All Blacks 2025
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@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
Each year only one team can win the title , so there’s always going to be a lot of players in our pool that aren’t winners at that level .
Don't feed the troll.
Winning only counts if you're from the Crusaders. It's not a good mindset. Great players are great players, no matter where they come from. AA Ron Smith was insanely competitive, despite playing for an (ahem) small market team. Darren Lockyer (one of the finest league fullbacks in my opinion) was spotted by Wayne Bennett in a team getting humiliated. Mental strength and toughness is either in people or it's not.
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
Each year only one team can win the title , so there’s always going to be a lot of players in our pool that aren’t winners at that level .
Don't feed the troll.
Winning only counts if you're from the Crusaders. It's not a good mindset. Great players are great players, no matter where they come from. AA Ron Smith was insanely competitive, despite playing for an (ahem) small market team. Darren Lockyer (one of the finest league fullbacks in my opinion) was spotted by Wayne Bennett in a team getting humiliated. Mental strength and toughness is either in people or it's not.
Maybe we should get a winning coach from that level
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@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
Each year only one team can win the title , so there’s always going to be a lot of players in our pool that aren’t winners at that level .
Don't feed the troll.
Winning only counts if you're from the Crusaders. It's not a good mindset. Great players are great players, no matter where they come from. AA Ron Smith was insanely competitive, despite playing for an (ahem) small market team. Darren Lockyer (one of the finest league fullbacks in my opinion) was spotted by Wayne Bennett in a team getting humiliated. Mental strength and toughness is either in people or it's not.
Maybe we should get a winning coach from that level
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
Each year only one team can win the title , so there’s always going to be a lot of players in our pool that aren’t winners at that level .
Don't feed the troll.
Winning only counts if you're from the Crusaders. It's not a good mindset. Great players are great players, no matter where they come from. AA Ron Smith was insanely competitive, despite playing for an (ahem) small market team. Darren Lockyer (one of the finest league fullbacks in my opinion) was spotted by Wayne Bennett in a team getting humiliated. Mental strength and toughness is either in people or it's not.
Maybe we should get a winning coach from that level
It's fascinating eh. Foster's late run, Razor's struggles and Penney's Super victory this year have reframed some of what - on the face of it - was a remarkable achievement. How much is the machine, how much is the players, how much is the coach?
Still reckon Sir Graham was right: Razor would be a better coach with experience offshore.
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@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
Each year only one team can win the title , so there’s always going to be a lot of players in our pool that aren’t winners at that level .
Don't feed the troll.
Winning only counts if you're from the Crusaders. It's not a good mindset. Great players are great players, no matter where they come from. AA Ron Smith was insanely competitive, despite playing for an (ahem) small market team. Darren Lockyer (one of the finest league fullbacks in my opinion) was spotted by Wayne Bennett in a team getting humiliated. Mental strength and toughness is either in people or it's not.
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
Each year only one team can win the title , so there’s always going to be a lot of players in our pool that aren’t winners at that level .
Don't feed the troll.
Winning only counts if you're from the Crusaders. It's not a good mindset. Great players are great players, no matter where they come from. AA Ron Smith was insanely competitive, despite playing for an (ahem) small market team. Darren Lockyer (one of the finest league fullbacks in my opinion) was spotted by Wayne Bennett in a team getting humiliated. Mental strength and toughness is either in people or it's not.
Carlos Spencer got discovered while playing for Horowhenua who were getting a hiding from Auckland if I remember rightly, he then played for them next season.
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@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
Each year only one team can win the title , so there’s always going to be a lot of players in our pool that aren’t winners at that level .
Don't feed the troll.
Winning only counts if you're from the Crusaders. It's not a good mindset. Great players are great players, no matter where they come from. AA Ron Smith was insanely competitive, despite playing for an (ahem) small market team. Darren Lockyer (one of the finest league fullbacks in my opinion) was spotted by Wayne Bennett in a team getting humiliated. Mental strength and toughness is either in people or it's not.
Carlos Spencer got discovered while playing for Horowhenua who were getting a hiding from Auckland if I remember rightly, he then played for them next season.
@MN5 said in All Blacks 2025:
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
Each year only one team can win the title , so there’s always going to be a lot of players in our pool that aren’t winners at that level .
Don't feed the troll.
Winning only counts if you're from the Crusaders. It's not a good mindset. Great players are great players, no matter where they come from. AA Ron Smith was insanely competitive, despite playing for an (ahem) small market team. Darren Lockyer (one of the finest league fullbacks in my opinion) was spotted by Wayne Bennett in a team getting humiliated. Mental strength and toughness is either in people or it's not.
Carlos Spencer got discovered while playing for Horowhenua who were getting a hiding from Auckland if I remember rightly, he then played for them next season.
He was , Auckland chased him after the Shield match in Levin, also tried for another young player from that match who wasn't really interested from what I recall.
