The Silver Fern

Let's say that after last week's capitulation Razor suddenly emerges from his conservative shell and drops B.Barrett, Savea, S.Barrett, McKenzie, De Groot, Christie, Proctor, and instates Wallace Sititi, Cam Roigard, Jordie Barrett as the new leadership core.

2027 solely in mind & looking solely at the big picture you'd probably want to make the tough calls before the decline of the older players begins haemorrhaging the team even further like stubborn cancer cells that won't go away..

Savea becomes a permanent impact sub like Kwagga Smith, B.Barrett is dropped from the 23 and Ruben Love gets thrust into the 10 jersey, Fabian Holland in the No.5 jersey, Faingananu'uku at 12 and Jordie 13, if we are going to go down under this coaching group I'd rather see us go in flamesrather than keep trotting out the same old guard, what do ya'll say...?

@Mattasaurus said in All Blacks vs Wallabies Bledisloe I:

The fact we are still tossing Rieko's name around "cos of his defense" .. sums up the issues we have in midfield for me.

Ikitau and Suaalii are far better and more complete midfielders and create so many opportunities for the outsides... we simply have no center's standing up and demanding to be picked at least not any with a complete game on both defense and offense.

They are.... because they've been training under Schmidt for 18 months - those guys were not exactly setting the world alight in Super Rugby - B.Sullivan, Q.Tupaea, ALB, Tawawanavai, Umaga-Jenson, Proctor, were statistically the best performers in Super Rugby this year.

We just have poor technical coaches like our 'midfield specialist' Holland who has overseen the midfield functionality going from world-class under Schmidt in 2023 to steadily going backwards in 2024 and 2025 under Holland.

Not a single midfielder has improved under Holland's watch, they have regressed in every aspect - defense, offense, positional play - Ioane, Barrett, ALB, all performed significantly better under Schmidt.

Stop blaming the players and wake up.

@Chris said in All Blacks 2025:

@restofit said in All Blacks 2025:

@stodders said in All Blacks 2025:

@Canes4life said in All Blacks 2025:

@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:

@Canes4life said in All Blacks 2025:

I've felt Holland has been out of his depth ever since he automatically got the head coaching gig at the Canes, was even more baffled when Razor wanted him on his team.

Holland was assistant coach to Canterbury at the same time as Razor. Razor seems to be a relationship guy - he trusts people he has known for some time. It's great, but only if they are actually really good coaches.

Which Holland has proven he’s not.

Holland is the strike play coach, no? Out of all the coaches this year, he’s been earning his corn off first phase. Not a great deal he can do if the team can’t win good first phase ball. They did in the first test against Boks and they carved them open for 2 tries. That suggests some degree of good coaching, no?

Bryn Evans has been responsible for most of the All Blacks tries off set-piece this year, there was a recent article that detailed the difference Evans has made to the strike plays, which were a real weaknesses for us last year & Razor bringing in Evans is the best thing he's done all tenure - that wrap around try off the back of the scrum in Wellington was a play Evans used previously at the Hurricanes.

I am not sure about that Evans is in charge of the line outs and they have not been great.
Holland was also involved in that strike move as it was from a line out involving the backs..
And that is really the only strike move I have seen that has come off in the last 4 tests.

Are you sure about that?

It’s a try Roigard has scored before for the Hurricanes, which blindside flanker Tupou Vaa’i noted after the match when he credited Evans as the mastermind behind the move.

“We honestly stole that from the Hurricanes eh,” Vaa’i said. “We saw it early on, actually here [in Wellington], against the Highlanders. They did that trick play around the front.

“Bryn is such a creative guy and we’ve been saying for years we need a lineout coach and he’s definitely bringing a different flavour to the lineouts and it’s obviously paying off.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/360755611/all-blacks-v-france-lineout-move-bamboozled-france-and-genius-behind-it

@stodders said in All Blacks 2025:

@Canes4life said in All Blacks 2025:

@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:

@Canes4life said in All Blacks 2025:

I've felt Holland has been out of his depth ever since he automatically got the head coaching gig at the Canes, was even more baffled when Razor wanted him on his team.

Holland was assistant coach to Canterbury at the same time as Razor. Razor seems to be a relationship guy - he trusts people he has known for some time. It's great, but only if they are actually really good coaches.

