All Blacks v France I
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@ACT-Crusader said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
What was pleasing was to see the step up of Vaa’i last year when there were concerns post 2023 with Whitelock and Retallick gone.
which makes the move to 6 more puzzling....hey, could well be a stroke of genius, time will tell.
Have to wonder how much the opposition has been factored in, like, if we were facing SA this weekend, would we see the same line-up?
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@ACT-Crusader said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
@mariner4life said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
@1kiwi said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
So who leads the Haka this year? Rieko? maybe Codie or Ardie?
oh now we are touching on the burning issues
Gotta find something to post about until kick off and everyone waits for that first error by the player we don’t like so we tee off (or for some get their shining armour out…)
Prepping already
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Congratulations to Fabian Holland, Christian Lio-Willie, Ollie Norris and Du'Plessis Kirifi. A proud moment for them, their families and everyone who has supported their development as players.
Interesting team. Hoping it performs well on Saturday. Zero excuses please.
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@ACT-Crusader They’ll find it that Jim is the best 12 in NZ very soon.
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@1kiwi said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
Thank the lord they've seen the light and selected Rieko on the wing.
Also pleased to see Ardie at 7, his best position. Fantastic to see Billy Proctor at centre. My concern lies with Beauden at 10. We should be blooding a new 10 with the world cup only 2 years away. I don't believe we can win a world cup with either Beauden or Damien as our 10.I'm happy for BB to play this one, because frankly we don't have anyone else as a serious option apart from DMac right now. But the bar is quite low right now
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@sparky said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
@canefan I am not sure that is still 100% correct. Ruben Love and Rivez Reihana will both get some game time at First Five for the ABs this year. The depth is slowly growing.
We will have to agree to disagree that either of them are ready NOW. Both have shown promise, but neither player has even played a full super season. But I would like to see Love, as a member of the squad, getting some time at 10 to see what he can do
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@canefan I wouldn't be surprised at all this series if it is a different First Five starting each test: Beauden for the first, DMac for the second and Ruben Love for the third.
I think, all going well, Rivez Reihana will start for the ABs against Scotland or Wales later in the year.
That's a decent quartet to have with the RWC 2027 looming.
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@sparky said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
@canefan I wouldn't be surprised at all this series if it is a different First Five starting each test: Beauden for the first, DMac for the second and Ruben Love for the third.
I think, all going well, Rivez Reihana will start for the ABs against Scotland or Wales later in the year.
That's a decent quartet to have with the RWC 2027 looming.
I would like to see that
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@taniwharugby said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
@ACT-Crusader said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
What was pleasing was to see the step up of Vaa’i last year when there were concerns post 2023 with Whitelock and Retallick gone.
Have to wonder how much the opposition has been factored in, like, if we were facing SA this weekend, would we see the same line-up?
Quite a bit is injury enforced.
I expect they would've wanted to play their strongest team in test 1 - so the forwards potentially would've been:
Williams, Taylor, Lomax, Barrett, Holland, Vaa'i, Ardie, Sititi
de Groot, Big Sami, Newell, Finau, Kirifi/JacobsonBacks selections are pretty unsurprising - the only real question was who played centre and how that played out on the wings.
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@1kiwi said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
My concern lies with Beauden at 10. We should be blooding a new 10 with the world cup only 2 years away. I don't believe we can win a world cup with either Beauden or Damien as our 10.
To paraphrase Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones, "Anyone who thinks Richie won't be wearing the 10 jersey at RWC2027 hasn't been paying attention".
Barring injury of course.
Don't shoot the messenger!
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@Chris-B said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
@1kiwi said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
My concern lies with Beauden at 10. We should be blooding a new 10 with the world cup only 2 years away. I don't believe we can win a world cup with either Beauden or Damien as our 10.
To paraphrase Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones, "Anyone who thinks Richie won't be wearing the 10 jersey at RWC2027 hasn't been paying attention".
Barring injury of course.
Don't shoot the messenger!
Not if I have anything to do with it;
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BB should be fine against this French squad, with DMac coming off the bench to stretch the scoreline
Rugby Championship, not so much
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I am reasonably happy with 23 selected. The areas we need to address to compete with the best teams in the world right, I.e South Africa and France are, power, height to win the aerial contests, competition on the floor and pace out wide.
Given the cattle available for this test, this largely addresses these areas.
Would have love to have seen another fast wing, like CT or LC in there, but they were unavailable or not selected. -
On the 1st 5/8 question, isn't Harry Godfrey the anointed saviour to be sent forth from the Hurricanes?
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@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
BB should be fine against this French squad, with DMac coming off the bench to stretch the scoreline
Rugby Championship, not so much
and thats whats in the back of my mind, a test like this in the past would be used to blood the next generation
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@ACT-Crusader said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
@Kiwiwomble said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
@Dan54 said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
Well, don't know whether to shake my head or be pleased they trying things. Surprises me Vai'i at 6, but also think it a pointer to how good they thing Holland will be, and Vai'i being best lock in NZ, maybe they felt they had to play him?
thats kind of why i dont like choosing your captain so early....if Vaai is the best lock and Holland deserves a run as the future....play them both there, i think you make the 23 before you get to be captain, with savea, taylor and BB on the pitch its not like we're short of experienced leaders on the pitch
From EOYT 2022 and all of 2023 Scooter was our best lock. That was on the back of being a very effective bench option previously. Add to that he was captain of the Saders, don’t wasn’t a huge surprise that he was made captain even though they could’ve easily gone with Ardie. His form last year wasn’t as good as 2023 but it wasn’t like he fell completely off the cliff. He was one of our best against Ireland and he didn’t play too bad against the French either.
What was pleasing was to see the step up of Vaa’i last year when there were concerns post 2023 with Whitelock and Retallick gone.
You can get away with calling Barrett our best lock when he has Sam Whitelock dominating the lineout for him, cause he's very very good around the park.
To be clear though, that means Sam was doing his main job for him. -
@booboo said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
On the 1st 5/8 question, isn't Harry Godfrey the anointed saviour to be sent forth from the Hurricanes?
I think his promoter @Canes4life cooled on him as the season went on (probably remembered he's from the Pies), and switched his marketing efforts to Love.
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@Jet said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
@Windows97 said in All Blacks Vs France, Test One, Dunedin:
Happy for Holland, hope his game is as good as his hype, pleased to see Savea at 7, surprised to see Vaa'i at 6 and Lio-Willie at 8. Seems like a very green loose-forward trio. The balance is better, the cattle seem mixed.
Surised to see Barrett at 10, the golden sun continues to shine out of his *ss. Looking forward to 20m touch finders and pointless chip kicks.
Pleased Rieko is on the wing and that Protcor has been given a chance, we need a natual mid-field playing centre with better touch and distribution.
Surprised Reece is starting ahead of Clarke...
Bench is solid, really hope that Tupaea gets some good minutes, would love to see a Tupaea/Proctor combo to see how they go.Been plenty of chat on fora such as this over the last few years looking for Rieko to go back to the wing and for Ardie to go to 7.
A damning indictment on the last two coaching tickets that the "bar stoolers" were right all along.
Good for them, but what are we going to complain about now?