Mind you that was and still is the case, good talent spotters know what is good regardless of results. -
@pakman summed up by this sentence; the consistent theme of Robertson’s increasingly average tenure is that the substitutes are incapable of getting into the game, let alone positively impacting it - everything else is filler.
Now that a couple of journos have had the balls to suggest the bleedingly obvious, it seems they're now turning on the very bloke they cheered for like giggling schoolgirls.
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@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
Each year only one team can win the title , so there’s always going to be a lot of players in our pool that aren’t winners at that level .
Don't feed the troll.
Winning only counts if you're from the Crusaders. It's not a good mindset. Great players are great players, no matter where they come from. AA Ron Smith was insanely competitive, despite playing for an (ahem) small market team. Darren Lockyer (one of the finest league fullbacks in my opinion) was spotted by Wayne Bennett in a team getting humiliated. Mental strength and toughness is either in people or it's not.
Maybe we should get a winning coach from that level
It's fascinating eh. Foster's late run, Razor's struggles and Penney's Super victory this year have reframed some of what - on the face of it - was a remarkable achievement. How much is the machine, how much is the players, how much is the coach?
Still reckon Sir Graham was right: Razor would be a better coach with experience offshore.
@nzzp said in All Blacks 2025:
Still reckon Sir Graham was right: Razor would be a better coach with experience offshore.
That didn't fit with the NZR Board's plans though.
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I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
And I still say, there is every possibility that these players are of the level of the 3rd or 4th best team in the world, hence why we are getting results as such.
I don't think these players are bad, but outside of Will Jordan, I don't think any of these players at their current age and stages crack the 2015 side.
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I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
And I still say, there is every possibility that these players are of the level of the 3rd or 4th best team in the world, hence why we are getting results as such.
I don't think these players are bad, but outside of Will Jordan, I don't think any of these players at their current age and stages crack the 2015 side.
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level? A bit like George Bridge - he was successful for the Crusaders too.
I agree with Henry and Hansen - NZR should have insisted he was tested at International level before being given the job. But we are where we are.
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I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
And I still say, there is every possibility that these players are of the level of the 3rd or 4th best team in the world, hence why we are getting results as such.
I don't think these players are bad, but outside of Will Jordan, I don't think any of these players at their current age and stages crack the 2015 side.
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@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level? A bit like George Bridge - he was successful for the Crusaders too.
I agree with Henry and Hansen - NZR should have insisted he was tested at International level before being given the job. But we are where we are.
@Victor-Meldrew But he was the head coach of Brazil!
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@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level? A bit like George Bridge - he was successful for the Crusaders too.
I agree with Henry and Hansen - NZR should have insisted he was tested at International level before being given the job. But we are where we are.
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level?
Like Guy Novès. A serial winner with Toulouse but only a 33% win ratio with France.
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@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level? A bit like George Bridge - he was successful for the Crusaders too.
I agree with Henry and Hansen - NZR should have insisted he was tested at International level before being given the job. But we are where we are.
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level? A bit like George Bridge - he was successful for the Crusaders too.
I agree with Henry and Hansen - NZR should have insisted he was tested at International level before being given the job. But we are where we are.
As Wayne Bennett said, 'Don't listen to the public otherwise you'll be sitting with them'.
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@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level? A bit like George Bridge - he was successful for the Crusaders too.
I agree with Henry and Hansen - NZR should have insisted he was tested at International level before being given the job. But we are where we are.
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level? A bit like George Bridge - he was successful for the Crusaders too.
I agree with Henry and Hansen - NZR should have insisted he was tested at International level before being given the job. But we are where we are.
I am a long way from being a Robertson supporter, that should be pretty clear.
But it's not comparable to George Bridge, who was a good winger benefitting from playing in the best team. If anyone it's more Reuben Thorne - the guy leading the best team to the best results - but even then it's quite different in that player performances are highly visible to the public, whereas coaching is pretty much completely opaque other than final results.
By international experience, what do you mean? Coaching a national side, or coaching a club/provincial side in another country? If a national side, clearly you think Brazil doesn't count - where is the line? And do you mean as a head coach, or as an assistant coach? Robertson also played in both Japan and France, so he has some experience in other environments.
Any which way, I find it dogmatic. There are definitely aspects of test rugby in terms of prep time and tournament play vs prepping for a long season that are different, but these things are never black and white. Nobody has ever done something until they have.If he's not good enough and our results are shit, I'm all for sacking him - I can't understand some of his selections, his tactics, half the sentences that come out of his mouth are nonsense or contradictory - but I don't want to see his failures being put down to some arbitrary missing requirement for international experience, whatever that means, which can then be used to rule out our next good candidate.
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It’s a difficult one , I think there is a couple of things going on ,
He isn’t the innovative genius he was painted out to be , and to go with that , our talent pool isn’t necessarily superior to our opponents in the way it has been in the past .
If it was he might be doing better and everyone would be thinking it’s all ok . But it isn’t and his coaching comes under the microscope more and more if we aren’t dominating, like people were expecting when the messiah takes over .