Which Holland has proven he’s not.

Holland is the strike play coach, no? Out of all the coaches this year, he’s been earning his corn off first phase. Not a great deal he can do if the team can’t win good first phase ball. They did in the first test against Boks and they carved them open for 2 tries. That suggests some degree of good coaching, no?

Bryn Evans has been responsible for most of the All Blacks tries off set-piece this year, there was a recent article that detailed the difference Evans has made to the strike plays, which were a real weaknesses for us last year & Razor bringing in Evans is the best thing he's done all tenure - that wrap around try off the back of the scrum in Wellington was a play Evans used previously at the Hurricanes.

@Bovidae said in All Blacks 2025:

@stodders said in All Blacks 2025:

@Bovidae said in All Blacks 2025:

Who is the AB skills coach now? Hansen, Holland and Ellison don't inspire confidence.

There isn't a specific skills coach I believe, and hasn't been since Mick Byrne.

they must be relying on one of the assistants I mentioned as a backs skills coach.

Yes, you're right.

All the training photos & video clips show Jason Holland is the back's skills coach, you can see him managing the high-ball sessions and waving pool noodles in the player's faces.

Why there isn't being more criticism directed Holland's way by Canes supporters on here (@Canes4life @canefan, etc.) given the years of mediocrity they endured under his watch beats me.

@reprobate said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:

@canefan said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:

@Canes4life said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:

@Mauss said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:

@Canes4life said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:

Can you get those stats? It would be also interesting to see how many times Proctor passed for the Canes compared to the ABs. Just totally different gameplans which isn't helping him progress and get comfortable in one of the hardest positions within the team.

RugbyPass these days has player profile pages where you can look at specific stats for each competition (TRC, SRP, NPC, and so on). This is Proctor's page, for example:

Billy Proctor Rugby Bio | News, Stats, Age, Height & Team | RugbyPass

Get Billy Proctor stats, ratings, news, & video on the world's largest rugby player & team database. Click here to get the latest news on Billy Proctor

If you want to know how often he passed for the Hurricanes, you can take his total number of passes during this year's Canes season (73), divide it by his total playing minutes (517) and then multiply by 80 to get a match average.

So he'd get to a number of 11.3 passes per 80 minutes, which is considerably more than what he averages for the ABs during the TRC (5.1 passes per 80 minutes).

Thanks for pulling this data out, just paints a picture that because of the way the ABs have decided to play, Proctor is getting barely any chance to make a proper impact.

Same probably went for Reiko

I'm not anti-Rieko, and would have no problem with him being selected based on his defence - but he has hardly carved it up or shown a great passing game for the Blues over the past 2 seasons - which may of course be a reflection of how they have played too.
The last time I think he was really good was the WC.

Maybe that speaks to what Joe Schmidt was able to extract from him? The current AB coaches definitely aren't getting the best out of him.

Taylor for now. Jordie, Roigard, Sititi, as our 3 new Vice-captains and potential longterm options to succeed Taylor in a couple years time.

Savea, B.Barrett, S.Barrett, dropped from the starting team.

@DurryMexted said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:

@brodean said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:

@Duluth said in All Blacks vs Springboks II:

Here's the stats for what I was talking about above

What I get from those stats is tight forwards should not be passing that much in a game.

They should be hitting rucks, hitting mauls, with some carries.

The out the back stuff is horse shit. Its the same pattern the Crusaders played last year to their detriment. All of the strike runners end up running diagonally across the field and no one is running hard and straight onto the ball.

Whoever was running the attack for the NZu20s this year was doing a very good job. The stacked backline they ran for a lot of their strike moves was excellent - and mobilised/executed with players who have had a best 2-3 tournaments together - far less than the 50-60 games many of our current All Blacks have had to develop.

This guy?

🏅 U20 Rugby Championship 🥈 U20 World Cup Co-head coach of the New Zealand Rugby U20s 👊 Proud! After a change in coaching direction, I was asked to step up and co-lead the team to the World Cup…...

🏅 U20 Rugby Championship 🥈 U20 World Cup Co-head coach of the New Zealand Rugby U20s 👊 Proud! After a change in coaching direction, I was asked to step up and co-lead the team to the World Cup alongside Jarrad Hoeata (pictured). Running the attack at international level is huge — but doing...