All Blacks 2025
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When is the team named?
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@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@bayimports said in All Blacks 2025:
Cory one of our own bomb refusal experts, if he can pass that on, I’m in
Hmm, I thought bomb refusal was what our team was doing so well currently...
I don’t think so in my opinion, now not based on stats but I would suggest that our diffusal of contestable kicks is probably down on what it once was, which irritates me even more when we continue to box kick,
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@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
His foray into the NZ U20's wasn't great either.
He was clearly NZR's poster boy and there's the nagging suspicion he was a "face fits" hire more than anything else. NZR have to support him and the players to get thru this mess - though not naming Holland's successor when he resigned shows a disturbing lack of nous.
Alright, the revisionism is getting out of hand now. His foray into U20s wasn’t great? He has, by some distance, the best record from the post-2011 era (I’ve already discussed in another post how the 2008-’11 years in NZ age grade rugby were a statistical outlier so I’m not going to get into that again).
Robertson lost two games: one against Australia at the Oceania Championship and one against Ireland at the U20s World Cup. That was an Irish team that would go on to make the final and contained players like James Ryan, Andrew Porter, Jacob Stockdale, Jimmy O’Brien, Will Connors, Shane Daly, Max Deegan and Hugo Keenan. These are all regulars in the Irish professional game and includes multiple British and Irish Lions. The other 13 games at U20 level he won, including the 2015 U20 World Cup final against what was a very good English U20 team.
I’m not defending Robertson’s current performances – which, in my view, is a firm argument for prior international coaching experience – but to argue that he was this kind of ‘poster child’ who was picked on anything but his coaching record is just plainly false. Two things can be true at the same time: (1) Robertson’s tenure is a disappointment with little evidence of it moving in the right direction, and (2) his coaching record before the All Blacks has little to no precedent in terms of overall success and win rate. He made a lot of sense as a coaching candidate for the top job.
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@bayimports said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@bayimports said in All Blacks 2025:
Cory one of our own bomb refusal experts, if he can pass that on, I’m in
Hmm, I thought bomb refusal was what our team was doing so well currently...
I don’t think so in my opinion, now not based on stats but I would suggest that our diffusal of contestable kicks is probably down on what it once was, which irritates me even more when we continue to box kick,
I think you may have missed the point...
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Fair point, Based my comment on Robertson's U20 side coming 5th in the 2016 Championship. IIRC that's the worst-ever performance by a NZ team.
I agree Robertson's non-Test coaching record needed to be taken seriously, but it's abundantly clear he was NZR's man no matter what - his face fitted and important stuff like Test experience clearly didn't matter.
That's not Robertson's problem though and as I said, NZR need to support hom.
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@booboo said in All Blacks 2025:
@ACT-Crusader said in All Blacks 2025:
When is the team named?
Thursday?
If only today was Wednesday….
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@Victor-Meldrew as we know ‘worst ever performances’ at tournaments don’t really impact on a head coach’s capacity to keep their job or do well after that.
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@Victor-Meldrew Is Big Sam getting his coaching badges?
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@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
Fair point, Based my comment on Robertson's U20 side coming 5th in the 2016 Championship. IIRC that's the worst-ever performance by a NZ team.
I agree Robertson's non-Test coaching record needed to be taken seriously, but it's abundantly clear he was NZR's man no matter what - his face fitted and important stuff like Test experience clearly didn't matter.
That's not Robertson's problem though and as I said, NZR need to support hom.
Well, it was in terms of overall finishing (it has since been passed by the 2019 and 2023 NZ U20 teams, who both finished 7th). But the U20 World Championship is a very quick tournament, with a lot of contingent factors deciding your success in the group phase. In my own opinion, the 2016 U20 side was better than their 2012, 2014 and 2018 counterparts, all of whom made the semi-finals due to a combination of luck and opposition.
And yes, with hindsight there was, once again, too little attention given to international experience. I’m guessing it will return as a deciding factor in the next coaching selection post-2027, which is good news for guys like Jamie Joseph and Vern Cotter (and perhaps even Schmidt and Rennie, should they be interested).
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@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@mariner4life Article on PR today, Ardie reckons ABin a better place in 2025 than 2024 and heading in right direction...
The question for me is why it has taken nearly 2 seasons to start heading in the right direction?
I thought at this point last year we were a better side thaat e wre now. We have regressed in a number of areas this year
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@game_film said in All Blacks 2025:
@Victor-Meldrew Is Big Sam getting his coaching badges?
He's clearly a very smart rugby brain, so you'd hope so.
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@gt12 said in All Blacks 2025:
Some here.
