All Blacks C team...

[Tim]

Looking forward to the final round game between Auckland and Harbour for the Gibson/Hunt clash. Auckland may well play a B-Team for that game though.

[African Monkey]

@tim Maybe not after what happened last year haha. They might wanna try and get a bit of revenge after possibly our darkest day in history last time we met.

[gt12]

@dice

I agree, he’s the future AB 7 to me. I’d play him off the bench covering 6/7 next year with a view to replace Cane.

[Chris B.]

KiwiMurph said:

Chris B. said:

KiwiMurph said:

Yes it must be all that off the ball niggle that Akira has never been penalised once in his first class career for....

Give me a better explanation?

I think its down to his defence. L Whitelock is almost inverse to Akira as a player and they clearly prefer Luke - poor ball runner but can hit hard in defence. Akira is a decent defender cos he is quick and strong but he doesnt put big hits on in defence and I dont think he ever will tbh - its either something you have or you dont.

Be interesting to see how the Akira situation progresses.

Seems like everyone applauds the NDP in theory, but no-one wants to see it applied in practice.

In all honesty, I can't say I know anything about Akira's personality - but, there have been a few rumblings on various aspects at times and, as a player, I'm pretty mystified to see him mainly miss out.

There's only one other player who I reckon has fallen foul of the NDP and (not surprisingly @Nepia ) he was from Hawkes Bay.

[Duluth]

@chris-b

The NDP is about keeping toxic personalities away from the squad.
Yet they’ve made an effort to keep him with the squad (as an additional player) two years in a row when he has missed selection.

The AB coaches have said they want to fix technical deficiencies (thanks Blues coaches!) That seems legit rather than inventing other reasons