2025 All Blacks v France series
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@Mauss said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
@gt12 said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
Did you watch / hear the rugbypod?
They provided slightly different data to yours and focused on first or second to the breakdown for Holland and Kirifi. I'm interested in how it stacks up against the stuff you presented.
No, I haven't, I'll take a listen. My numbers for the attacking ruck arrivals are very rudimentary: I just look at each breakdown and take note of who the cleaners are. It doesn't take into account the quality of the clean (although I do sometimes write down when the clean was poor) or who arrives first.
Speaking of stats, there's certainly value in looking at things yourself. I was just looking at some numbers from the U20 World Cup and comparing the stats from RugbyPass (I think they use Opta?) and the SA Rugby match centre (they use a service called 'Stratus', which I haven't heard of).
These are the numbers given by both for the metres carried for the NZ U20 back five in the U20 World Cup final against South Africa.
Perhaps they use different criteria - total metres vs. post-contact perhaps? - but it still makes very little sense that someone like Woodley has carried the ball for either 8 or 82 metres (I'd have no idea how Woodley would've gotten 74 pre-contact metres so it doesn't make a lot of sense, either way).
All of this just to say, rugby statistics still have some way to go and it's probably best to look at things yourself if you really want to make your mind up.
Good on you, mate: keep them on their toes!
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@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
Kirifi's gainline % in that last game was Blackadder low.
It worries me that we might see Kirifi and Blackadder selected together in the same All Blacks backrow at some point. And the opposition are going to have fun driving us back all game.
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@Bones said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
@booboo said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
@gt12 said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
'super' fast ball.
Which is better?
SQB or ultra quick ball?
Are both SQB and UQB quicker than very quick ball?
And is just plain or garden variety quick ball a relic from the 4 point try days?
Just don't let Marshall call the ball a nut in this instance.
I’d like to hear Mex opine on this.
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Now that the July series against the French is over, plenty of commentators are wondering what exactly can be taken away from the games, the French opposition being both inexperienced at Test level and overcooked from their long Top14 season. But not every aspect of play requires 100 Test caps nor a well-rested body to pressure the opposition: kick-off receipt only requires an excellent opposition kicker (check) and a coaching staff that is tactically astute (double check). And there’s plenty to unpack in that regard from these three Tests.
What is a successful kick reception?
But first, it might be interesting to quickly clarify what I understand kick reception to be about. Here, I’ll mostly be focusing on kick restart wins and losses. What do I consider to be a restart win? The kick receiver – who has been given a zone where he’s responsible for calling and making the catch, whether it’s near the 10 metre line, around the 22 or inside the 22 – takes possession from the restart, cleanly, and allows his team to set up an exit play.The taking the ball cleanly matters. The ABs might end up with possession after the restart but only due to an opposition mistake (e.g. a knock-on). But I don’t consider that as a restart win per se since the planned reception failed. Here’s an example: Segonds kicks a restart after the first NZ try in Wellington which Holland misjudges, allowing Attissogbe to beat him to the space. The latter, however, knocks the ball on and the ball ends up in the hands of Lio-Willie.
While the ABs technically end up with possession after the restart, I do not consider this to be a restart win, since Holland was unable to properly judge the kick and get into the required position to make a clean kick receipt.
Then again, players can also immediately lose the ball after winning the restart. In the same Test, Holland catches a restart cleanly in the 55th minute, only for him to make a run and cough the ball up rather cheaply.
Still, that is a restart win in my books. The only thing that matters, in other words, is the moment of reception itself, not the eventual outcome of the passage of play. Others will have different definitions of course, with a site like RugbyPass coming to different numbers on both total restarts (e.g. 7 rather than 5 in the third Test) and win percentage (RP: 86, 78 and 73% across the Tests respectively, versus 80, 62 and 40% by my own count in the table below). I’m not quite sure how they got to those numbers but I’ll leave that aside.
Some numbers and a graph
As mentioned above, testing a team’s kick-off receipt only requires a solid boot and some tactical nous. Unsurprisingly then, the French restart kickers, Joris Segonds and Antoine Hastoy, were able to thoroughly test the AB kick-off receivers throughout the July series, putting more and more pressure on the different units across the field as the series wore on.
