All Blacks 2025
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2025:
@akan004 said in All Blacks 2025:
Are we big enough in the forwards? Our front row is but the Aussies had bigger men running at us from 4-8 and were bending the line on most occasions. Our obsession with mobility and speed in NZ rugby has resulted in us not producing large forwards. I look at the NPC and our loosies are all virtually the same size, sitting around the 110kg mark and our locks aren't massive. We saw what a bigger body like Patty T could do when he came on, and that's where the game is heading now - power and size.
A decade ago we could rely on our players running the opposition off their feet and our pack, while not being the largest, were always the quickest and most skilled which gave us an advantage. Now the opposition are as skilled, as fit and they generally have bigger men than us, while the introduction of impact players mean that they will always have fresh forwards to close the game out.
It's not a question of us not being able to produce big guys. We do have the largest PI population in the world so size shouldn't be an issue, it's just that we tend to pick guys to suit the traditional NZ speed game which has always favoured slightly smaller men. Guys like Skelton, LSL, Meafou, the Vunipola brothers, Antonio etc are all NZ born so we certainly can produce bigger athletes, we just need to start identifying them and bringing them through.
I take your point and agree with it but will also add this isn't a new development. The Springbok and French teams have been big for 5 years.
Razor has taken his hustle rugby from the Crusaders where his team of smaller forwards out hustle the other forwards with relentless activity and tried to apply it to test rugby however it simply doesn't work because guys like Psdt and Ollivon have massive workrates but are significantly bigger guys.
Plus they use their benches really well where as we have this outdated belief that we can outfit these guys despite a whole set of players coming on without losing momentum.
Ireland have a similar approach to the Crusaders/Razor Blacks with a lot of hustle but when comes down to the trench warfare that is RWC it simply doesn't work. Big guys lift their games to a new level at test level and smaller hustle teams get beaten.
I will also add that the Springboks, Puma's and Wallabies all have better attacking backlines than ours at the moment. The Springbok backs in particular are instinctively doing what our backs like 10 years younger Beauden Barrett, Ben Smith, Israel Dagg etc used to do. The backline attack pattern of all those teams is better than ours.
Probably longer than that. France have had massive ( and in many cases completely mental ) forwards for as long as I remember going back to Olivier Merle who looked like something they'd trapped from the mountains and taught to play Rugby. Abdel Benazzi was huge and psychotic. Jerome Thion was a unit and a half. Chabal, Harinordoquay and Picamoles were all huge runners from number 8. It's not a recent trend.
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean said in All Blacks 2025:
@akan004 said in All Blacks 2025:
Are we big enough in the forwards? Our front row is but the Aussies had bigger men running at us from 4-8 and were bending the line on most occasions. Our obsession with mobility and speed in NZ rugby has resulted in us not producing large forwards. I look at the NPC and our loosies are all virtually the same size, sitting around the 110kg mark and our locks aren't massive. We saw what a bigger body like Patty T could do when he came on, and that's where the game is heading now - power and size.
A decade ago we could rely on our players running the opposition off their feet and our pack, while not being the largest, were always the quickest and most skilled which gave us an advantage. Now the opposition are as skilled, as fit and they generally have bigger men than us, while the introduction of impact players mean that they will always have fresh forwards to close the game out.
It's not a question of us not being able to produce big guys. We do have the largest PI population in the world so size shouldn't be an issue, it's just that we tend to pick guys to suit the traditional NZ speed game which has always favoured slightly smaller men. Guys like Skelton, LSL, Meafou, the Vunipola brothers, Antonio etc are all NZ born so we certainly can produce bigger athletes, we just need to start identifying them and bringing them through.
I take your point and agree with it but will also add this isn't a new development. The Springbok and French teams have been big for 5 years.
Razor has taken his hustle rugby from the Crusaders where his team of smaller forwards out hustle the other forwards with relentless activity and tried to apply it to test rugby however it simply doesn't work because guys like Psdt and Ollivon have massive workrates but are significantly bigger guys.
Plus they use their benches really well where as we have this outdated belief that we can outfit these guys despite a whole set of players coming on without losing momentum.
