Chiefs 2023
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All Blacks lock Josh Lord and one-cap midfielder Gideon Wrampling both made successful returns from long-term knee injuries for the Chiefs development side at the weekend, while former All Blacks prop Atu Moli (shoulder) should also be available for his first action of the season, and midfielder Alex Nankivell could be back from his concussion suffered against the Waratahs.
All Blacks midfielder Anton Lienert-Brown is likely to be back in round nine or 10, following his high ankle sprain in the season-opener against the Crusaders.
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After spending the best part of 11 months sidelined by a knee injury, the two-test lock is on the brink of a return for the Chiefs, targeting next Friday night’s clash against the Fijian Drua in Hamilton.
Having got through 40 minutes for the Chiefs Development side against the Blues Development in Hamilton a couple of weeks ago, then 60 minutes of club rugby for Coastal in Taranaki last Saturday, he now just needs to tick off an 80-minute stint this weekend, for either Coastal, or Taumarunui, and will be considered ready for Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan to inject him back into Super footy.
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After spending the best part of 11 months sidelined by a knee injury, the two-test lock is on the brink of a return for the Chiefs, targeting next Friday night’s clash against the Fijian Drua in Hamilton.
Having got through 40 minutes for the Chiefs Development side against the Blues Development in Hamilton a couple of weeks ago, then 60 minutes of club rugby for Coastal in Taranaki last Saturday, he now just needs to tick off an 80-minute stint this weekend, for either Coastal, or Taumarunui, and will be considered ready for Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan to inject him back into Super footy.
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@Bovidae stoked on that. He's built the team so well and they're still young so getting some continuity with the same head coach is great.
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One thing not mentioned in the Chiefs press release is that McMillan will be stepping down as the Māori coach.
Also this is important:
On that note, McMillan admitted he had been in the ear of some of his players who were yet to recommit beyond this year so the team could, like him, put all their energy into the back half of the season. “So making an early commitment is a signal to them that I’m all in. And the direction that myself and the other coaches and leaders, the organisation, are taking the team, if they want to be part of the ride, then they know what it’s going to look like.”
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Not only is Rona uncontracted with the Hamilton-based club, he isn’t even a fulltime injury replacement player, either. In fact, he’s on such a short-term gig that he’s not even guaranteed to be with the team through till the end of the season.
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@ARHS said in Best players in SR this week:
Chiefs had used Trask, Tiatia and Ioane at fullback, and Narawa once, and they were not up to scratch in 15. Stevenson was not used in the latter half of season. Lowe, Nankivell and Tupaea were used on the wing. ENS was horribly inconsistent - but is improved now. Narawa and Stevenson were always the best choices in my view, but were under-utilised. The complaints last year were valid. Having a consistent back three, with a suitably qualified fullback has brought out the best in all of them.
Narawa was outstanding in 2022, he clearly benefited from his consistent selection and backing from McMillan (his former BOP coach). That trust was already there and Narawa's growth obviously benefited from that existing relationship he had with him.
ENS, Narawa, Stevenson were all available last season, so there had to be a coaching element to it? Could they have required more consistently in selection (which McMillan has certainly brought in 2023) to build the player's confidence and develop cohesion through creating solid combinations - notice how the Hurricanes performances under Holland have been adversely impacted by the frequent chopping and changing of players throughout his four years, particularly 2021/2022.
Razor has frequently referenced Ben Darwin's cohesion-index as a key driver of his approach for team selections in past interviews, I'm pleased to see McMillan has been following the same approach in 2023.
GAINLINE analytics, the data analytics company he co-founded, has two metrics for measuring cohesion: Team Work Index (TWI) and the Key Cohesion Markers (KCM) that mark “the quantity and intensity of linkages within a team”. The higher the cohesion number is, the more likely the team is to be sustainably successful (their metrics are applied across sports and industries).
So far, so straightforward. Partnerships matter all over the field. A halfback pairing that plays with each other week-in, week-out at club level is likely to translate their relationship well into Test level. The same goes for a midfield pairing, or a front row.
But Darwin’s conclusions stretch considerably further. The response to a team playing badly, he suggests, is to play the same team next week. And the next week. And the week after that. He argues that, “the most important thing in the short term is to actually understand what you have in front of you: in chaos, great players can look terrible. As an organisation, in the long-term, the only way to win is through long-term stability.” Even if it means losing in the short-term, he adds. “The only way to win is maintain stability and lose, and that’s where teams get unstuck.”
Warming to his subject, he adds: “Teams who have settled get time to work on the extra stuff and often times the extra stuff gets regarded as causative and it’s actually not. For example, we looked at the study, “Tactile Communication, Cooperation and Performance: An Ethological Study of the NBA”, which assessed the impact of touching teammates on performance. Many teams have been trying to introduce touch into their practice with little to no impact.
“What is most likely taking place is not causative but correlative: those that trust each other, through shared experience will be comfortable to touch each other, but they will also know each other’s role and have a stronger shared tactical understanding.” Too often, he says, we see outcomes of stability as causative rather than the stability itself.”
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I thought Gideon Wrampling made an outstanding contribution last night.
Article seems a bit premature but I imagine he'll be in Scott Robertson's plans going forward...
https://www.rugbypass.com/plus/another-world-cup-dark-horse-has-emerged-for-the-all-blacks/
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I thought Gideon Wrampling made an outstanding contribution last night.
Article seems a bit premature but I imagine he'll be in Scott Robertson's plans going forward...
https://www.rugbypass.com/plus/another-world-cup-dark-horse-has-emerged-for-the-all-blacks/
@kiwi_expat
Pay wall. What was it implying? Surely not Wrampling for this WC? -
I thought Gideon Wrampling made an outstanding contribution last night.
Article seems a bit premature but I imagine he'll be in Scott Robertson's plans going forward...
https://www.rugbypass.com/plus/another-world-cup-dark-horse-has-emerged-for-the-all-blacks/
@kiwi_expat who is the article about?
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The article is about Wrampling, acknowledging it's highly unlikely but not impossible for an AB call up with many rounds left.
@KiwiMurph aha. Yep a stretch too far. But maybe next year he will become a contender. Thought article would be about Finau or Norris
