All Blacks 2021

Bones

Would've been nice to see:
Frizzel out for Robinson
Tuipulotu out for a Highlanders lock

Don't get the hate for Lomax.

Faingaanuku has been easily forgotten eh?

Surprise even to myself, but I think Christie has shown more in black than Weber.

Uh oh here comes the Hawkes posters...

ACT Crusader

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

Would've been nice to see:
Frizzel out for Robinson
Tuipulotu out for a Highlanders lock

Don't get the hate for Lomax.

Faingaanuku has been easily forgotten eh?

Surprise even to myself, but I think Christie has shown more in black than Weber.

Uh oh here comes the Hawkes posters...

Never been a fan of Weber. He’s basically a small version of Drummond, and most would know my concerns with Drummond.

Dithers at the back of the ruck and can’t seem to control the maul play.

Bones

@act-crusader said in All Blacks 2021:

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

Would've been nice to see:
Frizzel out for Robinson
Tuipulotu out for a Highlanders lock

Don't get the hate for Lomax.

Faingaanuku has been easily forgotten eh?

Surprise even to myself, but I think Christie has shown more in black than Weber.

Uh oh here comes the Hawkes posters...

Never been a fan of Weber. He’s basically a small version of Drummond, and most would know my concerns with Drummond.

Dithers at the back of the ruck and can’t seem to control the maul play.

It's more the way he sprays it like the iconic Jim Carrey scene in Me Myself and Irene that troubles me.

Nepia

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

Would've been nice to see:
Frizzel out for Robinson
Tuipulotu out for a Highlanders lock

Don't get the hate for Lomax.

Faingaanuku has been easily forgotten eh?

Surprise even to myself, but I think Christie has shown more in black than Weber.

Uh oh here comes the Hawkes posters...

alt text

MN5

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

Would've been nice to see:
Frizzel out for Robinson
Tuipulotu out for a Highlanders lock

Don't get the hate for Lomax.

Faingaanuku has been easily forgotten eh?

Surprise even to myself, but I think Christie has shown more in black than Weber.

Uh oh here comes the Hawkes posters...

@Nepias ~~bat~~ bay signal just went off

Bones

@mn5 said in All Blacks 2021:

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

Would've been nice to see:
Frizzel out for Robinson
Tuipulotu out for a Highlanders lock

Don't get the hate for Lomax.

Faingaanuku has been easily forgotten eh?

Surprise even to myself, but I think Christie has shown more in black than Weber.

Uh oh here comes the Hawkes posters...

@Nepias ~~bat~~ bay signal just went off

No

Bovidae

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/300361408/sam-cane-eyes-late-september-return-to-rugby-all-blacks-endofyear-tour

KiwiMurph

https://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/125801156/it-wasnt-a-ploy-tj-perenara-hits-back-over-all-blacks-coach-ian-fosters-swipe-at-his-nrl-negotiations

bayimports

@kiwimurph said in All Blacks 2021:

https://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/125801156/it-wasnt-a-ploy-tj-perenara-hits-back-over-all-blacks-coach-ian-fosters-swipe-at-his-nrl-negotiations

if it somehow de-rails the fozzie train, even if it is TJP.. then I will take it

Bones

@kiwimurph Jesus what a shit show. I guess Fozzie thought what's good for the goose and decided to air his opinion publicly too. But probably a pretty poor option when you've just selected that guy in your team. Fucken hell.

bayimports

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

@mn5 said in All Blacks 2021:

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

Would've been nice to see:
Frizzel out for Robinson
Tuipulotu out for a Highlanders lock

Don't get the hate for Lomax.

Faingaanuku has been easily forgotten eh?

Surprise even to myself, but I think Christie has shown more in black than Weber.

Uh oh here comes the Hawkes posters...