Ireland have a similar approach to the Crusaders/Razor Blacks with a lot of hustle but when comes down to the trench warfare that is RWC it simply doesn't work. Big guys lift their games to a new level at test level and smaller hustle teams get beaten.
I will also add that the Springboks, Puma's and Wallabies all have better attacking backlines than ours at the moment. The Springbok backs in particular are instinctively doing what our backs like 10 years younger Beauden Barrett, Ben Smith, Israel Dagg etc used to do. The backline attack pattern of all those teams is better than ours.
Probably longer than that. France have had massive ( and in many cases completely mental ) forwards for as long as I remember going back to Olivier Merle who looked like something they'd trapped from the mountains and taught to play Rugby. Abdel Benazzi was huge and psychotic. Jerome Thion was a unit and a half. Chabal, Harinordoquay and Picamoles were all huge runners from number 8. It's not a recent trend.
What an apt description of Merle.....
. Him and Benazzi are the two French forwards I remember from the 90s. Absolute units. -
@nonpartizan said in All Blacks 2025:
@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean said in All Blacks 2025:
@akan004 said in All Blacks 2025:
Are we big enough in the forwards? Our front row is but the Aussies had bigger men running at us from 4-8 and were bending the line on most occasions. Our obsession with mobility and speed in NZ rugby has resulted in us not producing large forwards. I look at the NPC and our loosies are all virtually the same size, sitting around the 110kg mark and our locks aren't massive. We saw what a bigger body like Patty T could do when he came on, and that's where the game is heading now - power and size.
A decade ago we could rely on our players running the opposition off their feet and our pack, while not being the largest, were always the quickest and most skilled which gave us an advantage. Now the opposition are as skilled, as fit and they generally have bigger men than us, while the introduction of impact players mean that they will always have fresh forwards to close the game out.
It's not a question of us not being able to produce big guys. We do have the largest PI population in the world so size shouldn't be an issue, it's just that we tend to pick guys to suit the traditional NZ speed game which has always favoured slightly smaller men. Guys like Skelton, LSL, Meafou, the Vunipola brothers, Antonio etc are all NZ born so we certainly can produce bigger athletes, we just need to start identifying them and bringing them through.
I take your point and agree with it but will also add this isn't a new development. The Springbok and French teams have been big for 5 years.
Razor has taken his hustle rugby from the Crusaders where his team of smaller forwards out hustle the other forwards with relentless activity and tried to apply it to test rugby however it simply doesn't work because guys like Psdt and Ollivon have massive workrates but are significantly bigger guys.
Plus they use their benches really well where as we have this outdated belief that we can outfit these guys despite a whole set of players coming on without losing momentum.
Ireland have a similar approach to the Crusaders/Razor Blacks with a lot of hustle but when comes down to the trench warfare that is RWC it simply doesn't work. Big guys lift their games to a new level at test level and smaller hustle teams get beaten.
I will also add that the Springboks, Puma's and Wallabies all have better attacking backlines than ours at the moment. The Springbok backs in particular are instinctively doing what our backs like 10 years younger Beauden Barrett, Ben Smith, Israel Dagg etc used to do. The backline attack pattern of all those teams is better than ours.
Probably longer than that. France have had massive ( and in many cases completely mental ) forwards for as long as I remember going back to Olivier Merle who looked like something they'd trapped from the mountains and taught to play Rugby. Abdel Benazzi was huge and psychotic. Jerome Thion was a unit and a half. Chabal, Harinordoquay and Picamoles were all huge runners from number 8. It's not a recent trend.
What an apt description of Merle.....
. Him and Benazzi are the two French forwards I remember from the 90s. Absolute units.Yeah in that 94 series The ABs may have had the beast in the backline ( who was still learning the ropes ) but those two plus Olivier Roumat were terrifying.
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@akan004 said in All Blacks 2025:
Are we big enough in the forwards? Our front row is but the Aussies had bigger men running at us from 4-8 and were bending the line on most occasions. Our obsession with mobility and speed in NZ rugby has resulted in us not producing large forwards. I look at the NPC and our loosies are all virtually the same size, sitting around the 110kg mark and our locks aren't massive. We saw what a bigger body like Patty T could do when he came on, and that's where the game is heading now - power and size.
