All Blacks 2025
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2025:
@junior said in All Blacks 2025:
@ShaquilleOatmeal said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean and I think that was also addressed earlier, the process was a big part of the problem with several potential candidates either not applying or ruling themselves out as they felt the decision had already been made.
I have no issues with Razor getting the job, if he was an amazing regional manager applying for the national manger job in a business, I doubt they tell him to go work for the opposition for a while and then come back when another role opens up in 2-4 years depending on their success.
What is an issue, is NZR have given him the full 4 years, one woudl hope this included a review after 18 months, 2 years or so, with an option to terminate if performance was not up to scratch, but despite having the opportunity to learn from those sort of mistakes they made with Foster, I expect the contract he has is 4 years come what may.
Given that, and this goal of his to win two World Cups with different teams, I would have expected him to be significantly less conservative in his approach and less afraid of losing in his first two years. He also could have used the goal of winning the World Cup to buy himself some forgiveness when things didn't go so well.
I actually think he had massive amounts of goodwill at the beginning of his tenure basically to toss out the Foster years and pick a bunch of up-and-coming kids. The results might not have been any better (not sure they would have been any worse) but the potential feel good factor about the future would have bought him another year of goodwill into 2025.
As it was, he basically picked Foster's team, publicly begged to be able to pick two more overseas based players from that team, played Foster rugby and got Foster results. Now, he has bugger all goodwill and people are starting to question whether he should continue in the job.
As Foster picked Ryan one could argue Foster moved to more of a Razor-style of coaching rather than vice versa.
Out of all of his assistants, Ryan is the only one currently justifying his place
Up until the last 2 tests he was. Our set piece was an abortion against the Boks.
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@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2025:
@junior said in All Blacks 2025:
@ShaquilleOatmeal said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean and I think that was also addressed earlier, the process was a big part of the problem with several potential candidates either not applying or ruling themselves out as they felt the decision had already been made.
I have no issues with Razor getting the job, if he was an amazing regional manager applying for the national manger job in a business, I doubt they tell him to go work for the opposition for a while and then come back when another role opens up in 2-4 years depending on their success.
What is an issue, is NZR have given him the full 4 years, one woudl hope this included a review after 18 months, 2 years or so, with an option to terminate if performance was not up to scratch, but despite having the opportunity to learn from those sort of mistakes they made with Foster, I expect the contract he has is 4 years come what may.
Given that, and this goal of his to win two World Cups with different teams, I would have expected him to be significantly less conservative in his approach and less afraid of losing in his first two years. He also could have used the goal of winning the World Cup to buy himself some forgiveness when things didn't go so well.
I actually think he had massive amounts of goodwill at the beginning of his tenure basically to toss out the Foster years and pick a bunch of up-and-coming kids. The results might not have been any better (not sure they would have been any worse) but the potential feel good factor about the future would have bought him another year of goodwill into 2025.
As it was, he basically picked Foster's team, publicly begged to be able to pick two more overseas based players from that team, played Foster rugby and got Foster results. Now, he has bugger all goodwill and people are starting to question whether he should continue in the job.
As Foster picked Ryan one could argue Foster moved to more of a Razor-style of coaching rather than vice versa.
Out of all of his assistants, Ryan is the only one currently justifying his place
Up until the last 2 tests he was. Our set piece was an abortion against the Boks.
Loose forwards weren't great either.
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@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2025:
@junior said in All Blacks 2025:
@ShaquilleOatmeal said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean and I think that was also addressed earlier, the process was a big part of the problem with several potential candidates either not applying or ruling themselves out as they felt the decision had already been made.
I have no issues with Razor getting the job, if he was an amazing regional manager applying for the national manger job in a business, I doubt they tell him to go work for the opposition for a while and then come back when another role opens up in 2-4 years depending on their success.
What is an issue, is NZR have given him the full 4 years, one woudl hope this included a review after 18 months, 2 years or so, with an option to terminate if performance was not up to scratch, but despite having the opportunity to learn from those sort of mistakes they made with Foster, I expect the contract he has is 4 years come what may.
Given that, and this goal of his to win two World Cups with different teams, I would have expected him to be significantly less conservative in his approach and less afraid of losing in his first two years. He also could have used the goal of winning the World Cup to buy himself some forgiveness when things didn't go so well.
I actually think he had massive amounts of goodwill at the beginning of his tenure basically to toss out the Foster years and pick a bunch of up-and-coming kids. The results might not have been any better (not sure they would have been any worse) but the potential feel good factor about the future would have bought him another year of goodwill into 2025.
As it was, he basically picked Foster's team, publicly begged to be able to pick two more overseas based players from that team, played Foster rugby and got Foster results. Now, he has bugger all goodwill and people are starting to question whether he should continue in the job.
