The Silver Fern

@Dan54 said in All Blacks 2026:

@kiwiinmelb said in All Blacks 2026:

@Dan54 said in All Blacks 2026:

@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2026:

Is there a chance that Razor and his team goes before the RWC if we have a poor year?

Not much, noone else would take the job as it would be a no win I suspect.

Although if I remember correctly, the talk was razor himself was willing to take over from fozzie if he was sacked with a similar timeframe to the last wc .

Unless I’m remembering that wrong .

Pretty sure you are correct, but he was almost actively courting the job, not sure there is anyone in same position now is kind of what I meant.

Jamie Joseph is probably the only one we have that might come close to that , I mean he applied last time and put his hand up to coach the b team , so you would assume he still wants the job .

@Dan54 said in All Blacks 2026:

@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2026:

Is there a chance that Razor and his team goes before the RWC if we have a poor year?

Not much, noone else would take the job as it would be a no win I suspect.

Although if I remember correctly, the talk was razor himself was willing to take over from fozzie if he was sacked with a similar timeframe to the last wc .

Unless I’m remembering that wrong .

@Duluth said in All Blacks 2026:

@chchfanatic said in All Blacks 2026:

I think Razor was always up against it , no matter how well he did. The nth island journos hammer him on everything. Which is par for the course and something I’m sure he expected.

He’s had friendlier media than any coach before him. It’s not even close.

I think he had so many that saw him as the saviour before he got the job , that it took them a while to do a u turn and start questioning did we get it wrong , but I’m noticing it’s starting to happen .

@kidcalder said in Boxing Thread:

@kiwiinmelb I think Fury will try to fight AJ like he did Deontay 2 & 3 but AJ is a better boxer than Wilder. Stopping Fury will be a big call as he has great recovery and will but age does mess with that ..
I think they will fight at least 2 times and could split the wins and take it to a trilogy.... best earner for all

My point was , the advantage I believed fury had over him , movement , slickness , ability to slip punches , hand speed , I just don’t think is there anymore . Although he still may have the better chin .

The old peek a boo fury I think would have caused AJ all sorts of problems technically, but the flat footed fury now trying to exchange shots , far less so .

I think AJs decline has been more due to a drop in self belief more so than the physical drop off like furys . In a fight of trading shots with both fighters getting hit I favour the heavier puncher .

I love boxing and didnt bother watching it , have little interest in the gimmick fights ,

At least he came out of it with some genuine injuries , Boxing isnt supposed to be a game

AJ and Fury look like finally fighting, years too late of course , years ago i would have picked Fury

But I actually think AJ might stop him now , both have deteriorated ,but the last thing to leave is your power and i suspect Furys deterioration of his once elite defensive skills may come back to bite him here .

@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks 2026:

@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2026:

Not saying I'm a supporter of Razor - far from it infact, but I too, would be surprised if he went before the 2027 RWC.

He has a hell of a 2026 season to try and negotiate first.

the problem will be, even if 2026 isnt good,

Who is going to want to take over the team 1 year out from the WC and be judged on that

@ShaquilleOatmeal said in All Blacks 2026:

@canefan said in All Blacks 2026:

Speaking of placating the hordes, normally the ABs losing enrages the hordes. But it might be a sign of how far we've sunk that average fans seem accepting of it all

Looking at social media comments, I’m convinced most people either don’t notice the team’s lost or just don’t watch the games. The sycophantic nature of the comments and ignorance of the overall performance is crazy.

We have to accept the opposition has improved seems to be a common one now ,

I don’t remember seeing that much when foster was coaching , they wanted his head .

@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2026:

@reprobate said in All Blacks 2026:

@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2026:

@reprobate said in All Blacks 2026:

@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks 2026:

@mohikamo said in All Blacks 2026:

The thing is, I think the people that hired him knew exactly what they were getting.

A marketing man's dream?

The problem I have with this argument is that he's absolutely not. He's barely coherent in an interview.

Does bloody great PowerPoint presentations though, apparently.

It's pretty obvious why he'd be picked: absolutely excellent Super rugby coaching results. I don't think it is valid to say that marketing had become more important than results to NZR and that's why he got the job - he had the bloody results, that was literally the strongest argument in his favour.

