@Canes4life said in Hurricanes 2026:
@DurryMexted said in Hurricanes 2026:
@Canes4life Riley Higgins looking fucking huge, meanwhile Will Cole looks like a teenage soccer player
Yeah he looks ready to go for sure. 2026 is the year of Riley.
Ready to go to Wales?
Whose fault is that then? Scott Robertson's or NZR? Victor Meldrew has become obsessed with having a go at Scott Robertson to the point it is getting tiresome.
Robertson may not be 'Surf Jesus' or 'the messiah' but he is not a bad head coach either otherwise we would not be in this situation. He obviously has some talent for coaching but there is something off with the All Black setup and it has appeared to be this way since at least 2017.
Blues should chase Cam Millar. He is the kind of 10 they need, more Grant Fox than Carlos Spencer.
I like the suggestion of NZR select the head coach and then set about appointing the assistants with input from the head coach, rather than complete free choice.
We need to spend some time and money defining exactly what the structure and requirements are of the assistant coaching setup with properly written job descriptions and metrics for measuring performance.
This seems to be what Rassie Erasmus has done with SA. Their coaching setup is way more complex than ours but they have a well defined structure and everybody seems to know their role.
We would have to review it every 5 years to make sure it is ahead of the game or at worst keeping up. I think this is a big part of our problems. We caught a break on the rest of the world when we appointed GH, Hansen and Smith and our coaching setup was better than the rest of the rugby world. Unfortunately this lead to complacency and the rest of the rugby world looked at what we did refined it and now have better coaching structures than us and we are trying to do the same thing we came up with at the turn of the century.
Ironically unless Victor Meldrew can build a time machine and go back two years the selection criteria he is proposing is actually a strong argument for retaining Scott Robertson as All Black coach.
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2026:
@reprobate said in All Blacks 2026:
Point remains, we can't expect to have a It's just not realistic.
No-one is expecting NZR to have range of first rate internationally tier 1 experienced head coach candidates available when we want them.
But the point remains that NZR chose a bloke with no experience of Test rugby whatsoever. rather than court other candidates.
Well the counter argument to that is that is if we run a selection process right now who is the most qualified candidate by your metrics?
One of the applicants will have won 8 Super rugby titles and have two years of international coaching experience where he achieved No 2 ranking in the world.
Should they pick a failed Wallabies and Ireland coach who never had much success at Super Rugby or that guy by your metrics? Unless they choose Rassie Eramus or Steve Hansen no one is more qualified than Scott Robertson at this very moment by the metrics you keep harping on about.
He assumed the job with massive goodwill from everyone except Foster, Hansen and their compadres and the bad will they had built up from 2017 to 2024 invalidated their negativity.
Yes otherwise your only candidates are Rassie Erasmus and Steve Hansen.
I love Richie McCaw he is the GOAT but his comments recently about 'All Blacks should be ready too perform not developing' are not really helpful and have been taken on board too literally by Scott Robertson and his selectors.
They are a bit ironic also given Josh Kronfeld said similar about the GOATS intial selection
and he was given the Captaincy without being completely ready for it only developing into one of our greatest captains after the trauma of 2007.
So who are the senior players. To be honest it is pretty easy to identify as there are not that many in the team at the moment. Can't imagine they call Sotutu a senior player for example.
The same group loved Foster for his great communication and trusting relationship and what did that get the team? pretty similar shit performances arguably worse.
To be honest I see the 'senior players' opinions as a bit of a red herring. The issue this team has is with selection of past it players who seem not to be able to be dropped and execution of basic skills like passing accurately, kicking accurately and catching high balls.
Whether the selection issue has to do with NZR contracting I am not sure but the selection of BB and Damien Mackenzie in the 10 position exclusively for the last 2 seasons has been ridiculous with a lack of eye to developing a young player with potential. Someone made a very salient point the other day if 20 year old Dan Carter was to have emerged 4 years ago he would probably be ignored by the selectors and now at age 24 would be looking at overseas offers.
But senior players not being up to it is half the problem with selection. If they are just complaining that their spots maybe under jeopardy next season then that is going to be worse for the team.
@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2026:
It would be interesting to get some inside oil on Evans opinion on the current and potential 10s. I've enjoyed what I've read of his comments, unsure on what his social skills and emotional intelligence are like.
Interesting in the All Blacks 15 match he was full of praise for Etene Nanai-Seturo and chose him as man of the match. Hope this means Etene Nanai-Seturo will hang around rather than thinking he has no chance.
Criminal waste of talent for a team that is crying out for some power runners in the forwards to give them go forward in contact and put the rush defense on the retreat to stay onside.
Were you not saying on the other thread that people are not allowed to post what they heard from an old school mate of Reuben Love? Sounds like you are happy to have comments disqualified if you don't agree with them.
Kirifi, Christie, ALB and Reece are not good enough for test rugby and their selections on this tour were poor for a team that is meant to be building depth towards the next RWC.
Why do people always say except Jason Ryan. That fat fucker is the one who wants to exclude Talented players from selection because of personal issues. The forwrds have gone backwards this year as well if you take out Fabien Holland (nothing to do with Ryan) adding some much needed size, power and workrate. Our Scrum and lineout have both been dismantled at various times this year and we constantly lack go forward in contact. Thanks to Ryan the best power runners in NZ rugby are lost to us with one likely to turn up in England colours before the next world cup and the only decent 7 in terms of workrate and the physical size required for test rugby looks to be going the same way. Our best impact lock will probably follow next year. The majority of that appears to be down to Ryans dislike of what he perceives is the 'Blues Culture'. A region that produces one third of our player base.
@nonpartizan said in All Blacks 2025:
@tubbyj said in All Blacks 2025:
I love this revisionism going on over the Ian Foster years. Those were bad years way worse than what is happening now. The All Blacks may struggle to put teams away now but at least they are getting themselves in a position to win and blowing it .
Alot of the Foster era losses we never fired a shot, were not in the game at any stage and looked way off the pace. Classic example being the mauling we took at Twickenham from the Boks vs the one at Wellington. At halftime at the caketin we were leading and the pundits were optimistic. At Twickenham we were humbled from start to finish.
Tbh the ABs were not really controlling the game in Wellington in the first half despite the scoreline.
Jordie saved a certain try with a tackle on Kolbe, Reinach knocked on and blew another try.
Could've easily been 21-10 or something like that at HT.
TBH in the Foster years it would have been but this All Black team at least manages to stay competitive for most of the match with arguably a worse group of players to select from.
While people are right to be demanding change and improvement I think the whole fire everyone and burn the house down reaction is getting a bit out of hand. Even excellent All Black teams have found average England sides a big challenge at Twickenham and SA are clearly a team head and shoulders above everyone else at the moment. Argentina are a better side than the Wallabies now,
Things in the coaching setup need to be tweaked and some older players moved on but it is not the end of the All Blacks.
I love this revisionism going on over the Ian Foster years. Those were bad years way worse than what is happening now. The All Blacks may struggle to put teams away now but at least they are getting themselves in a position to win and blowing it .
Alot of the Foster era losses we never fired a shot, were not in the game at any stage and looked way off the pace. Classic example being the mauling we took at Twickenham from the Boks vs the one at Wellington. At halftime at the caketin we were leading and the pundits were optimistic. At Twickenham we were humbled from start to finish.
