The Silver Fern

Having just watched it again, I still think people are underestimating how good a coaching masterclass this was by Eddie Jones.

I’m sure Eddie would have been a very happy man when the All Black team was announced on Thursday. The All Blacks went for size, indicating they expected England to play tight. The old story being that the English can only play 10 man rugby and hence that is what we expected them to do.

Then the early stages of the game, the All Blacks went for a defensive alignment that suggested they expected England to box kick. There are two standard defensive formations the All Blacks have played with this year. One with Mo’unga as a 2nd fullback / blind wing and one with him defending at 13. When he defends at 13, Bridge or Barrett is typically back for the box kick. It’s a defensive scheme that the Crusaders use a lot. It means if the kick does come, Mo’unga can drop back into the wider channels.

Eddie having planned for the above then decides to play a wide gameplan. This catches the All Blacks off guard. Jon Preston used this play below to say they were targeting Mo’unga. This is a little while after he got beaten by Daly on the outside. Mo’unga and Bridge are caught in a 4 on 2 so go into a drift defense. Savea comes across the English make ground on the inside with Aaron Smith well out of position for his sweeper. The key for the English was quick ruck ball. Look at the 8 All Blacks on the other side of the ruck marking three Englishman.

A few minutes later they find space on the other side of the field. Again a 4 on 2, in this instance Reece makes a gamble rushes at and stops it. They did this routinely in the first half. Preston at half time said their formation was set at targeting Mo’unga. Whilst they did try to stand him up one on one a few times, their structure seemed in my view designed to move around our slow forward pack. When you watch the breakdowns prior to these overlaps, the English 6 and 7 were dominating. Putting Cane on the bench was a big error.

The English could have scored a lot more points in the first half but finishing let them down. Also numbers 11-14 for the All Blacks scrambled really well in difficult situations.

The other thing that stood out in the first half was the interplay of the English forwards, from 1 to 8 the offloading and the skills were superb. It created go forward and kept the play alive. Read and Retallick topped the missed tackle count and the All Blacks pack couldn’t match the pace or the intensity.

When the All Blacks got the ball the English defence was incredibly well prepared. They knew the All Blacks patterns well. Mo’unga and Barrett both played terribly mainly because the English knew what they were going to do. Take the Barrett intercept for example. There is only one place the ball is going. Tuilagi rushes up and takes the option away (also, he was well onside). Tuilagi was huge on defence.

There were multiple situations in the first half where the outside rush took away the support play and Barrett or Mo’unga had to hold it. This was usually followed by a poor kick.

In the 2nd half the All Blacks looked to play with more depth but the English targeted the established forward pods. Here’s Tuilagi again rushing up on Retallick and killing a large overlap.

Here, Underhill lines up Read. They knew exactly who to target. Underhill was superb, possibly the best performance I’ve ever seen from an English 7.

The All Blacks could not get into the game at all. Eddie had a plan for everything, right down to when Jordie Barrett came on for Bridge. The very first play he was on, they put up a high ball, he didn’t attack it and Itoje recovered. The kick came from an odd position after a kickoff too so you could tell it was a set plan.

Overall, the All Blacks were out-thought and out-played. The biggest difference was the skills and the pace of the English pack. Itoje was my man of the match but Lawes was great, Sinckler has matured into a allround player, and the Kamikaze kids are fast, strong and smart. Eddie Jones has done a phenomenal job. Also, so has John Mitchell.

Which brings me to the next All Black coach, whoever gets the job is in for a tough task. We can argue about back selections as much as we want but forward depth in New Zealand is poor. When was the last time we got truly excited about a tight forward prospect coming through? The reality is Franks hung on for a few years because no-one was sticking up their hand and if Angus Ta’avao is the answer I’m not sure what the question is. There have a been a few age group stars that have faded (Akira Ioane, Aumua) but no-one is really challenging for a spot. No 6 or 8 has been consistent and that led to playing 2 sevens. We lack good ball runners and the interplay and the offloading we saw from the English pack was non-existent from the All Blacks.

Well done England and well done Eddie Jones.

Edit: Sorry for the crap photos

We've basically become what the Wallabies used to be. Paper thin tight 5 depth, no standout ball running 6 or 8s and everyone here wants to run out two sevens. Meanwhile, we have plenty of talent in the backs.

Wallabies have become the opposite, good tight 5 depth particularly with AAA coming back. A balanced backrow. However, outside of Kerevi, Genia and perhaps Beale on a good day their backline is limited.

@SammyC Exactly, the less Barrett plays at 10 the better he gets. It reminds me of how Keith Robinson became the best lock in the world on here despite hardly playing. Everyone seems to forget that they are playing Mounga because Barrett struggled with the rush defense and lost 2 of his last 3 tests against Ireland and 1 of his last 2 against South Africa.

But the discussion on Barrett/Mounga hides the problems upfront last night and last week. It's 1991 all over again with players such as Franks, Read and Whitelock hanging on. It also reminds me a bit of 2003 with no big ball runners in the pack, back then we were over reliant then on Collins and Mealamu. Now with Retallick out there is no go forward, no physicality.

