2025 All Blacks v France series
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Main difference with Fainga'anuku is his defensive accuracy. When he was at the Crusaders it was between 55% - 75%. He's bumped that up to 75.6% at Toulon this year. It's an improvement.
But if you look at the other midfield contenders he'd be near the bottom in Super Rugby:
Midfield Players by Tackle Success
93.3% Anton Lienert-Brown
91.3% Billy Proctor
91.3% Braydon Ennor
89.1% AJ Lam
88.7% Xavi Taele
88.4% Quinn Tupaea
86.1% Riley Higgins
85.9% Peter Umaga-Jensen
84.7% Levi Aumua
83.1% David Havili
83.0% Bailyn Sullivan
80.6% Rieko Ioane
80.0% Daniel Rona
80.0% Gideon Wrampling
79.7% Tanielu Tele'a
78.8% Lalomilo Lalomilo -
@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
Main difference with Fainga'anuku is his defensive accuracy. When he was at the Crusaders it was between 55% - 75%. He's bumped that up to 75.6% at Toulon this year. It's an improvement.
But if you look at the other midfield contenders he'd be near the bottom in Super Rugby:
Midfield Players by Tackle Success
93.3% Anton Lienert-Brown
91.3% Billy Proctor
91.3% Braydon Ennor
89.1% AJ Lam
88.7% Xavi Taele
88.4% Quinn Tupaea
86.1% Riley Higgins
85.9% Peter Umaga-Jensen
84.7% Levi Aumua
83.1% David Havili
83.0% Bailyn Sullivan
80.6% Rieko Ioane
80.0% Daniel Rona
80.0% Gideon Wrampling
79.7% Tanielu Tele'a
78.8% Lalomilo LalomiloI thought Rieko's tackle success would be higher.
I took his defense to be one of his strengths. -
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@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@frugby said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
Tackles success not always the best way to measure how good a defender someone is.
It's not the only way but when you're at the bottom it's not good no matter what way you spin it.
Fainga'anuku will be in the squad as soon as possible Razor got him back for a reason and he was involved in getting Leicester back.
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@Kiwiwomble said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@brodean do you have the stats for Tavatavanawai?
Yes. I'd filtered him out by mistake because his association was listed with Fiji.
93.3% Anton Lienert-Brown
91.3% Billy Proctor
91.3% Braydon Ennor
89.1% AJ Lam
88.7% Xavi Taele
88.4% Quinn Tupaea
87.0% Timoci Tavatavanawai
86.1% Riley Higgins
85.9% Peter Umaga-Jensen
84.7% Levi Aumua
83.1% David Havili
83.0% Bailyn Sullivan
80.6% Rieko Ioane
80.0% Daniel Rona
80.0% Gideon Wrampling
79.7% Tanielu Tele'a
78.8% Lalomilo Lalomilo
66.7% Corey Evans
65.7% Sam Gilbert -
@Chris said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@frugby said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
Tackles success not always the best way to measure how good a defender someone is.
It's not the only way but when you're at the bottom it's not good no matter what way you spin it.
Fainga'anuku will be in the squad as soon as possible Razor got him back for a reason and he was involved in getting Leicester back.
Yup I'm not debating that. That's obvious. I'm doubtful it will be in the midfield though. There is a reason why Razor preferred him on the wing and I believe part of it is his defence.
Someone said they would move ALB out for Fainga'anuku. While Fainga'anuku is an exceptional attacker, ALB is an exceptional defender. I'm not sure what it is this year but last year ALB had the highest amount of try assists of any NZ midfielder in SRP.
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@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@Chris said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@frugby said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
Tackles success not always the best way to measure how good a defender someone is.
It's not the only way but when you're at the bottom it's not good no matter what way you spin it.
Fainga'anuku will be in the squad as soon as possible Razor got him back for a reason and he was involved in getting Leicester back.
Yup I'm not debating that. That's obvious. I'm doubtful it will be in the midfield though. There is a reason why Razor preferred him on the wing and I believe part of it is his defence.
Someone said they would move ALB out for Fainga'anuku. While Fainga'anuku is an exceptional attacker, ALB is an exceptional defender. I'm not sure what it is this year but last year ALB had the highest amount of try assists of any midfielder.
I don't think ALB will be moved out he is highly rated by the coaching group.
Leicester maybe Telea's replacement which may mean Telea will be selected for the French series. -
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Obviously a single stat doesn't paint a whole picture, but you have to start somewhere, as @sparky says there might be a reason...but its a starting point. 12's wouldnt have to cover the same width as a 13 normally so Gilbert couldnt use the same excuse as Reiko ...so when judging Gilbert we're a step closer to "not the best defender"
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@Frank said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
Main difference with Fainga'anuku is his defensive accuracy. When he was at the Crusaders it was between 55% - 75%. He's bumped that up to 75.6% at Toulon this year. It's an improvement.
But if you look at the other midfield contenders he'd be near the bottom in Super Rugby:
Midfield Players by Tackle Success
93.3% Anton Lienert-Brown
91.3% Billy Proctor
91.3% Braydon Ennor
89.1% AJ Lam
88.7% Xavi Taele
88.4% Quinn Tupaea
86.1% Riley Higgins
85.9% Peter Umaga-Jensen
84.7% Levi Aumua
83.1% David Havili
83.0% Bailyn Sullivan
80.6% Rieko Ioane
80.0% Daniel Rona
80.0% Gideon Wrampling
79.7% Tanielu Tele'a
78.8% Lalomilo LalomiloI thought Rieko's tackle success would be higher.
I took his defense to be one of his strengths.Rieko's numbers would be down given the ground he makes to even attempt covering tackles. While laughably those stats suggest Proctor is a better defender and we all know that's not true.
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@antipodean A sort of "Glenn Phillips Effect"?
Glenn drops quite a few catches because he gets his hands to chances other people don't.
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@antipodean said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
we all know that's not true.
Im not sure we do...
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@Bones said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@antipodean said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
we all know that's not true.
Im not sure we do...
In the kingdom of the blind
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There are definitely defensive systems which lead to more missed tackles. Any player charged with shooting up in the line to pressure ball carriers and prevent the ball getting wide will miss more than someone sitting back and waiting for the attacker.
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@Chris-B said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@antipodean A sort of "Glenn Phillips Effect"?
Glenn drops quite a few catches because he gets his hands to chances other people don't.
GP also drops a bizarre number of sitters despite being one of the most athletic fielders to step onto a cricket field
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@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
@frugby said in 2025 All Blacks Squad v France:
Tackles success not always the best way to measure how good a defender someone is.
It's not the only way but when you're at the bottom it's not good no matter what way you spin it.
Not necessarily. Need to also consider how many tackles are being attempted, and how bad these missed tackles are. You also need to factor in, that if you don't attempt a tackle, you don't miss one either - so there is no stat which tells you a guy makes shit defensive reads.
Ioane attempted 108 tackles, 7.4% of which were dominant (which I would say is relevant for a midfielder).
Lienert-Brown has only attempted 30, 3.3% of which were dominant.
Proctor has only attempted 67 and is actually tackling at 86.6%, but is high for dominant tackles at 14.9% - but again, Proctor only played a handful of games, with only 2/7 being derbies (including one against the Highlanders)
Ennor 38 attempts, with high dominant tackles
Lam, Taelea, Tupaea, Higgins, Umaga-Jensen & Havili are all second-fives, so in theory are defending less space - shouldn't be comparing them on pure tackle success rate.
I think the biggest praise you could pay to Rieko, is the Blues conceded the least tries of anyone - that doesn't happen if your centre can't defend.