A decade ago, we could rely on our players running the opposition off their feet and our pack, while not being the largest, were always the quickest and most skilled, which gave us an advantage. Now, the opposition is as skilled, as fit and they generally have bigger men than us, while the introduction of impact players means that they will always have fresh forwards to close the game out.
It's not a question of us not being able to produce big guys. We do have the largest PI population in the world so size shouldn't be an issue, it's just that we tend to pick guys to suit the traditional NZ speed game which has always favoured slightly smaller men. Guys like Skelton, LSL, Meafou, the Vunipola brothers, Antonio etc are all NZ born, so we certainly can produce bigger athletes. We just need to start identifying them and bringing them through.
agree with you on size at 6 and eight
at 7 papalii and Jacobson arnt small and even savea is ok but the lakais and kirifis arelocks hopefully will have lord and Darryl with sa and tengblad coming through
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
Oh, and "eighthman"
I think SA using the term "eighth-man" goes back to the development of the 3-4-1 scrum, an SA thing. The final man into the scrum being the "Eighth-man" in.
Prior to that NZ only had a seven-man scrum, 2-3-2.
The saffers turned the scrum into the power thing that it is to-day.
Before that the scrum was a contest for the hookers, a contest for possession.
Probably solve some issues if we went back to making it more a hooking thing again.
Long time since I've seen a hooker really hook the ball. -
@Dan54 said in All Blacks 2025:
I honestly believe the Boks are gold standard, and no surprise, it's taken a little longer than I thought it would after Apartheid finished to get where they are. They got a pop of about 60 odd mill, and they can all play for Boks now. They these days have almost 5 times more registered rugby players than as countries like Aus and NZ etc, with only England and France being anywhere near that mny, even they wll behind.
And they aint shy about picking their best players, no matter whether they play in SA or not!
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2025:
The Springbok and French teams have been big for 5 years.
You could say that NZ got away with not being big until five years ago. Now the likes of SA and France know how to make it pay. And it'll stay that way from now on.
Unless they adjust the rules, and bring a bit more endurance in to play and bringing smaller players back into the frame.If NZ dont get big, and expect to win WCs, then they are f'ing naive.
Goin back a bit further, I remember Alejandro Iachetti being huuuge, and also Jean-Pierre Bastiat.
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@mohikamo said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean said in All Blacks 2025:
The Springbok and French teams have been big for 5 years.
You could say that NZ got away with not being big until five years ago. Now the likes of SA and France know how to make it pay. And it'll stay that way from now on.
Unless they adjust the rules, and bring a bit more endurance in to play and bringing smaller players back into the frame.If NZ dont get big, and expect to win WCs, then they are f'ing naive.
Goin back a bit further, I remember Alejandro Iachetti being huuuge, and also Jean-Pierre Bastiat.
Whitelock, Retallick, Kaino, McCaw and Read were pretty big. As was Julian,Nonu and SBW for their time.
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@mohikamo said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean said in All Blacks 2025:
The Springbok and French teams have been big for 5 years.
You could say that NZ got away with not being big until five years ago. Now the likes of SA and France know how to make it pay. And it'll stay that way from now on.
Unless they adjust the rules, and bring a bit more endurance in to play and bringing smaller players back into the frame.If NZ dont get big, and expect to win WCs, then they are f'ing naive.
Goin back a bit further, I remember Alejandro Iachetti being huuuge, and also Jean-Pierre Bastiat.
I’m not sure the ABs weren’t not big? That 2011-2015 team was pretty bloody big. Woodcock, Franks, Thorn, Whitelock, Retallick, Kaino, Reid, McCaw, Nonu, SBW, Kahui, Vito were all very physical players.
If anything the ABs have regressed between 2017-2023 in favour of lighter, faster players which backfired horrifically in 2019.
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@brodean
I would also suggest that RWCs and even most test matches are allowed to be played at a slower pace. That we don't seem to want to have our captain raise this with the ref in play is frustrating enough but that we don't pick players and use our subs to cope with this is amateur at best. -
@mohikamo said in All Blacks 2025:
Unless they adjust the rules, and bring a bit more endurance in to play and bringing smaller players back into the frame.