As Foster picked Ryan one could argue Foster moved to more of a Razor-style of coaching rather than vice versa.
Can't say I agree. Schmidt was clearly running the game plan when he and Ryan came onboard. Mooar compared to Schmidt had a game plan similar to Razor's.
Schmidt tightened things up a lot and made everything a lot simpler. Much narrower attack. The team improved and got within a whisker of winning the RWC after coming back from the nadir of 2022.
Then when Razor came onboard he arrogantly proclaimed they were tearing up the playbook ( installed by Schmidt ). They instantly started playing with more width ( back to the direction of Mooar ). We currently play wide a lot without earning the right.
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@nonpartizan said in All Blacks 2025:
@ShaquilleOatmeal said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean and I think that was also addressed earlier, the process was a big part of the problem with several potential candidates either not applying or ruling themselves out as they felt the decision had already been made.
I have no issues with Razor getting the job, if he was an amazing regional manager applying for the national manger job in a business, I doubt they tell him to go work for the opposition for a while and then come back when another role opens up in 2-4 years depending on their success.
What is an issue, is NZR have given him the full 4 years, one woudl hope this included a review after 18 months, 2 years or so, with an option to terminate if performance was not up to scratch, but despite having the opportunity to learn from those sort of mistakes they made with Foster, I expect the contract he has is 4 years come what may.
Given that, and this goal of his to win two World Cups with different teams, I would have expected him to be significantly less conservative in his approach and less afraid of losing in his first two years. He also could have used the goal of winning the World Cup to buy himself some forgiveness when things didn't go so well.
Exactly. There has been at least one storied All Black.side in every decade since the 60s - from the 67 team, 78, 87, 96, 05 and 13.
As of right now there has not been one in the 20s and the work.that needed to be done in 24 and 25 was to lay a foundation for a shot at the world cup in 27 and the Lions in 29.. it feels like an awful lot of time has been wasted these first two years with little to.show for it.
Razor needed to sell people on the idea that the first two years would be difficult and maybe not a lot of wins would be secured but that his long term vision of building a team to win the world cup was the ultimate focus. Fear of losing + conservative selections have seen almost two years wasted.
I’m not sure that amount of lead time going into a RWC campaign is needed in this day and age. We’ve seen resets, significant selection changes, gameplan manoeuvring and shifts in the year prior to a RWC that has contributed to the success of the ultimate winner. And there’s also that old thing called luck that is needed to win the Webb Ellis.
But the whole World Cup stuff is not really the target but more a line that gets bandied around because it’s always in the future.
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@brodean said in All Blacks 2025:
@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2025:
@junior said in All Blacks 2025:
@ShaquilleOatmeal said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean and I think that was also addressed earlier, the process was a big part of the problem with several potential candidates either not applying or ruling themselves out as they felt the decision had already been made.
I have no issues with Razor getting the job, if he was an amazing regional manager applying for the national manger job in a business, I doubt they tell him to go work for the opposition for a while and then come back when another role opens up in 2-4 years depending on their success.
What is an issue, is NZR have given him the full 4 years, one woudl hope this included a review after 18 months, 2 years or so, with an option to terminate if performance was not up to scratch, but despite having the opportunity to learn from those sort of mistakes they made with Foster, I expect the contract he has is 4 years come what may.
Given that, and this goal of his to win two World Cups with different teams, I would have expected him to be significantly less conservative in his approach and less afraid of losing in his first two years. He also could have used the goal of winning the World Cup to buy himself some forgiveness when things didn't go so well.
I actually think he had massive amounts of goodwill at the beginning of his tenure basically to toss out the Foster years and pick a bunch of up-and-coming kids. The results might not have been any better (not sure they would have been any worse) but the potential feel good factor about the future would have bought him another year of goodwill into 2025.
As it was, he basically picked Foster's team, publicly begged to be able to pick two more overseas based players from that team, played Foster rugby and got Foster results. Now, he has bugger all goodwill and people are starting to question whether he should continue in the job.
As Foster picked Ryan one could argue Foster moved to more of a Razor-style of coaching rather than vice versa.
Can't say I agree. Schmidt was clearly running the game plan when he and Ryan came onboard. Mooar compared to Schmidt had a game plan similar to Razor's.
Schmidt tightened things up a lot and made everything a lot simpler. Much narrower attack. The team improved and got within a whisker of winning the RWC after coming back from the nadir of 2022.
Then when Razor came onboard he arrogantly proclaimed they were tearing up the playbook ( installed by Schmidt ). They instantly started playing with more width ( back to the direction of Mooar ). We currently play wide a lot without earning the right.
I don't think that quite negates what I was saying.
