All Blacks 2024
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There are a lot of indicators that he is on a Laurie Mains 1994 trajectory. Picking zero players from the top team in the starting forward pack (not to mention only one from the hurricanes).
Robertson is nominally in charge of loose forward selections, but rumours are prevalent in Harbour and Auckland rugby that Jason Ryan has biases against Blues forwards, and has real problems with a few of them related to his ego.
The leaking of Sotutu's non-selection before the final was a real low point.
Mediocre players, mediocre results, a coaching team full of cronies.
Expect losses in the northern hemisphere.
The question is, in a professional game, how do we get people like this out of the institutions?
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If we learnt anything from the SA games I suspect its that our experienced players we still have aren't the leaders they should be. Good players but not leaders. A Sam Whitelock plays and we win the first test because he has the mana and experience of how to lead to win difficult games.
The move to experience on the bench for the second test showed that our experienced guys werent able to bring the calmness required to win the game.
I think super is a much bigger step down after the demise of the aussies and not playing the saffas.
Super form isnt much of a yardstick for test ability now. Not enough pressure on players.
If you think Fozzie and Razor have a similar capabilty of players to pick from we are all in a dreamland.The bench was barely used. The main things we have learnt are they can't manage the bench to save themselves.
They select poorly for the bench. They don't select impact players then they don't put who they selected onto the field. The bench is full of workrate guys apart from Aumua.
Cane hasn't been an 80 minute player for years.
Picking all openside sized players has been a failure. Despite picking 3 opensides we won the least amount of rucks this year against SA. We only won 45% possession in both games. Our points in Joburg mostly came off zero phase play.
In the last 4 games we've lost 3.
We had a complete defensive failure in the first Pumas test and a complete attack failure in the last test with zero tries.
It's been years and years since we scored zero tries.
The Pumas loss was a record for points scored against.
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@Bones said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
I'm getting fucking sick of hearing super rugby doesn't cut it when the coaches refuse to fucking pick the best players in the competition and work with them.
Pick second rate, supposedly established players and get second rate results. Colour me surprised.
Which is ironic too as it's the only previous experience the coaches have.
@African-Monkey said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
@Bones said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
I'm getting fucking sick of hearing super rugby doesn't cut it when the coaches refuse to fucking pick the best players in the competition and work with them.
Pick second rate, supposedly established players and get second rate results. Colour me surprised.
Which is ironic too as it's the only previous experience the coaches have.
Brazil! Brazil!
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If test sides were chosen solely on Super Rugby form; greats like Nonu would have way fewer caps, we wouldn't need a selection panel and we'd have lost a lot more tests.
@dogmeat said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
If test sides were chosen solely on Super Rugby form; greats like Nonu would have way fewer caps, we wouldn't need a selection panel and we'd have lost a lot more tests.
But Nonu was an exception and exceptional.
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I'm getting fucking sick of hearing super rugby doesn't cut it when the coaches refuse to fucking pick the best players in the competition and work with them.
Pick second rate, supposedly established players and get second rate results. Colour me surprised.
@Bones said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
I'm getting fucking sick of hearing super rugby doesn't cut it when the coaches refuse to fucking pick the best players in the competition and work with them.
Pick second rate, supposedly established players and get second rate results. Colour me surprised.
THANK YOU!!!
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There are a lot of indicators that he is on a Laurie Mains 1994 trajectory. Picking zero players from the top team in the starting forward pack (not to mention only one from the hurricanes).
Robertson is nominally in charge of loose forward selections, but rumours are prevalent in Harbour and Auckland rugby that Jason Ryan has biases against Blues forwards, and has real problems with a few of them related to his ego.
The leaking of Sotutu's non-selection before the final was a real low point.
Mediocre players, mediocre results, a coaching team full of cronies.
Expect losses in the northern hemisphere.
The question is, in a professional game, how do we get people like this out of the institutions?
@Tim said in All Blacks 2024:
here are a lot of indicators that he is on a Laurie Mains 1994 trajectory. Picking zero players from the top team in the starting forward pack
Fake news. The Mains part.
Of the tests we played in 94 there were always at least 4 Aucklanders in the pack and on two occasions 5. The guys that played from outside Akl were predominantly Loe, Brewer and Ian Jones. All very good AB's. The more marginal calls were Cooksley (instead of Jones) and Larsen.