The only way WR would do that is if NZ started picking monsters and dominating rugby with one off rugby. That's when you'd see other nations forcing WR to adapt the game to smaller, more mobile players in an attempt to tire us out.
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Klippies Kritzinger was absolutely enormous.
114 kg (18 stone old style), huge for the 70's. Only a flank forward. Still be big to-day.
Scored a try against us in 76. Came round the side of the scrum. Only Going was there, Going was a good tackler, didn't matter, he just got squashed.Annual revenue of NZRU is still a lot lot more than SARU. Although SA look well set up for the future.
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@antipodean said in All Blacks 2025:
he only way WR would do that is if NZ started picking monsters and dominating rugby with one off rugby.
Exactly.
This is why the ABs only need to get as big, so as to match the SA/France power game.
And as I believe we have a skill edge, not as much as before, but still enough.
That will allow us to dominate, as before . . . -
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@mohikamo said in All Blacks 2025:
Alejandro Iachetti
Didn't he have a twin? Lot of good it did them back in the day.
I'll throw in Skelton in the big bastard category. Only this year for some reason he's all of a sudden selectable. Complete liability prior to this season.
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
Razor values speed and trickery over power.
Explains George Bridge at the Crusaders.
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@ploughboy said in All Blacks 2025:
@akan004 said in All Blacks 2025:
Are we big enough in the forwards? Our front row is but the Aussies had bigger men running at us from 4-8 and were bending the line on most occasions. Our obsession with mobility and speed in NZ rugby has resulted in us not producing large forwards. I look at the NPC and our loosies are all virtually the same size, sitting around the 110kg mark and our locks aren't massive. We saw what a bigger body like Patty T could do when he came on, and that's where the game is heading now - power and size.
A decade ago, we could rely on our players running the opposition off their feet and our pack, while not being the largest, were always the quickest and most skilled, which gave us an advantage. Now, the opposition is as skilled, as fit and they generally have bigger men than us, while the introduction of impact players means that they will always have fresh forwards to close the game out.
It's not a question of us not being able to produce big guys. We do have the largest PI population in the world so size shouldn't be an issue, it's just that we tend to pick guys to suit the traditional NZ speed game which has always favoured slightly smaller men. Guys like Skelton, LSL, Meafou, the Vunipola brothers, Antonio etc are all NZ born, so we certainly can produce bigger athletes. We just need to start identifying them and bringing them through.
agree with you on size at 6 and eight
at 7 papalii and Jacobson arnt small and even savea is ok but the lakais and kirifis arelocks hopefully will have lord and Darryl with sa and tengblad coming through
Vakasiuola is the biggest young lock to emerge. He is a huge guy, so is his brother (THP).
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A brother, Marco I think. He was big too, but not as big as Alex.
The Argentine scrum back then was legendary, in fact you could probably say that they were the inspiration for the modern day power scrum.
They could play back then too. Beat SA at Bloemfontein in '82.
Hugo Porta scored all the points.Porta held the international points scoring record for some time.
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
But in rugby you can't play with speed unless you have the strength to win the contest for the ball. And with today's rules you can't run teams off their feet
Hit the nail right on the head there.
NZ will be able to beat most teams by running them around, but when they come against a team with a big power game that can win the contest for the ball, they wont be able to run them off their feet, and we'll find them very difficult to deal with.
Black Ferns ran into that a week ago.
Very predictably they struggled as soon as they came up against a well drilled ball contest team.
The NZ U20s have the same issues.The rules make it possible for a power team to slow the game down.
But WR do seem to be working on that.
5 second rule.
Scrum clock.
Goalkick clock.
No scrum resets.
etc.
You'd think all the little rule adjustments like that will be incremently speeding the game up.
Which will be to our advantage.
In the meantime . . .Assuming big Will plays on the weekend, interesting to see how the game pans out.
He's been brought in for exactly this reason.
Used to be a big lump of uselessness, but maybe not anymore.