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@ACT-Crusader said in All Blacks 2025:
@nonpartizan said in All Blacks 2025:
@ShaquilleOatmeal said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean and I think that was also addressed earlier, the process was a big part of the problem with several potential candidates either not applying or ruling themselves out as they felt the decision had already been made.
I have no issues with Razor getting the job, if he was an amazing regional manager applying for the national manger job in a business, I doubt they tell him to go work for the opposition for a while and then come back when another role opens up in 2-4 years depending on their success.
What is an issue, is NZR have given him the full 4 years, one woudl hope this included a review after 18 months, 2 years or so, with an option to terminate if performance was not up to scratch, but despite having the opportunity to learn from those sort of mistakes they made with Foster, I expect the contract he has is 4 years come what may.
Given that, and this goal of his to win two World Cups with different teams, I would have expected him to be significantly less conservative in his approach and less afraid of losing in his first two years. He also could have used the goal of winning the World Cup to buy himself some forgiveness when things didn't go so well.
Exactly. There has been at least one storied All Black.side in every decade since the 60s - from the 67 team, 78, 87, 96, 05 and 13.
As of right now there has not been one in the 20s and the work.that needed to be done in 24 and 25 was to lay a foundation for a shot at the world cup in 27 and the Lions in 29.. it feels like an awful lot of time has been wasted these first two years with little to.show for it.
Razor needed to sell people on the idea that the first two years would be difficult and maybe not a lot of wins would be secured but that his long term vision of building a team to win the world cup was the ultimate focus. Fear of losing + conservative selections have seen almost two years wasted.
I’m not sure that amount of lead time going into a RWC campaign is needed in this day and age. We’ve seen resets, significant selection changes, gameplan manoeuvring and shifts in the year prior to a RWC that has contributed to the success of the ultimate winner. And there’s also that old thing called luck that is needed to win the Webb Ellis.
But the whole World Cup stuff is not really the target but more a line that gets bandied around because it’s always in the future.
I see what you are saying but Razors approach to backline selection in particular seems to demonstrate an appetite for coasting along on the fumes of the 10s rather than laying a foundation for the latter part of this decade.
If you look at a core of Rieko, Jordie, BB and Sevu Reece (all players who made their debuts in the 10s) they have accumulated 21 caps this season. An average of over 5 apiece. Id argue that only Jordie has shown the type of form to justify his place to that extent, the others are over capped relative to what they have produced.
Then contrast that with Leroy Carter and Narawa who have been given three caps in total this year. Their Super rugby form has merited more chances and they've actually managed two tries this year which is comparable to Reece and Rieko who managed 2 tries collectively in 9 starts, albeit Reece only lasted one minute v France in Dunedin. Another example: Ruben Love has a decent outing v France in Hamilton and Is never given a chance to play again until he is chucked on the wing with 15 minutes to go v the Springboks in Wellington, a jamb to the slaughter.
I just never seen any indication that Razor makes selection decisions with an eye to the future, he won't play a young, unproven player unless he absolutely has to. Instead he prefers to pick experienced players whose best days are behind them. In the long run I think that approach is going to be costly.
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In fact, maybe the best example of the strangeness of Razors selections is to look at how he uses Blues players.
The Blues players he does play get picked based on reputation (Rieko starts five matches at left wing despite not having played there for years, BB is an automatic selection at 10 even though he is playing poorly) whereas the likes of Papalii and Sotutu don't even get a chance.
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@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2025:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2025:
@junior said in All Blacks 2025:
@ShaquilleOatmeal said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@brodean and I think that was also addressed earlier, the process was a big part of the problem with several potential candidates either not applying or ruling themselves out as they felt the decision had already been made.
I have no issues with Razor getting the job, if he was an amazing regional manager applying for the national manger job in a business, I doubt they tell him to go work for the opposition for a while and then come back when another role opens up in 2-4 years depending on their success.
What is an issue, is NZR have given him the full 4 years, one woudl hope this included a review after 18 months, 2 years or so, with an option to terminate if performance was not up to scratch, but despite having the opportunity to learn from those sort of mistakes they made with Foster, I expect the contract he has is 4 years come what may.
Given that, and this goal of his to win two World Cups with different teams, I would have expected him to be significantly less conservative in his approach and less afraid of losing in his first two years. He also could have used the goal of winning the World Cup to buy himself some forgiveness when things didn't go so well.
I actually think he had massive amounts of goodwill at the beginning of his tenure basically to toss out the Foster years and pick a bunch of up-and-coming kids. The results might not have been any better (not sure they would have been any worse) but the potential feel good factor about the future would have bought him another year of goodwill into 2025.
