The Silver Fern

Thoughts?
His +/- is not good.

@Bovidae

Fuck, no white one.

@Kiwiwomble

btw, looks like the away jersey is really playing up the Southland angle too:

@Kiwiwomble

I personally find the Scottish thing a bit silly, but I'm not from there. The Southern lights feels much more NZ to me and those designs actually set the jersey apart. I don't usually buy merch for other teams, but that is neat.

The southern lights idea on those highlander jerseys is fucking cool.

@Nepia said in Sevu Reece - in trouble again:

Great to see he's turned his life around after the Crusaders (and AB) gave him a lifeline.

Better people, better all blacks.

Putting aside the Razor part of it, I’m in tentative support of us picking players while on longer term sabbaticals.

The article linked to earlier was talking about allowing players two seasons in the NH, and I’d be ok with us selecting them as long as it was part of (say) a 3-4 yr contract with 2 NH seasons. I’ll admit it is essentially a Giteau rule, just wrapped in an NZ contract. As I see it, this would help players earn more and it does seem true that NH teams (including. Japan) want 2 seasons with players.

I can see one potential benefit in that these players would stay part of the AB training and could still be selected, so we might not see the dramatic drop-offs that we’ve seen for other players. It does seem a bit of a holiday at the moment and that appears to have an impact.

The tricky part would be if someone decides they want out after their two NH seasons (ie does t want to return home). If that became a pattern (essentially, get two years overseas as an AB then jump off) then I don’t think I’d love the potential impact on players here.

@Bovidae

That would be typical.
I’ll admit that it’s mainly just because of the heat here that I don’t want to black one, I won’t be too picky about the design.

From insta stories, it does look like the Chiefs and others have a white training shirt, which looks quite neat, but it still hasn't been released and we aren't that far away from Xmas. Strange timing.

@Machpants said in Blues 2025:

@gt12 said in Blues 2025:

@Daffy-Jaffy

The white one is as cool as the red one is shit.

Wannabe crusaders?

Interesting technique to get attention from the AB coaches.

@Daffy-Jaffy

The white one is as cool as the red one is shit.

@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2024:

@ARHS said in All Blacks 2024:

@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2024:

@gt12 said in All Blacks 2024:

@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2024:

@dogmeat said in All Blacks 2024:

@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2024:

After winning vs Oz, Oz, Japan, England and Ireland, the nay-sayers had somewhat quietened and there were even - god help us - a few vaguely positive comments. People "could see where Razor's taking the team".

So, the nay sayers should have been quietened by two wins, one very shaky, over a poor Wallabies side, a walkover against Japan, yet another close call versus a very limited Pomgolia and a decent showing up against an Ireland who are clearly in decline?

I'm stating that as a fact. If you look at the Ireland thread after the match and the France thread pre-match, there was actually - for once - a small degree of positivity.

As soon as we lost to France, that evaporated.

Ok, this feels like bait, but I’ll play.

These types of selections may be entirely forgivable, if we won. But we didn’t.

I don't know why you think it's bait, because you're at least partially agreeing with me.

I'm saying that if you win everything is forgiven - except a lack of style.

Victor reckons Razor can lose and people would be happy with that if he'd picked the Baby Blacks.

I reckon if he loses nothing is forgiven.

Not just Razor - every All Black coach. Remeber Sir Ted wondering if he'd be able to live in NZ if they'd lost the 2011 final.

Geez, you come across as a Razor apologist. I don't mind if we lose against the best, provided we are moving towards a good strategic plan.
What I am disappointed with this year is what I see as an overall lack of intelligence in so many things around the AB's. Every turn it seems like gut reactions taking things back to tried and true. Against Italy it felt like watching the Crusaders, grinding out an ugly win.

I think we, the fans, have largely driven this by demanding that the ABs never lose. Look at what happened to Fozzie after his run of half a dozen losses. Hansen losing to Ireland for the first time. Hart's horse. Every RWC elimination - except maybe Laurie, but he had Suzy to blame.

There's a very clear message sent to the AB coaches - don't lose!!!

The point I'm making to Victor.

Edit: @mariner4life Snap!

Sorry that my effort to inject a little bit of positivity into the discussion just makes me a Razor apologist. I'll try to be more dismally negative in the future so as not to not to disrupt the wake!

@mariner4life summed it up well, and when viewed through that lens, and that is definitely my lens, the jury is well and truly out. After the ireland test, there was potential for things to be far more positive, but we've returned to a hung jury.

Win? Well we're the ABs, you're supposed to (Lost a bad one, let at least two get away)
Lose? You fucking suck, all we do is win (see above)
Must start best team every week so you win (if we didn't win, it likely is because you didn't start the best team, so if you are making safe choices, you're in the gun)
Must build depth so we have 2 World XV candidates in all positions. If we don't you suck (injury has been the main thing which has provided opportunity this year)
If you win, but not with style, you suck (No points in the last 20 for a number of games, clunky attack, Barrett the handbrake)
If you lose but play pretty, you should have been more pragmatic (This goes both ways, given that we lost one we should have won as the captain is a numpty).

Good choices for AB of the year. Cant really argue with the super choices either, which really highlights the discussion in the other thread.

Anyway, I thought this is cool, nice by PSDT’s dad:

@Chris-B

Your argument, as I read it, is that there are moving goal posts.

I dispute that.

You are conflating the ‘must always win’ with ‘develop the team’ . Previous coaching teams have shown its entirely possible to do both.

Picking experienced guys wouldn’t be an issue if they were so clearly playing better than the younger generation. But they aren’t, and we lost.

As the young guys only get a chance through injury, we cant answer part of the question, but our best players all year have been the younger guys. They perform (e.g., Aumua) then get benched. Niiiice.

@SammyC

Welcome back!

@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2024:

@dogmeat said in All Blacks 2024:

@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2024:

After winning vs Oz, Oz, Japan, England and Ireland, the nay-sayers had somewhat quietened and there were even - god help us - a few vaguely positive comments. People "could see where Razor's taking the team".

So, the nay sayers should have been quietened by two wins, one very shaky, over a poor Wallabies side, a walkover against Japan, yet another close call versus a very limited Pomgolia and a decent showing up against an Ireland who are clearly in decline?

I'm stating that as a fact. If you look at the Ireland thread after the match and the France thread pre-match, there was actually - for once - a small degree of positivity.

As soon as we lost to France, that evaporated.

Ok, this feels like bait, but I’ll play.

The Ireland test result was a good one, the team looked OK, and posters rightfully argued that we may be on the right track - however the jury was still out until the French selection / results.

He switched up a winning team, and we went out and lost. And, some of those changes were (I believe) literally benching the MOTM and guy who should have been MOTM from the previous week. These types of selections may be entirely forgivable, if we won. But we didn’t.

The coaching team then doubled down the following week with the same selections and we got a stumbling win over a passionate but limited Italian team.

If the ABs do adopt a new policy for sabbaticals allowing players to spend a full year away (perhaps two) and still be eligible for selection (as discussed in the article posted in another thread), Dmac may be the first to take advantage of it.

@Gunner said in Black Caps vs England Series:

@nzzp aged well didn’t it.

Were fucked now, will be all out for 150 before tea.

Better, but still a bit too positive.

@nzzp said in Black Caps vs England Series:

@Gunner this is all your fault

Fuck! I read that post and was just going to ask him to apologise to the gods.

Ban hammer mods!

That training shirt is nice.

I'm hoping that the chiefs bring out some stuff in white, as I cook here in the all-black stuff, and the maroon stuff looks like shit.