All Blacks 2025
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Meh, I'm firmly in the camp of impress at training. Players shouldn't be given caps for the hell of it.
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@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
Meh, I'm firmly in the camp of impress at training. Players shouldn't be given caps for the hell of it.
I doubt many guys who got to this point are arseing about at training.
As a test - do you think Razor made a good decision playing his best available team vs Italy, last year?
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@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@brodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@brodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
Players like McAllister shouldn't just be handed tests in the RC for the point of depth development
he isnt being handed a test just for development, he is there due to injuries.
Yeah, that is my point, he is getting game time due to injury and that should be enough for his development at the moment if he's clearly below the other 3.
Injury will provide development opportunities.
Yeah - to an extent I agree with you. But, there's a stoney silence today from those who've been criticising lack of development.
When we're playing these big tests we should be playing our best available team and I don't want to see any "giving him a go".
But, development is also part of the job. If by happy chance, we have TRC and Bled wrapped up after the next two tests, I've got no problem with them rolling out some of the dirty-dirties - and if we happen to lose so-be-it.
If we would get to the World Cup Final and suddenly be required to start Brodie McAlister -having played only three tests - I wouldn't find it excusable for Razor to say, "Brodie never got to play because we didn't ever have enough injuries". We've got to have a better plan than that!
Development should be one or two guys coming into the first team, or swapping from bench to start. Not rolling out an entire B team once the important games are finished. We learn nothing about their response to pressure, all the combinations are a mess, and the 5 or so guys who may well be genuinely better than the incumbents consequently look worse than the incumbents.
We see this regularly. The B team gets rolled out and looks shit, and it's all 'oh well nobody put their hand up'. Then if someone gets injured in the A team and one of those B guys gets a decent run, all of a sudden they look great and often become the new starter - or at least a player we have genuine confidence in for staring big games. Frankly it's just poor coaching/selection. -
@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
Meh, I'm firmly in the camp of impress at training. Players shouldn't be given caps for the hell of it.
I doubt many guys who got to this point are arseing about at training.
That's a fucking odd response. "Giving 100%" at training doesn't entitle you to a participation cap.
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@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
Meh, I'm firmly in the camp of impress at training. Players shouldn't be given caps for the hell of it.
I doubt many guys who got to this point are arseing about at training.
That's a fucking odd response. "Giving 100%" at training doesn't entitle you to a participation cap.
That's a fucking hostile response.
If you've got to be one of the 36 best players in the country, I expect they're trying to impress at training - which your "Meh" seems pretty dismissive of.
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@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
Meh, I'm firmly in the camp of impress at training. Players shouldn't be given caps for the hell of it.
I doubt many guys who got to this point are arseing about at training.
That's a fucking odd response. "Giving 100%" at training doesn't entitle you to a participation cap.
That's a fucking hostile response.
LOL if you think that's hostile.
If you've got to be one of the 36 best players in the country, I expect they're trying to impress at training - which your "Meh" seems pretty dismissive of.
They have to impress against their peers, staking a claim that they deserve the spot in the 23.
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@antipodean So was he correct to pick his best team to play Italy?
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@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@antipodean So was he correct to pick his best team to play Italy?
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@Chris-B the competitive environment of a squad can be the making or breaking of a player. I don’t doubt for one minute that whilst there is a genuine respect amongst the playing group for those that are selected, the competitiveness would come out knowing a spot is up for grabs. Part of it is in your control and some it is not. Brodie is definitely in the latter given the pecking order is well established.
For someone like QT though, he was fighting it out with two other guys for one spot - an ageing option (ALB) and a newbie (TNT). Given he had been in tbe squad under Fozzie and came back from a terrible injury, I have no doubt that motivation was different to many others.
I’m glad the Fitzy days of ‘you know your place kid’ are gone but also the avid rotation days of Henry circa 05-06 are not a feature also.
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@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@antipodean So was he correct to pick his best team to play Italy?
Fair enough!
I'd have gone with a compromise.
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@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@antipodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@antipodean So was he correct to pick his best team to play Italy?
Fair enough!
I'd have gone with a compromise.
I have a lot more sympathy for the compromise that someone who looks ready should be slotted in amongst experienced players. As we're all too aware, fielding a second XV against low tier opposition tells no one anything useful.
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@ACT-Crusader Yeah - and I'm far from the camp of "XYZ needs to be given a go".
But, you've got to have an eye on development and give the dirty-dirties an occasional run.
This season, from here, there's very little opportunity for that. France did us a favour by sending their B team.
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@antipodean People need to make an impression during Super rugby.
If you're a wing and you haven't outperformed Sevu Reece, you're not really demanding his AB spot.
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@Snowy said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
No argument about any of that from me, but as I said, Razor may think that he has 3 already. You would have to ask him how he feels about their longevity.
How much say if any do assistant coaches have about 10? We know how Razor feels about the Mo but what about the others - do they have any influence?
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@Chris-B said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:
@antipodean People need to make an impression during Super rugby.
If you're a wing and you haven't outperformed Sevu Reece, you're not really demanding his AB spot.
What if you are a 15 and faster and score more from wing than Reece but have a bit of a catching issue at 15?
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@nostrildamus Apparently not, or not enough for anything to change.
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I dont think you can disregard the monetary aspect to selections.
The contractual core (and you know who they are) will be pretty much locked in until the end of this cycle (in 24 months).
Only changes - injuries.
Mo is the one major in of consequence that I can see. -
The thing is, we are no longer in an era where the big games are SA, Aus, Eng, and Feance every 3 years are the big games.
Now they are genuinely all big games
Ireland are up. Scotland are up. Argentina are up. Italy aren't awful, shit neither are Fiji.We.cant keep thinking like it's 15 years ago
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Agreed, but that only makes selection of one or two 'B' players amongst the others more important.
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Is Lomax still our top tight head as some papers say? Methinks he has competition!
