The Silver Fern

And then they went crawling back to him on the EOYT and expected him to bail them out when injuries struck? Christ on a bike what the fuck is wrong with these guys, please move the whole coaching team on.

@gt12 said in All Blacks 2026:

@handa457 said in All Blacks 2026:

@handa457 Actually, adding a bit more. One person (I can’t remember who) posted on The Fern that Papalii allegedly threw a punch at Razor during the EOYT 2024. That wasn’t substantiated, and my source couldn’t confirm it. I personally highly doubt that's true.

What I can confirm is that coming into 2024, Papalii had been told he was firmly the No. 7 the All Blacks wanted, with Cane leaving. He came into camp, was asked to play a certain way, then was dropped after a handful of games and barely featured again in 2024. He was pretty frustrated with the communication, selection, and style of play. On top of that, someone along the line had apparently floated that he might be future captain material. So to go from “potential future captain” to being dropped with limited communication clearly put him offside.

It seemed the natural move, he does have concrete feet in traffic at times, but still plays very much in the way of current international 7s and was needed if we were to carry Ardie at 8 in his choose-to-get-involved-when-I-want style.

The Dalton situation was the weirdest and hurt the ABs the most given the way our loosies have been getting bitch slapped around. He was always the obvious replacement to take over 7 and captaincy from Cane, and his form has absolutely warranted it as well. I'd love him to get the captaincy this year.

Would love to see Cotter involved, he would help keep some of the more senior players on a shorter leash I think

@Dan54 said in All Blacks 2026:

I also wonder how anyone is even coming up with all the stories? Someone sitting back and having a laugh.
We got so far, BB is running the trainings, Ardie and 4 are walking away from team, Razor is walking away from team, Ardie etc are actually all getting dropped.
And then they drop all the players if the coaching group changes? It's getting fun to actually see what's next.

It's of huge interest as I've alluded to in previous posts because NZR do not have any good options right now. They absolutely need more international experience in this coaching group, but they don't have any suitable candidates that will work under Razor. I have suspected that they might just go the simplest route and ditch Razor and his team, and build a new team around JJ which may include some coaches joining the fray a bit down the track once their current contacts are up etc.

What all of these rumors point to is that there has been nobody really in charge of the ABs since Razor took over. You just can't imagine any of this type of shit happening under Henry's watch.

Just like his playing days, Razor has been found out a test level.

Great to see Kylo go so well though, fingers crossed his injuries are behind him and we can get an extended run of games now as he's world class

@mariner4life said in Ashes 2025/6:

@MN5 said in Ashes 2025/6:

Good effort to get six poms in there despite losing 4-1

on first glance it looks fucking stupid, but...

Head far and away the best bat, and best opener.
Crawley was actually the 2nd best opener.
The best 3 was actually Bethel, as Loosbuschange and especially Pope were average.
Root was the best 4
Brook the best 5.
Carey in to 6
Of the all rounders both Stokes and Green were average with the bat, but Stokes was good with the ball.
Starc walks in
The other 3 best bowlers in terms of output and actual game impact would be Boland, Neser and Tongue. Archer was actually pretty average, and i saw another team that included Carse who took a few wickets but bought most of them.

So you could very easily make a case that, based on performance in their spot alone, that the team should be 6-5 in favour of English players. Which is insane given a 4-1 result. It just shows how much the Aussies leaned on Head runs, Carey runs and keeping, and Starc wickets, ably backed up by spells from Boland and Neser.
Because they carried Weatherald, Labuschagne, Khawaja, and Green.

It also shows the difference between the sides was coaching / gameplan rather than individual performances. McCullum has to wear this Ashes loss, it was his attack at all costs gameplan that cost them the first three matches.

Oh, and dropped catches. So many easy catches shelled that would have completed changed the course of every test.

Comparisons to previous AB sides is interesting, but also a bit of a pointless way to critique the current coaches as it's pretty subjective what the worst AB side of all time would be.

What I do know is that it's pretty clear NZ rugby still has stacks of talent, but the ABs are playing well below the sum of their parts due to poor selection and a gameplan not suited to test footy. Two years in it's obvious that this coaching group is well out of their depth going up against much more experienced international coaches, and instead of trying to change things up, they had no answers so kept trying to do the same thing over and over and over again. That makes them bloody frustrating to support, to say the least.