I think you probably meant 92 when Mains first came in because that's usually the example Aucklanders cite. There was one occasion when the pack featured only two Aucklanders - during the Centenary tests which were almost like trials - all manner of players were looked at and discarded - like Richard Turner for example.
By the time the Irish tests came around there were three and for the remainder of the season 4.
The reasons given for the anti Auck conspiracy were the dropping of Whetton - top call IMO and undermined by the fact that he was replaced by Robin Brooke and the choice for the first half of the season of Arran Pene over Zinny. Now obviously Zinny is a far superior player but he was out of form and Pene was voted player of the year for 92. Once he hit his straps Zinny was an ever present.
Mains was so anti - Akl he made Fitzy his captain and gave debuts to Brooke R and Olo Brown both of whom should have been at the 91 RWC.
Every coach has his favourites. Mains' were guys like Brewer and Ginge Henderson, but he moved on reasonably quickly. It remains to be seen whether Robertson will do the same.
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@Tim said in All Blacks 2024:
here are a lot of indicators that he is on a Laurie Mains 1994 trajectory. Picking zero players from the top team in the starting forward pack
Fake news. The Mains part.
Of the tests we played in 94 there were always at least 4 Aucklanders in the pack and on two occasions 5. The guys that played from outside Akl were predominantly Loe, Brewer and Ian Jones. All very good AB's. The more marginal calls were Cooksley (instead of Jones) and Larsen.
I think you probably meant 92 when Mains first came in because that's usually the example Aucklanders cite. There was one occasion when the pack featured only two Aucklanders - during the Centenary tests which were almost like trials - all manner of players were looked at and discarded - like Richard Turner for example.
By the time the Irish tests came around there were three and for the remainder of the season 4.
The reasons given for the anti Auck conspiracy were the dropping of Whetton - top call IMO and undermined by the fact that he was replaced by Robin Brooke and the choice for the first half of the season of Arran Pene over Zinny. Now obviously Zinny is a far superior player but he was out of form and Pene was voted player of the year for 92. Once he hit his straps Zinny was an ever present.
Mains was so anti - Akl he made Fitzy his captain and gave debuts to Brooke R and Olo Brown both of whom should have been at the 91 RWC.
Every coach has his favourites. Mains' were guys like Brewer and Ginge Henderson, but he moved on reasonably quickly. It remains to be seen whether Robertson will do the same.
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The bench was barely used. The main things we have learnt are they can't manage the bench to save themselves.
They select poorly for the bench. They don't select impact players then they don't put who they selected onto the field. The bench is full of workrate guys apart from Aumua.
Cane hasn't been an 80 minute player for years.
Picking all openside sized players has been a failure. Despite picking 3 opensides we won the least amount of rucks this year against SA. We only won 45% possession in both games. Our points in Joburg mostly came off zero phase play.
In the last 4 games we've lost 3.
We had a complete defensive failure in the first Pumas test and a complete attack failure in the last test with zero tries.
It's been years and years since we scored zero tries.
The Pumas loss was a record for points scored against.
@brodean said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
The bench was barely used. The main things we have learnt are they can't manage the bench to save themselves.
They select poorly for the bench. They don't select impact players then they don't put who they selected onto the field. The bench is full of workrate guys apart from Aumua.
Cane hasn't been an 80 minute player for years.
Picking all openside sized players has been a failure. Despite picking 3 opensides we won the least amount of rucks this year against SA. We only won 45% possession in both games. Our points in Joburg mostly came off zero phase play.
In the last 4 games we've lost 3.
We had a complete defensive failure in the first Pumas test and a complete attack failure in the last test with zero tries.
It's been years and years since we scored zero tries.
The Pumas loss was a record for points scored against.
NZ dominated South Africa at the breakdown, particularly in the second Test. I'm not saying that's a product of the number of openside flankers picked, but total rucks won is a terrible measurement of breakdown effectiveness.
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The bench was barely used. The main things we have learnt are they can't manage the bench to save themselves.
They select poorly for the bench. They don't select impact players then they don't put who they selected onto the field. The bench is full of workrate guys apart from Aumua.