Some of those old threads are fun reading, now that we see the results with Razor.
That first link starts with my post.
"He took Blackadder's squad who weren't capable of winning super rugby and who had lost experienced ABs ... and I think many posters would agree made it better."
I don't think that has suddenly become untrue. His super record is still darn good.
The question is why hasn't it translated.
Given he now has Ryan again and had some choice with assistant coaches I go back a post I wrote months earlier, did O'Gara have an important contribution to play? -
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
@No-Quarter said in All Blacks 2025:
LOL that's
The sheep were probably thinking "We walk together..."We walk with a lot of care
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@ShaquilleOatmeal said in All Blacks 2025:
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
@Darren said in All Blacks 2025:
I'd love to know what he really is like as a coach, from the clips I have seen at training, he just seems to oversee things without being too directly involved, but I could and probably am totally incorrect.
From Sam Whitelock's book.....
Without doubt Razor sees things differently. Here’s a story from our first year working together that sums him up perfectly. I had played massive minutes for the Crusaders and the All Blacks over the past few years, and my body was screaming at me.
A niggly Achilles would plague me for the rest of my career. Razor got me into his office and showed me a photo..... of a rooster leading a group of hens across a bridge. He pointed at the rooster and said, ‘This is you.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Where are you going with this one, Ray?’
‘If there’s something that needs doing, you’re the first one to do it. If there’s a drill that needs demonstrating, you’re first up and doing it. But I need this …’ Then he showed me another photo, and I saw a dog with three sheep in a little mob.
What Razor was showing me, in his inimitable style, was that he needed me to bark from behind.
I can see that sort of thing working with someone of profoundly low intelligence but anyone with half a brain would surely double over with cringe.
It does probably work on club, semi-pro and non-elite-level-pro rugby players who don't get exposed to the game's most analytical coaches and cutting edge tactics (most of these players would all have low-level CTE too, which probably helps).
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
The forwards are going quite well individually (suggests Ryan is doing his job)
i am starting to believe this isn't going as well as we thought. the set piece is going backwards, our ruck work leaves a lot to be desired, and defensively we are soft as butter.
There is a sense that we are going well because we have more depth in our tight 5 than we have had in decades. However, the actual performance of the tight 5 as a unit has been mixed. More concerningly, our back row is comparatively weak in depth, talent and performance.
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
The forwards are going quite well individually (suggests Ryan is doing his job)
i am starting to believe this isn't going as well as we thought. the set piece is going backwards, our ruck work leaves a lot to be desired, and defensively we are soft as butter.
Plus worse loose forward trios the All Blacks have ever put. The loose forwards are part of the forward pack.
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@bayimports said in All Blacks 2025:
@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@bayimports said in All Blacks 2025:
Cory one of our own bomb refusal experts, if he can pass that on, I’m in
Hmm, I thought bomb refusal was what our team was doing so well currently...
I don’t think so in my opinion, now not based on stats but I would suggest that our diffusal of contestable kicks is probably down on what it once was, which irritates me even more when we continue to box kick,
Diffusal, refusal, toemato, tomato...
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@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@mariner4life #metoo!
But I guess to take some positive from it, given the talk of possible issues in the squad (inc coaching group) it may point towards there not (major) being issues there, so who knows.
Not sure who this Newboult fella is, but he has penned an article re possible replacements for Holland...
Frontrunners: Roger Randle, Andrew Goodman, Scott Hansen
In the mix Joe Schmidt, David Hill
Outside bets James Marshall, Brad Cooper, Cory Brown, Jason O’Halloran
Wild cards: Brad Mooar, Wayne Smith, Ronan O’Gara, Tony Brown
Surely not: Leon MacDonald, Dave RennieAll Blacks coach departs! 15 possible replacements from 'the highly improbable' to the 'slighty awkward' top choice
Backs coach Jason Holland will leave the All Blacks set-up at the end of the season so we have delved into his potential replacements.
Their reason for dismissing Dave Rennie,, "he'd create a clash" is (if those clashes remained private) EXACTLY why I'd want him. I think having someone to challenge Scott Robertson's thinking in camp will get the best out of him and his squad. The best leaders I've worked with know their limitations and know what they don't know, even while projecting utter confidence in public
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@tubbyj said in All Blacks 2025:
@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
The forwards are going quite well individually (suggests Ryan is doing his job)
i am starting to believe this isn't going as well as we thought. the set piece is going backwards, our ruck work leaves a lot to be desired, and defensively we are soft as butter.
Plus worse loose forward trios the All Blacks have ever put. The loose forwards are part of the forward pack.
Other peoples' loose forwards are part of a forward pack.