@Nepias ~~bat~~ bay signal just went off

No

very true Bones, @nepia has to suck it up for a little bit longer yet.. looking forward to it

Nepia

@bayimports said in All Blacks 2021:

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

@mn5 said in All Blacks 2021:

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

Would've been nice to see:
Frizzel out for Robinson
Tuipulotu out for a Highlanders lock

Don't get the hate for Lomax.

Faingaanuku has been easily forgotten eh?

Surprise even to myself, but I think Christie has shown more in black than Weber.

Uh oh here comes the Hawkes posters...

@Nepias ~~bat~~ bay signal just went off

No

very true Bones, @nepia has to suck it up for a little bit longer yet.. looking forward to it

I look forward to just calling you Imports later on in the year.

broughie

@crucial I like the look of that guy. Could be a replacement for Coles and Taylor and if he can been shown to be consistent sooner for Taylor. He is a big unit.

pakman

@antipodean said in All Blacks 2021:

@kiwiwomble said in All Blacks 2021:

thought de groot dd enough to be included

Especially over Lomax

Not his fault that LH depth is good. TWM are plainly trying to work on TH depth.

nzzp

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

@kiwimurph Jesus what a shit show. I guess Fozzie thought what's good for the goose and decided to air his opinion publicly too. But probably a pretty poor option when you've just selected that guy in your team. Fucken hell.

Was a terrible decision by Foster. No winners are ever going to come out of that. Best you get is throwing a senior all black under the bus.

ploughboy

@nzzp said in All Blacks 2021:

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

@kiwimurph Jesus what a shit show. I guess Fozzie thought what's good for the goose and decided to air his opinion publicly too. But probably a pretty poor option when you've just selected that guy in your team. Fucken hell.

Was a terrible decision by Foster. No winners are ever going to come out of that. Best you get is throwing a senior all black under the bus.

i have a funny feeling that there is more to this story.

booboo

@nzzp said in All Blacks 2021:

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

@kiwimurph Jesus what a shit show. I guess Fozzie thought what's good for the goose and decided to air his opinion publicly too. But probably a pretty poor option when you've just selected that guy in your team. Fucken hell.

Was a terrible decision by Foster. No winners are ever going to come out of that. Best you get is throwing a senior all black under the bus.

Molehill, meet mountain

Crucial

@booboo said in All Blacks 2021:

@nzzp said in All Blacks 2021:

@bones said in All Blacks 2021:

@kiwimurph Jesus what a shit show. I guess Fozzie thought what's good for the goose and decided to air his opinion publicly too. But probably a pretty poor option when you've just selected that guy in your team. Fucken hell.

Was a terrible decision by Foster. No winners are ever going to come out of that. Best you get is throwing a senior all black under the bus.

Molehill, meet mountain

Yeah. TJP is contracted now so it's not like he's going to run away. He's also not such an important player that if he gets the pip and can't work with Foster it's a big loss.
If Foster goes I'm not sure if he would be in Razor's mix.

DaGrubster

It’s really hard to gauge where we are at against the opposition we have faced over the last 2 weeks. But I guess most countries are in a very similar position in that regard.

The forwards have been the biggest issue for 3-4 years now and we seem to be in gradual decline there still, even though we have publicly acknowledged this is the area that we are focussing on to turn around and bring physicality back to our pack.

I haven’t seen any real evidence of this and I do wonder what would happen if we meet South Africa on a day when their pack is on fire.

It has got me wondering about the direction of All Black rugby and New Zealand rugby overall. Specifically, how does New Zealand rugby strategise for the development of the professional game, the style of play and also the type of player we are producing for international rugby?

I always assumed this direction was done through the All Blacks mgmt and coaching but it seems like we are out of synch with the way the rugby world is going in a number of areas.

Firstly, the forwards we produce for the All Blacks for a long time now are much leaner than their counterparts in the NH and SA. We all know we don’t produce the same amount of big men as these sides traditionally but we seem to be continuing down the leaner, mobile type of players even though rugby has changed - it’s slower, with more stoppages and it becomes harder to fatigue teams as we once used to be able to do.