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@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level? A bit like George Bridge - he was successful for the Crusaders too.
I agree with Henry and Hansen - NZR should have insisted he was tested at International level before being given the job. But we are where we are.
I am a long way from being a Robertson supporter, that should be pretty clear.
But it's not comparable to George Bridge, who was a good winger benefitting from playing in the best team. If anyone it's more Reuben Thorne - the guy leading the best team to the best results - but even then it's quite different in that player performances are highly visible to the public, whereas coaching is pretty much completely opaque other than final results.
By international experience, what do you mean? Coaching a national side, or coaching a club/provincial side in another country? If a national side, clearly you think Brazil doesn't count - where is the line? And do you mean as a head coach, or as an assistant coach? Robertson also played in both Japan and France, so he has some experience in other environments.
Any which way, I find it dogmatic. There are definitely aspects of test rugby in terms of prep time and tournament play vs prepping for a long season that are different, but these things are never black and white. Nobody has ever done something until they have.If he's not good enough and our results are shit, I'm all for sacking him - I can't understand some of his selections, his tactics, half the sentences that come out of his mouth are nonsense or contradictory - but I don't want to see his failures being put down to some arbitrary missing requirement for international experience, whatever that means, which can then be used to rule out our next good candidate.
I'm just thinking he may not be good enough for Test level but accept the jury is still out/may be a bit too early to say. Hope so.
NZR took a big gamble appointing him based on fuck-all international coaching experience and did that knowing he was kryptonite to established coaches like Schmidt & Enoka. They must have known what the risks they were taking
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It’s a difficult one , I think there is a couple of things going on ,
He isn’t the innovative genius he was painted out to be , and to go with that , our talent pool isn’t necessarily superior to our opponents in the way it has been in the past .
If it was he might be doing better and everyone would be thinking it’s all ok . But it isn’t and his coaching comes under the microscope more and more if we aren’t dominating, like people were expecting when the messiah takes over .
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
But it isn’t and his coaching comes under the microscope more and more if we aren’t dominating, like people were expecting when the messiah takes over .
Next 2 weeks will tell if it's a "Big Hat, No Cattle" situation
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@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
But it isn’t and his coaching comes under the microscope more and more if we aren’t dominating, like people were expecting when the messiah takes over .
Next 2 weeks will tell if it's a "Big Hat, No Cattle" situation
@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2025:
But it isn’t and his coaching comes under the microscope more and more if we aren’t dominating, like people were expecting when the messiah takes over .
Next 2 weeks will tell if it's a "Big Hat, No Cattle" situation
Im expecting we will hold onto the bledisloe but not be overly convincing doing it , so much of the same .
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@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
I still believe Robertson is a very good head coach - his issue may be that some of his assistant aren't quite up to scratch at this level.
You don't have the success he has had and it be a total fluke.
Maybe he's just not good enough at Test level? A bit like George Bridge - he was successful for the Crusaders too.
I agree with Henry and Hansen - NZR should have insisted he was tested at International level before being given the job. But we are where we are.
I am a long way from being a Robertson supporter, that should be pretty clear.
But it's not comparable to George Bridge, who was a good winger benefitting from playing in the best team. If anyone it's more Reuben Thorne - the guy leading the best team to the best results - but even then it's quite different in that player performances are highly visible to the public, whereas coaching is pretty much completely opaque other than final results.
By international experience, what do you mean? Coaching a national side, or coaching a club/provincial side in another country? If a national side, clearly you think Brazil doesn't count - where is the line? And do you mean as a head coach, or as an assistant coach? Robertson also played in both Japan and France, so he has some experience in other environments.
Any which way, I find it dogmatic. There are definitely aspects of test rugby in terms of prep time and tournament play vs prepping for a long season that are different, but these things are never black and white. Nobody has ever done something until they have.If he's not good enough and our results are shit, I'm all for sacking him - I can't understand some of his selections, his tactics, half the sentences that come out of his mouth are nonsense or contradictory - but I don't want to see his failures being put down to some arbitrary missing requirement for international experience, whatever that means, which can then be used to rule out our next good candidate.
@reprobate said in All Blacks 2025:
If he's not good enough and our results are shit, I'm all for sacking him - I can't understand some of his selections, his tactics, half the sentences that come out of his mouth are nonsense or contradictory - but I don't want to see his failures being put down to some arbitrary missing requirement for international experience, whatever that means, which can then be used to rule out our next good candidate.
Don't agree that it is an arbitrary requirement. The consistent narrative is that Test rugby is quite different to Super. Skillsets are different, the game is different, the prep is different, the squads are different. Hell, you're on the road continuously even in your own country.
The question is whether the coaching team has enough knowledge and experience to understand what is needed and respond. Same question as the players - and one of the reasons RMo struggled; Tests are faster, with bigger faster players and fewer mismatches, along with better defensive systems. Shining in Super is not an automatic tick for shining at Test level.