It's going to be really interesting to see what NZR do after the review, as it's obvious we need someone with a lot more experience in the group, but there are no obvious candidates willing to work with Razor.

England fucking suck at catching, a strong argument to be made that their poor catching has cost them the Ashes

@Donsteppa said in Ashes 2025/6:

They might have lost $10 million in Melbourne. But no one in Australia has spent a dime on their DRS technology.

I haven't seen it yet but I am surprised a small noise a frame after it passed the bat was enough to overturn the decision. Sounds like it should have stayed with the on field call, the same way they do if not enough of the ball is hitting the stumps for LBW reviews. On the flipside if it was given out it should have stayed out. Snicko is not accurate enough to overturn 50/50 calls.

Bazball has played it's part with England who was stuck in the old mindset for a long time, but the Aussies are the ones that have led the way with aggressive test match batting. They did used to have the lineup to do it though...

Yeah Chanderpaul is another, I always really liked him as a player, got the most out of his ability. I also agree that it's not necessarily a bad thing, far more tests get results these days and they are generally more entertaining to watch, but we do have to accept 2 - 3 day tests sometimes if the weather conditions lead to the pitch doing more than the groundsmen want. 2 - 3 day tests are great fun in themselves, but also means we don't have nearly as much test cricket on!

@MN5 an interesting article but only really shows one side of the story. Seam movement was definitely the theme for the series and the pitches assisted with that, but the batsmen played a part in their own demise even against the really good deliveries. Being able to play with soft hands so edges don't carry as often, and not chase the ball or play inside it when it moves is a lost art today. Kane is one of the few remaining players that is really good at it but he is aging, gone are the likes of Amla, Dravid etc who were experts at surviving a seaming ball. The young talent coming through today is mostly players that can hit the ball around in the shorter forms, and are too talented to overlook for tests but have not developed the skillset to survive tougher conditions.

Often these days tests that have batting friendly pitches end up in high scoring games with results as the run rate batsmen set today is so high. The flip side is we get 2 day tests and the groundsmen get roasted if the ball is doing a bit.

(Edit - thanks for sharing as it was good read)

@booboo said in Ashes 2025/6:

@Donsteppa said in Ashes 2025/6:

Billion dollar stadium, Ashes Boxing Day Test, thousands travelling halfway around the world, and a two dollar groundsman.

Is this all down to the pitch? Do the batsmen need to take any responsibility?

And that's tea. 98 to win, 8 in hand.

For mine you could compare this pitch to a pitch in India that is taking far too much turn. There is consistent movement off the seam which means that there is going to be a ball with your name on it sooner or later, so you really need to score as many as you can before then. Very poor pitch, and a bit of an equalizer really.

Starc does what he normally does in the first over. 51 runs too late? Who the fuck knows with this match!

@Crazy-Horse said in Ashes 2025/6:

@sparky said in Ashes 2025/6:

Joffra Archer has been ruled out of the rest of the tour with a side strain.

I am surprised he lasted this long.

He was superb in the last test, basically carried them. But then in the 2nd innings Aus did to him what England should have done to Starc in the first test and blunted him for 20 runs from 13 overs with just the wicket of Boland. Talentwise this English side could have won this Ashes, or at least been SO much more competitive, but the difference between the sides has been IQ.

It's a real shame Archer has had such bad injury problems though, he really could have been an all time great for England.

Perfect finish to the series from Duffy, hitting the top of off stump to win the match. Man of the series for me, so far ahead of any other bowler. Loved Conway's return to form as well though.

What a review haha, I mean he had to given the game state, but it simply doesn't get even a millimetre more plumb than that

2nd new ball in a couple of overs, hopefully Duffy can end this resistance

That one bounced, I wonder how many times Patel has hit the batsmen on the helmet before. Umpire signaled one bouncer for the over lol

Another record for Duffy - beaten Hadlee's "most wickets in a calendar year across all formats". Hadlee had 79 from 23(!!) matches in 85, Duffy has 80 from 36 matches this year.

Duffy looks unplayable as well now, another one down, Mitchell claiming the catch