It's the powerpoint presentations which should have countered that - and that's on the people doing the hiring. Every time he opens his mouth seems like a red flag to me.

Nah. The people who hired him wanted someone who looked like a winner at international level - plus he was fresh and "different". They knew he was untested at international level but that was an inconvenience to be ignored.

I also think there was an element of trying to keep the fans onside and being worried about the public reaction if they didn’t install him as coach and let him coach another international team .

He was the popular choice by a long way by the masses and everyone was very vocal about it ,

The social media fluff stories probably wouldn’t seem so annoying if we were happy with the on field performances .
My most annoying one of the year.

I remember a day or two after the Wellington boks disaster, they ran a feel good story on how that was the Xxth ( can’t remember the exact number ) test the Barrett’s have started together .

No mention of how shit we played.

I think the tour next year either makes us or breaks us , I dont mind it ,

We either rise to play at the level required to compete with the benchmark or we dont , sink or swim

i think its more beneficial than playing weaker opposition with guaranteed wins and patting ourselves on the back , at least we find out where we are at,

Probably a bit off topic for this thread but south africans seem confident Tony Brown is very happy and about to extend his contract with Rassie .

@Bones said in Rugby World Cup 2027 Draw - LIVE:

@kiwiinmelb sooo....if NZ slip to 5th before the WC then all good?

Be better if South Africa did .

I don’t follow all this as close as most here ,

But at the last wc didn’t we have the top 4 sides on one side of the draw , therefore 2 being eliminated in the quarters and the talk was they were going to fix that . Now we have 1 and 2 potentially meeting in a quarter final.

I think you have massive problems in your tournament when it’s better to finish second than first in your pool , there has to be reward for excellence and incentive to win. Tempting teams to throw games is about as stupid as you wish for when setting this up.

Also there has to be incentive to be higher in world rankings or what are we playing for in between tournaments.
.

@KiwiMurph said in Rugby World Cup 2027 Draw - LIVE:

@kiwiinmelb said in Rugby World Cup 2027 Draw - LIVE:

when do they do the venues ?

At the last world cup in Aus 2003 , Allblacks played all their pool games and quarter final in Melbourne , I was stoked ,

Until the semi of course .

That's not quite accurate. They played their opening pool game vs Italy, a pool game vs Canada and a quarter final in Melbourne

But they also played a pool game in Sydney vs Wales and in Brisbane vs Tonga.

That’s right, memory fade , but they were based here and training here , I remember taking my sons to watch them train , walking in a gate and security rushing over and telling us no spectators

when do they do the venues ?

At the last world cup in Aus 2003 , Allblacks played all their pool games and quarter final in Melbourne , I was stoked ,

Until the semi of course .

looks like usyk has chosen to fight Wilder , interesting choice given that Wilder has looked cooked for some time ,

im not knocking usyk because i think hes probably done enough to justify his greatness, but it does look like hes cashing in now choosing Wilder over Wardley

@Chris-B said in Rugby World Cup 2027 Draw - LIVE:

Fuck it!

You're not likely to get easy games in the semis or the final, but getting a soft QF is highly desirable.

Dream draw for England.

Shit draw for us (and SA).

The problem is the type of team we are , inconsistent,

The 2015 team you would back in to win consecutive tough games , this side without trying to be pessimistic, but who would have confidence in them achieving that ? unless something dramatically changes between now and then.

i didnt see the game , was going to have a look at the highlights but saw the scoreline somewhere else and didnt bother ,

now this stuff has blown up everywhere ,

i like Eben , great player , yeah bit of a hothead but seems like a good bloke off the field

gone a bit too far this time unfortunately for him , you would imagine they will make an example of him , otherwise next time player x will say eben only got this penalty

I guess end of the day , it doesn’t matter if it’s working, but when it’s not working then we look for faults .

I mean if we were flying , number 1 team in the world , and razor said that , we would be calling Scott Hansen the quiet genius working behind the scenes and not give a fuck , winners are grinners and all that .

But it’s not so we want answers .

I do get where jet is coming from , not sure we need to behave in that way but it does feel like we have lost our ruthlessness,

The win at all costs attitude that we were famous for feels like it has been infiltrated by participation culture where feelings are more important and everyone gets a trophy.

But I’m probably just a grumpy old bastard living in the past .