Cane hasn't been an 80 minute player for years.
Picking all openside sized players has been a failure. Despite picking 3 opensides we won the least amount of rucks this year against SA. We only won 45% possession in both games. Our points in Joburg mostly came off zero phase play.
In the last 4 games we've lost 3.
We had a complete defensive failure in the first Pumas test and a complete attack failure in the last test with zero tries.
It's been years and years since we scored zero tries.
The Pumas loss was a record for points scored against.
@brodean said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
Picking all openside sized players has been a failure. Despite picking 3 opensides we won the least amount of rucks this year against SA. We only won 45% possession in both games. Our points in Joburg mostly came off zero phase play.
I'm not a fan of 3 opensides, and don't think it works for various reasons - mostly it is a lineout risk, and a lack of ball-running and physicality.
But re the ruck you're oversimplifying. You need to look at ruck speed and ruck turnovers if you want to talk about them being effective in that area, and I don't recall us being particularly poor at either. You can have fuck-all rucks simply by kicking the ball away, or by scoring early in phases, or via offloads and continuity where rucks aren't formed. Hammering away at the line for 15 rucks in a row under advantage and then doing the same again from the penalty can easily skew those stats too. The Deans-era Wallabies and Todd Blackadder's Crusaders were good examples of having a thousand rucks and going nowhere. -
Maybe Ryan is worse than Mains then.
How can there be zero starting Blues players in the forwards who had the most dominant pack in Super Rugby?
@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
Maybe Ryan is worse than Mains then.
How can there be zero starting Blues players in the forwards who had the most dominant pack in Super Rugby?
The Blues props and hooker aren't as good, and Pat was a starter but has been injured. Darry has been called in.
Dalton vs Cane is neither here nor there (I'd go Dalton due to age myself).
Akira going overseas.
Hoskins competing with world player of the year.I strongly disagree with them not picking Hoskins, but the rest I don't find surprising really.
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Maybe Ryan is worse than Mains then.
How can there be zero starting Blues players in the forwards who had the most dominant pack in Super Rugby?
It's certainly an interesting situation. Like so many others I think the loosies are unbalanced and are being picked on prior performances rather than form.
I guess the arguments would be Ioane has been tried repeatedly and isn't up to it and is now off to Japan, Sotutu is being kept out by the World Player of 2023 and Paps was given a chance but got injured.
Both locks have featured but a combination of injury / inexperience / better options has limited their opportunities.
Front row not really contenders despite Ofas presence on the bench.
Not saying I subscribe to the above, just being devils advocate.
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@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
Most people in NZ think that the bench is for a mix of injury cover and ball runners. Because ball runners have 'ímpact'
A very basic, and fundamental question he asked was: why couldn't the reserves come on before half time? Maybe you get 35 good minutes out of a prop? Why not do it in reverse?
@Tim said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
Most people in NZ think that the bench is for a mix of injury cover and ball runners. Because ball runners have 'ímpact'
A very basic, and fundamental question he asked was: why couldn't the reserves come on before half time? Maybe you get 35 good minutes out of a prop? Why not do it in reverse?
I guess most people would say well what do you do if there's an injury just after half-time then?""
To which Rassie says Í'll just bring the other guys back on, nobody will even do anything if I just start running a rotating subs bench like it's basketball -
If test sides were chosen solely on Super Rugby form; greats like Nonu would have way fewer caps, we wouldn't need a selection panel and we'd have lost a lot more tests.
@dogmeat said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
If test sides were chosen solely on Super Rugby form; greats like Nonu would have way fewer caps, we wouldn't need a selection panel and we'd have lost a lot more tests.
I mostly agree with your point, but the Nonu stuff is a myth. He was only poor for the Blues and Landers, he was the fucking man at his spiritual home the Hurricanes.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
Maybe Ryan is worse than Mains then.
How can there be zero starting Blues players in the forwards who had the most dominant pack in Super Rugby?
The Blues props and hooker aren't as good, and Pat was a starter but has been injured. Darry has been called in.
Dalton vs Cane is neither here nor there (I'd go Dalton due to age myself).
Akira going overseas.
Hoskins competing with world player of the year.I strongly disagree with them not picking Hoskins, but the rest I don't find surprising really.