As it was, he basically picked Foster's team, publicly begged to be able to pick two more overseas based players from that team, played Foster rugby and got Foster results. Now, he has bugger all goodwill and people are starting to question whether he should continue in the job.
As Foster picked Ryan one could argue Foster moved to more of a Razor-style of coaching rather than vice versa.
Out of all of his assistants, Ryan is the only one currently justifying his place
Up until the last 2 tests he was. Our set piece was an abortion against the Boks.
If you take out one scrum the AB tight five had the better of Boks in AB1. Boks had a lot of lineouts stolen over the two tests, and maul negated.
I'd give set piece a B. But loosies in AB 2 were invisible in last 20 or so, after being good in AB1 so C- for them.
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@nonpartizan said in All Blacks 2025:
In fact, maybe the best example of the strangeness of Razors selections is to look at how he uses Blues players.
The Blues players he does play get picked based on reputation (Rieko starts five matches at left wing despite not having played there for years, BB is an automatic selection at 10 even though he is playing poorly) whereas the likes of Papalii and Sotutu don't even get a chance.
Yeah those are the ones he has to pick due to their contract situaton. If he could isolate all of them, he would.
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@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2025:
@nonpartizan said in All Blacks 2025:
In fact, maybe the best example of the strangeness of Razors selections is to look at how he uses Blues players.
The Blues players he does play get picked based on reputation (Rieko starts five matches at left wing despite not having played there for years, BB is an automatic selection at 10 even though he is playing poorly) whereas the likes of Papalii and Sotutu don't even get a chance.
Yeah those are the ones he has to pick due to their contract situaton. If he could isolate all of them, he would.
Well I don't think Christie, Tuipulotu, Clarke, or Tu'ungafasi have special contracts.
Let's explore the potential reasons why Blue's players miss out.
- Robertson wants to play an expansive game which involves attacking down the openside side line and the Blues players have shown that they thrive in the narrow Cotter ball game plan, and to a lessor extent Schmidt who was also narrow but not as narrow. They therefore think the Blues players are not suited to the expansive game plan.
- They lost a lot of respect for Blue's players due to the nature of the 2023 Super Rugby semi final and have doubts about the players (while ignoring the hiding that Chiefs players got in the 2024 final and also ignoring the improvements the Blues made in defense and set piece subsequent to that 2023 semi)
- There is some kind of bad blood between some of the Blue's loosies and Razor and his cronies. Papali'i escaped this largely while Foster and Schmidt were in control.
- They don't like Aucklanders/Blues people and want players that think more like the Canterbury/Crusaders players etc. Chippy bias etc
- Blue's players aren't actually that good and their title and finals success over the last five years is because they've played together well as a team - MacDonald and Cotter are better coaches than the other Super Rugby coaches. Maybe this is what they think because they've ignored some Crusaders players now as well like Havili and Blackadder. Maybe they think the Blues are like the Crusaders. Champion team rather than Champion players.
Speculation of course.
Potentially part of the problem is that Razor has always picked certain types of players for Canterbury and Crusaders and they have to fit within that clique.
I think Razor and his team are struggling to get players from different teams, game plan approaches, and team cultures to thrive together. They're not used to working with players who don't get the Crusaders way.
This is part of the benefit of having international coaching experience. You have to pick the best players but also get them to work together at their best.
I don't see this happening at the moment.
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Blues fans just need to let it go. There was a time he should have been picked 18 months ago, but since his form has gone backwards at a rate of knots.
Papalii is still a good player, but he is not the foil for this loose forward trio. He's a worse version of Sam Cane, the modern game requires energy from the openside flanker. DP has very little on attack. More of a chance at blindside.
Tuipulotu has found his niche as the impact lock, and has largely been used there through Razor's tenure.
I could go on. There is no witch hunt here.
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@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
Papalii is still a good player, but he is not the foil for this loose forward trio. He's a worse version of Sam Cane, the modern game requires energy from the openside flanker. DP has very little on attack. More of a chance at blindside.
Well if you look at the actual results of the All Blacks this year - you are wrong. We should not let it go because we had our worst ever defeat last week - so things are not working.
I think we would do better if we actually had a Papali'i or a Blackadder in the pack that is focused on hitting rucks and defending. Maybe you didn't notice but our defence was pitiful in the last quarter of the last game and the loose forwards simply did not turn up to make tackles and neither did they influence the breakdown.
None of Savea, Kirifi, Vaa'i or Parker came in and made a bunch of tackles when it was needed. Instead they left it to guys like William's to try.
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@george33 im glad you were wrong about Ioane
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@upthelanders let down there must admit at least the Clarke left wing turned out.
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@zedsdeadbaby he's not that's what I've been told and if he was were is he .
NZR said no
Razor wanted him obviously.
This is the shit going on. -