After first kicking exclusively to the AB left-wing reception zone (Vaa’i – Holland – Ioane) during the first two Tests (13 restart kicks, of which 9 were effectively dealt with), the French switched it around completely and exclusively targeted the ABs’ right hand side in Hamilton (Finau – Tuipulotu – Jordan) to good effect, Hastoy forcing the ABs into a paltry 40% retention rate in that final Test.
The All Blacks’ reception retention rate got lower and lower through the series, as the French were able to manipulate and consistently take the NZ backfield coverage by surprise. One reason for this is that most of the French restarts went deep but when they went shorter, they were very successful, with the ABs only catching 1 out of 5 French restarts between the 22 and the 10 metre line.
So what were the French trying to do with their restarts? Why did they mainly kick deep (10/13) when their short restarts were such a success? And what exactly went wrong for the ABs in this department throughout the series?
French tactics
The standard French restart tactic at the beginning of the Test series was to kick long, inside the AB 22, and close to the touch line. With an inexperienced Holland responsible for high ball receipts and a non-kicker in Ioane responsible for taking the ball in the 22, it allowed the French to chop down the AB kick receiver quickly and immediately pressure the NZ breakdown, looking to force them into mistakes and/or turnovers near their own try line.
In the first instance, Barlot is perhaps a bit unlucky not to be awarded for his jackal attempt, being deemed to have gone off his feet. In the second, Vaa’i is rather fortunate not to be pinged for coming in from the side. Small margins.
It fitted within a broader French strategy of pressuring the ABs in their own half, as they looked to fracture NZ confidence while steadily building scoreboard pressure and momentum through the accuracy of their kickers, Le Garrec and Segonds.
Another benefit to this tactic of kicking deep was that, when they did go short, it often caused chaos among the AB kick receivers, who weren’t expecting this change of depth. It looks like the French wanted to challenge some of the less familiar combinations within the ABs, such as those between Vaa’i and Holland in the first two Tests, and Finau and Tuipulotu in the third.
Exploiting frail combinations
The ABs use their taller, athletic back-rowers such as Finau and Vaa’i to patrol the area just beyond the 10 metre line, their coordination and jumping ability valuable commodities for potential contests in that area. But they have a double role: when the ball is kicked to near the AB 22, they are to function as the front lifters for locks like Holland and Tuipulotu. The complexity of this dual role formed the crowbar with which the French kickers wanted to break open the connection between the AB kick-off receivers.In the Wellington Test, for example, Vaa’i was caught off guard when Segonds decides to go for a more shallow kick instead of the more typical deep kick. The former had already turned his back to the ball in order to lift Holland, only for Vaa’i to have to turn back once again in an attempt at catching the ball in his marked zone.
Vaa’i and Holland try to recover after being caught out but are in a poor position to make a successful catch, allowing the French chasers to tap the ball back and retain possessionIt was more of the same in Hamilton, as the partnership of Finau and Tuipulotu was put to the sword by Hastoy’s accurate boot, as the latter tried to find the space between the two in order to make the timing and lift as challenging as possible.
In both cases where Tuipulotu loses the aerial contest to Gabin Villière, the lifting pod between Finau, Tuipulotu and Lomax is slow to form and tentative in its positioning. Tuipulotu needs to attack the ball and be quicker in claiming the space where he wants to be lifted.
Potential fixes?
It’s clear that the AB coaching staff is aware that the restart was becoming a real issue during the series. Even during the Hamilton game itself, the coaches tried to fix the problem, with Holland being put on the right hand side after Tuipulotu was unable to gather the ball off the restart two times in a row.
Jordan gathers the ball inside the 22 but Holland (number 5) is now where Tuipulotu had been in order to catch the restartIt’s an impressive feat for a 2.5-Test rookie to be asked to problem-solve in his debut series. But in the previous games, Holland had shown himself to be the most reliable option in these contestable scenarios, despite having multiple fumbles himself.
Beyond simply putting Holland at where the opposition is kicking towards, the AB coaches will do well to make sure that the combinations within the different backfield coverage-units are settled and familiar with each other. The probable return of a player like Barrett, who has built up a mutual understanding with someone like Vaa’i, would certainly help in this regard. But the players themselves will also need to show more tactical nous on the field itself, where they need to show more awareness of the potential restart strategies being employed by the opposition.