This approach was found out against a fired up England in the RWC semi final. It was an embarrassing loss. One glaring area was the work of England’s tight 5 compared to ours. Set piece as well as in the loose.

Secondly, we have never solved the rush defence problem that first presented itself against The Lions. Other teams have managed to score tries against those defences but it is still our kryptonite. The dual playmaker was a desperate attempt by Hansen in my view as he realised he couldn’t win the World Cup after the Irish loss in 2018. Ironically our best performance came in the qtr final against Ireland. But, by then, it was evident that getting up for 3 big games in a row were beyond that All Black group.

Thirdly, defence. Why have we not employed the same type of rush defence that we have so much trouble with? I get it is perfect against NZ and other teams don’t try to play like we do but surely if we find it so difficult why are we persisting with other defensive structures that do not provide the necessary solidity or turnover options. We might understand how to attack it better if we used the rush defences our opponents use against us.

I actually can’t recall the last piece of innovation that Come out of NZ rugby that had the rest of the world trying to catch up. Interesting how no one has adopted the dual playmaker from RWC2019.

Then I wondered whether it’s because of our set up? Hansen’s last gig as a head coach was 2003 before taking the reins in 2012. Foster’s last gig as a head coach was 2010.

Is being an asst coaches for so long in an All Blacks environment really the best preparation for leading the All Blacks? A side always under pressure to be the best side in the world?

It seems very insular in its thinking to me that we have coaches wrapped up in a largely All Black winning bubble, for a long period of time, and then expect them to keep ahead of the rest of the world. Hansen ran out of ideas (and motivation?) after the Lions series and the loss of some all time great All Blacks after 2015. To expect Foster to be the man to bring the All Blacks back to the summit of world rugby is probably asking far too much of him.

What’s the answer? Is it time to ditch the continuity? Do we need a coach with more recent head coach experience, do we need to change the way we condition players, particularly forwards? Do the All Blacks/NZ rugby need to learn more from NH rugby to improve/change our approach? Have we fallen behind other countries/clubs in innovation?

The answer to all of these questions seem to be a resounding ‘yes’

nzzp

@dagrubster said in All Blacks 2021:

Firstly, the forwards we produce for the All Blacks for a long time now are much leaner than their counterparts in the NH and SA. We all know we don’t produce the same amount of big men as these sides traditionally but we seem to be continuing down the leaner, mobile type of players even though rugby has changed - it’s slower, with more stoppages and it becomes harder to fatigue teams as we once used to be able to do.

great comment fella, some good things to think about. in order

firstly - we have always picked lighter, ball playing forwards rather than power forwards. It's how we have beaten SA for a long time- but at the moment, our props in particular are not ball players. There aren't many locks in world rugby that could (Brodie) sell a massive dummy inside and then gallop down the wing to score a try. Going back to '05, it was the passing in the tight forwards that made a big differnce to that side.

More recently, at 2019 RWC against SA, we got beaten up in the forwards, but had 5 minutes of magic (Reece!) and scored two critical tries. In 2015 semi against SA it was similar -w e got beaten up front, but did enough to stretch them and score enough points ... and our defence was super solid.

So, it's not a new tactic, but going the power route isn't necessarily the answer - more just getting better forwards!

Secondly, we have never solved the rush defence problem that first presented itself against The Lions.

Re-watch 2017 Lions 1 and see how we went; we went very well, with slashing diagonal runs from behind the ruck. There's space there, if you're good enough to exploit it. Arguably we should have won that series 3-0, but for a SBW brain fart and a number of AB injuries and tits for hands, culminating in allowing Poite to French us.

Thirdly, defence. Why have we not employed the same type of rush defence that we have so much trouble with?

good question - hopefully part of a wider plan rather than just 'this is what we do'.

Great post, hope it sparks some good debate

The Silver Fern

All Blacks 2021