I said last week we had become the Wallabies, and sure enough 2 7s didn't work. It was a panic selection despite Fox claiming we "have a plan for 6". Choose one and leave the other on the bench. There are no obvious replacements in the tight 5 and if we do drop Franks we gain around the park but our scrum becomes a liability.

The whole game plan and selection at the moment feels like a panic, everyone caught us and now we have to innovate. We hardly had any ball last night and the attacking structures left us vulnerable at the breakdown. It was only really the lead up to the third try where we manage to string together phases.

Finally, the Barrett to 10 / Smith to 15 hype completely ignores Ben Smith's from. He's right there with Read and Franks as one of the ones hanging on. He's lost the ability to make a half break and looks slow. He wasn't good at 15 against Argentina as he struggled under the high ball. He was put in space multiple times in the 2nd half against South Africa and was handled easily by the defense.

The competition has caught up. The whole team needs a refresh and Hanson/Foster/Mcleod are not the team to do it.

Definitely a 1991 feeling to this team. Older, slower and no obvious ways to fix the weaknesses.

When Ireland have the ball, they manipulate the defence and force mismatches. When the all blacks have the ball, there is no plan, they don’t create mismatches and eventually get isolated and turn the ball over.

This is worse than 1998. Back then several key players retired, there are no excuses here, it is just shit coaching.

@frugby said in All Blacks vs England 2:

@chimoaus said in All Blacks vs England 2:

How shit was our lineout. Kind of embarrassing really.

People will blame Taylor, but Tuipulotu and Barrett got dominated... need one or the other with a taller lock. Issue is, Lord can't stay fit and Holland is not yet available.

Darry worth a crack?

There is a reason they wanted whitelock back, we don’t have that dominant lineout player in NZ currently

@Kirwan

Complete crap from you as usual. They deploy two defensive systems depending on what they expect the opposition to do. One where Mounga is on the blind wing and one where he defends at 13 which is stolen from the crusaders this year.

The whole All Blacks scheme this year has been built around 2 10s. They planned this for the last few years around Mackenzie at 15 and Barrett at 10. And in that system you want the 2 10s back for a counter attack. Barrett has not defended in the front line for the all blacks in years. But conveniently you have never mentioned them hiding Barrett, who by the way is as poor a defender as Mounga.

Mo'unga outplaying cruden, one week after outplaying barrett

Great Game.

The intensity was right up there. Blues came out to dominate physically and they did that in the first half and the early part of the 2nd half. The loose trio were great in the early stages. Sotutu looks like a complete player. Tuipolotu again was good and is the form lock in the competition. Their eagerness in defense put the Crusaders key players, most notably Mo'unga and Havili, under pressure and they made mistakes. However at times their aggressive defence got them in trouble when tacklers ended on the wrong side and got trapped. In years gone by they may have been fine but the standards in this competition, they were penalised. This kept the Crusaders in touch on the score board.

For the Crusaders they struggled to get go forward early. Only really Moody and Taylor got over the advantage line. Having journeymen at 6 and 8 is an issue. Taylor was good around the field but there were clearly some line out issues. Although they weren't entirely his fault, Douglas appears to have some technique issues with his jumping. His arms appear to come late and wide as opposed to fast and narrow. Whitelock is missing some support. Strange was very good off the bench and potentially should start next week.

Christie stood up in defense early and had a really solid game. Bridge as many have mentioned was excellent. He ran down Telea and saved a try, his work under the high ball on attack and defence was excellent and his draw and pass for the try was text book. He handled the pressure as well as anyone on the field.

Ultimately the Blues were unable to maintain the initial intensity. The crusaders wore them down. Mo'unga and Havili started to find space. Barrett had a few shockers late with a kick out on the full and the dropped high ball.

@Kirwan When he started playing deeper. Fosters idiotic plan of playing flat and trying to offload against the rush defense was what led to the errors in the first half.

@No-Quarter three straight all black coaches have not selected Akira, the GPS data is his downfall

@Tim

Barrett at 10, controlled the game in the 2nd half

@KiwiMurph I believe the last time that happened Dan Carter and Adam Thomson were playing for Boys High and James Ryan was playing for Christs

Game is lost, there’s a rookie on the bench in Tasi who might be useful next year but lets not bother giving him a run. Gibson is a useless prick

Hitting whitelock with a lot of cheap shots appears to be part of the blues game plan

Hope Tautalatasi Tasi gets a decent run, although with two outside backs on the bench he probably won't. Been a standout in club rugby this year, scored a good try last week:

@antipodean

Story checks out it's a fake:

289K views · 670 shares | One of the great coaching sprays you'll...

One of the great coaching sprays you'll ever hear 🗣️💨🗣️💨🗣️💨.

Can't help but think that Dylan Hartley would have been a better midweek captain than Warburton...

@mariner4life heard from someone who has spent time around their camp that Gatland replaced their playbook from previous years with an A4 sheet of paper. There was a big focus on keeping things simple and giving the likes of Cruden and Mackenzie freedom.

Thank god they didn’t pick that lazy fuck Akira