The Blues props are better at carrying the ball and our props are struggling to get over the advantage line. The Blues scrum won the most penalties in Super Rugby. On what basis do you think they aren't as good?
There's no way you can justify the selection of Bell over Ricketelli. Bell had a shocking season at the lineout and was a key reason for the Crusaders failure. Ricketelli was excellent in every facet.
TJ Perenara is going overseas so Akira should be fine to pick.
Scott Barrett hasn't been as good as Darry was in the Eden Park test. Barrett or Vaa'i should have been played at 6. There's no long term future in picking short 6's.
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The Blues props are better at carrying the ball and our props are struggling to get over the advantage line. The Blues scrum won the most penalties in Super Rugby. On what basis do you think they aren't as good?
There's no way you can justify the selection of Bell over Ricketelli. Bell had a shocking season at the lineout and was a key reason for the Crusaders failure. Ricketelli was excellent in every facet.
TJ Perenara is going overseas so Akira should be fine to pick.
Scott Barrett hasn't been as good as Darry was in the Eden Park test. Barrett or Vaa'i should have been played at 6. There's no long term future in picking short 6's.
@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
The Blues props are better at carrying the ball and our props are struggling to get over the advantage line. The Blues scrum won the most penalties in Super Rugby. On what basis do you think they aren't as good?
There's no way you can justify the selection of Bell over Ricketelli. Bell had a shocking season at the lineout and was a key reason for the Crusaders failure. Ricketelli was excellent in every facet.
TJ Perenara is going overseas so Akira should be fine to pick.
Scott Barrett hasn't been as good as Darry was in the Eden Park test. Barrett or Vaa'i should have been played at 6. There's no long term future in picking short 6's.
I'm on record saying pick Riccitelli not Bell - project players piss me off, it's not a development side. But he's irrelevant because you're talking about starters and he's not getting past Taylor or Aumua (or Samisoni).
Lomax has been good. De Groot has been injured. Tamait Williams has been pretty good. Newell being selected you can debate, he's a scrummager only really, but the worst prop to my eyes has been the Blues guy, Ofa.
I also wouldn't have picked Perenara, but he has a far larger body of work at AB level than Akira, and with Smith leaving and Roigard injured they went for the experience. Would not have been my call, but I can see their thinking.
Scott Barrett has been disappointing, but he's the captain, been injured, and was never not going to be picked as the only remaining premium lock from last year. You think he was going to be surpassed on Super form?
I agree a lineout forward in one of the loosie positions is essential. Doesn't have to be 6 (e.g. Kieran Read). -
@brodean said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
Picking all openside sized players has been a failure. Despite picking 3 opensides we won the least amount of rucks this year against SA. We only won 45% possession in both games. Our points in Joburg mostly came off zero phase play.
I'm not a fan of 3 opensides, and don't think it works for various reasons - mostly it is a lineout risk, and a lack of ball-running and physicality.
But re the ruck you're oversimplifying. You need to look at ruck speed and ruck turnovers if you want to talk about them being effective in that area, and I don't recall us being particularly poor at either. You can have fuck-all rucks simply by kicking the ball away, or by scoring early in phases, or via offloads and continuity where rucks aren't formed. Hammering away at the line for 15 rucks in a row under advantage and then doing the same again from the penalty can easily skew those stats too. The Deans-era Wallabies and Todd Blackadder's Crusaders were good examples of having a thousand rucks and going nowhere.Ruck turnovers isn't a good indicator. It usually the team getting dominated in possession ( the team defending ) have more ruck turnovers which is why Billy Harmon has high ruck turnovers every year in Super Rugby - because the Highlanders get dominated at the breakdown and in possession and spend their time defending.
Over the series...
South Africa:
178 rucks won
100 rucks under 3sNew Zealand
150 rucks won
87 rucks under 3sHow is that dominating the breakdown? South Africa won more rucks and they had more rucks under 3s.
Contrast to the England test series:
England
151 rucks won
76 rucks under 3sNew Zealand
181 rucks won
101 rucks under 3sOur ruck numbers against England look similar to South Africa's against us and is it surprising to see who won those matches?