Summary or, TL;DR
While the July internationals against an inexperienced yet talented French squad cannot teach us much about the state of the AB attack, defence or set-piece, what it can show is the state of the restart reception, due to the quality of both the French kicking and tactical coaching.In that sense, this series has shown two clear-cut things. First, the ABs have demonstrated some frailties in their kick-off reception, the inexperienced combinations between lifters and receivers able to be exploited by a clever and accurate French kicking game. And secondly, the coaches have been very quick with the faith they’ve put in the young Dutchman Fabian Holland, asking him to help fix a failing kick-off reception in Hamilton. Then again, this faith has been earned through his performances in the series, where he’s shown himself to be the most reliable option for restart receptions.
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The deep high kick off to the corner tactic is perfect against the ABs because of their lack of decent kickers. Even if the ABs gather the ball cleanly and get a solid base, the exit kick is generally got good enough. It's either a short touch finder or a box kick, and we all know their struggles recently with box kicks.
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@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
Unfortunately restart receipts were an issue last year too and targeted by other teams. Something we haven't seem to have progressed with.
It’s a very competitive area between teams at the moment. With the new laws preventing teams from blocking chasers, you’re basically receiving the ball and chasers at the same time. Front-lifters like Vaa’i and Finau also need to make sure they’re not accidentally blocking oncoming opposition players as well.
It’ll probably take a while for teams to adapt. The ABs aren’t alone in this, the French weren’t much better at the kick-off receipt throughout the series either, losing multiple restarts as well. But having athletic 2m+ players certainly helps in this regard.
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@Mauss for me the kicking deep is simple; our exits are shite (and have been for sometime) so they know there is a high probability of getting the ball back deep inside our half, either from a lineout, error or, a fucking chip kick in our 22.
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@Crazy-Horse To be fair, Roigard's boxies were peeling off 40 odd meters pretty well in that second test. I actually dont reckon beaudie had to make an exit in the first half and we exited well most times
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that may be so, but it's essentially handing them uncontested ball at half way and immediately applying a bit of pressure to ourselves.
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@mariner4life i mean its a contested line out. I was referring to exits from kick offs into our 22. His touch finders from the base of the ruck were unreal.
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@DurryMexted said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
@Crazy-Horse To be fair, Roigard's boxies were peeling off 40 odd meters pretty well in that second test. I actually dont reckon beaudie had to make an exit in the first half and we exited well most times
Yes Roigard can provide quality exits.
It makes sense for JB to perform the exits.
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@Mauss said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
@brodean said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
Unfortunately restart receipts were an issue last year too and targeted by other teams. Something we haven't seem to have progressed with.
It’s a very competitive area between teams at the moment. With the new laws preventing teams from blocking chasers, you’re basically receiving the ball and chasers at the same time. Front-lifters like Vaa’i and Finau also need to make sure they’re not accidentally blocking oncoming opposition players as well.
It’ll probably take a while for teams to adapt. The ABs aren’t alone in this, the French weren’t much better at the kick-off receipt throughout the series either, losing multiple restarts as well. But having athletic 2m+ players certainly helps in this regard.
I haven't noticed it as competitive in Super Rugby. Is it an area that lacks focus there?
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@Duluth said in 2025 All Blacks v France series:
I think it was the second Test when Holland dropped a few kickoffs?
Yeah, one where he misjudged the depth of the kick, at around the 15' mark, where Attissogbe beats him to the ball in the air (but knocks on himself). And the other one was at the 2nd half restart, with the ball slipping through his fingers and eventually going into touch.
For all three Tests, the ABs kicked off in the first half and received the kick-off in the second. Interestingly, they weren't able to secure one of those 2nd half restarts (Test 1: Ioane knock on; Test 2: Holland error; Test 3: Villière beats Tuipulotu to the ball). It was a consistent aspect of the pressure the ABs put themselves under at the beginning of the 2nd half, giving the French easy 22 access, alongside the quick impact of the French bench forwards who would come on around the same time.
