England 2019 WC per ultimaterugby.com

AB
Moody 120
Taylor 108
Laulala 116
Retallick 120
Whitelock 114
Barrett 105
Savea 102
Read 110
Total 895

Bok
Mtawarira 118
Mbonambi 106
Malherbe 125
Etzebeth 117
De Jager 112
Kolisi 106
Du Toit 119
Vermeulen 116
Total 919

Only real difference is in the loosies. If you think you have to be bigger, swap Ardie for Akira and you have parity. I suspect that in the next couple of hours the Wallabies will find the AB pack quite a handful

@MajorRage Perhaps in the minority, but I rate NZ commentary most highly. Perhaps because they lay it on the line.

Congratulations the ABs came back.

As was to be expected:
• Win built on forward dominance (almost walkover)
• Had plan to go round the rock-solid mid-field defense - by kicking over and to the wings
• AB hookers were badly behaved
• Given half a chance, WJ will find his way to the line
• Akira did justice to the 6 jersey
• Argentina folded under the pressure

What was not expected:
• Save for a few just-outside the 22 bombs, kicks were just a waste of ball
• Backline failed to spark
• SB was impressive

Summary. "Just pick one" would have had Beauden on with Ritchie having an off day - important in close games when an extra spark is needed (remember Chicago). Most of the time the ABs are still the team to beat BUT they have developed a worrying (for their supporters) tendency to go off the boil, and when they do they are far less formidable than they have been in the recent past.

Hope [at least (dream)] one of the games to be arranged before the Lions will be Boks v ABs.

Half an hour to a kickoff I, for one, await with great interest.

The selection process, imperfect though it may be, has yielded 15 genuine AB players. Akira will hopefully get a decent chance to show why he should have been included a lot sooner and a lot more often. Nothing wrong with the subs either.

This team has more than enough skills to beat Argentina. And the coaches have had plenty of opportunity to suss out the Argentine defence - not greatly dissimilar to that deployed by the Boks in the WC. And the ABs won that game.

Nailing my colours to the mast, I expect NZ to win by a wide margin.

Its very, very seldom that the ABs lose two matches in a row, so I waded through a great number of your 600+ and counting comments. The emotion in the immediate aftermath is to be expected however distance gives a slightly different perspective.
First the comments show the NZ public is passionate and knowledgeable. A good base to work from.
Second a number of valid points have been raised. In particular gt12's "just choose". This would generate tremendous competition for a number of places in the team and incredible performances would result. The battles for 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14 and 15 in particular would show off more talent than is available anywhere else in the world.
Third. There are some weaknesses and its unrealistic to think there would never be at least some. Depth at lock is clearly an issue. A weakness that needs a lot of good coaching for sure. But a weakness non-the less, not a disaster.
Fourth a poser for me. The ABs have been brilliant at scrambling wins, often in the dying moments when many facets of the game have not been working. Why, then, do they collapse when they loose a player? A loss last year was understandable but not the extent of the drubbing. And this year against rookie Wallabies and when they even enjoyed a 10 min numerical advantage???
And just stepping back a bit. The draw. How different if Rico had grounded the ball. Against Argentina. If Rico (again, but I do believe he is a very fine player) had caught that second half pass and Also HS passing with the line at his mercy? So close to 3 wins from 4 and very different emotions I suggest...