So while Cane tried hard I don't think he was as effective as some have made out. He's not very mobile and he doesn't suit Razor's game plan with width. We saw Cane improve under Foster when Schmidt came in and they played a narrower game plan.
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@Tim It's an interesting thought eh. Most people in NZ think that the bench is for a mix of injury cover and ball runners. Because ball runners have 'ímpact', but to me it is a bit more complex than that and requires some thought about the opposition.
We got good mileage against England by having a dominant scrum once the reserves came on. Scrum penalties are huge on relieving defensive pressure and creating attacking pressure, so if you have reserves who are significantly better than the oppositions front row reserves, then that can be an effective impact option.
Rassie has been proven right time and again that forwards get more tired than backs - that's hardly rocket science - but we can't seem to figure it out despite his example.
The 1st SA game showed that you need players on the field at the end of the game who can deal with pressure. The 2nd SA game showed that experience does not equal 'able to deal with pressure'.
Traditional NZ thinking has a guy like Aumua as a great impact sub. He may be in future, but until his lineout throwing is reliable coming on late under pressure, he's a liability despite being an amazing player.
Defences do get sloppier, so ball runners can be a good option. Rucks get messier, so a turnover merchant would get more opportunities.
I just don't think we give it enough thought at all.@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
It's an interesting thought eh. Most people in NZ think that the bench is for a mix of injury cover and ball runners. Because ball runners have 'ímpact', but to me it is a bit more complex than that and requires some thought about the opposition.
Scrums are only important when you have them. As we've seen this year you can go a full 40 mins without them. The bench selection has been terrible so far, and suggests the coaches don't even know what they want from the subs. Clearly, there is a lack of trust in the front row reserves given the minutes they get.
Charlie Faumuina was a good example of the impact a reserve prop could have, and they sacrificed scrummaging power for ball-carrying and workrate. Newell is essentially Franks MkII at the moment, and Ofa has done nothing despite all that "experience". This test is the perfect opportunity to see what Tosi can do.
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Ruck turnovers isn't a good indicator. It usually the team getting dominated in possession ( the team defending ) have more ruck turnovers which is why Billy Harmon has high ruck turnovers every year in Super Rugby - because the Highlanders get dominated at the breakdown and in possession and spend their time defending.
Over the series...
South Africa:
178 rucks won
100 rucks under 3sNew Zealand
150 rucks won
87 rucks under 3sHow is that dominating the breakdown? South Africa won more rucks and they had more rucks under 3s.
Contrast to the England test series:
England
151 rucks won
76 rucks under 3sNew Zealand
181 rucks won
101 rucks under 3sOur ruck numbers against England look similar to South Africa's against us and is it surprising to see who won those matches?
So while Cane tried hard I don't think he was as effective as some have made out. He's not very mobile and he doesn't suit Razor's game plan with width. We saw Cane improve under Foster when Schmidt came in and they played a narrower game plan.
@brodean Sure if the opposition has a million rucks then Harmon can get more turnover opportunities, but in general if your forwards aren't getting to the breakdown fast enough, then you suffer ruck turnovers.
Do you have the stats for the 2 SA games separately at hand? They were pretty different games.
A ratio of ruck turnovers lost to rucks formed would be an interesting stat to me. I'd like to see some individual ruck attendance stats too.
You must admit that we've seen a lot of side to side 20+ phase ruck play from various teams over the years that have been totally ineffective? Couple that with the recent tactics of 'box kick everything away' which suggests a lot of top coaches aren't that keen on possession? (and which I fucking hate by the way)
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@dogmeat said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
If test sides were chosen solely on Super Rugby form; greats like Nonu would have way fewer caps, we wouldn't need a selection panel and we'd have lost a lot more tests.
But Nonu was an exception and exceptional.
@nostrildamus said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
@dogmeat said in All Blacks vs Wallabies I:
If test sides were chosen solely on Super Rugby form; greats like Nonu would have way fewer caps, we wouldn't need a selection panel and we'd have lost a lot more tests.
But Nonu was an exception and exceptional.
Little and Bunce for the Chiefs were another example.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2024:
I was thinking of Laurie Mains yesterday too.
To give Mains credit he actually had the ability to realise he was wrong on occasions (Zinny especially and also Graeme Bachop) so maybe we might still see Sotutu come through.
