All Blacks 2023
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@antipodean honest question - do NZ have the players? The NZ u20 cupboard is bare. It’ll take a lot of direction from Robertson and his coaches to Super and Provincial coaches and the players identified to develop these skills in the next 4 years.
I don’t think NZ has a skills shortage. I think they no longer have the feel for the game to know best when to execute those skills to punish the opposition. And when faced with blowtorch pressure, the skills are crumbling.
Have NZ players fallen behind mentally? Or is the foreign exodus that has gutted NZ rugby, poorly working talent pathways and the lack of serious competition in super rugby pacific the bigger issues?
Feels like NZ have a big job to climb back atop the rugby world. Always been able to reinvent themselves before. Is it different this time?
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@stodders said in All Blacks 2023:
@antipodean honest question - do NZ have the players? The NZ u20 cupboard is bare. It’ll take a lot of direction from Robertson and his coaches to Super and Provincial coaches and the players identified to develop these skills in the next 4 years.
I don’t think NZ has a skills shortage. I think they no longer have the feel for the game to know best when to execute those skills to punish the opposition. And when faced with blowtorch pressure, the skills are crumbling.
Have NZ players fallen behind mentally? Or is the foreign exodus that has gutted NZ rugby, poorly working talent pathways and the lack of serious competition in super rugby pacific the bigger issues?
Feels like NZ have a big job to climb back atop the rugby world. Always been able to reinvent themselves before. Is it different this time?
Perhaps the underlying problem is our reliance on SR.
WR won't genuinely attempt to speed up the game until we become better than the NH at this current version.
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@antipodean WR certainly feels v euro-centric. And with SA hitching their horse to the euro-wagon, that is only going to be amplified.
NZ are really going to have to innovate to compete. First stop - stop the bleeding of the grassroots game and get more kids playing rugby for longer. Increases chances of late developers being identified. NZ have never had the largest playing numbers, but they’ve been most efficient with what they have. Ireland are leaving them in their wake right now.
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@stodders as I have said before, when Cron coached scrummaging in NZ and we were atop the world, NZR had Cron running clinics around the country.
This has good and bad effects: the good aspect is NZR (probably at directive of the coaches at the time) identified an issue in our game and looked to improve it...the bad part of this, is that this meant all the packs were taught to play the same way.
So I think NZR and Razor will need to look at some key areas and look at how we can start upskilling players.
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@stodders said in All Blacks 2023:
@antipodean honest question - do NZ have the players? The NZ u20 cupboard is bare. It’ll take a lot of direction from Robertson and his coaches to Super and Provincial coaches and the players identified to develop these skills in the next 4 years.
I don’t think NZ has a skills shortage. I think they no longer have the feel for the game to know best when to execute those skills to punish the opposition. And when faced with blowtorch pressure, the skills are crumbling.
Have NZ players fallen behind mentally? Or is the foreign exodus that has gutted NZ rugby, poorly working talent pathways and the lack of serious competition in super rugby pacific the bigger issues?
Feels like NZ have a big job to climb back atop the rugby world. Always been able to reinvent themselves before. Is it different this time?
This is a good post with some very good questions. I think the expectations of the next ABs coaching staff are way too high. They can only do so much with the player pool available to them. We sure should see improvements in a few years, but there are many more things that need to change well below ABs level.
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I certainly never see abs getting back to the good old days of such total dominance that people complained it was bad for rugby. But I think we will see less bone headed stubbornness of thinking of foster and his Cheika like 'we just need to 2015 AB better'. Razor is nothing if not innovative with his players and conservative with the basics of winning. It's a good combo. But the rest of the world have caught up with our system as a whole, and we will never have the players or the money to overtake so completely again
I feel privileged to have been around in the era of giants, but disgusted that the empire fell far worse than it needed when that was over because of NZR comfort zone pick and support of the entirely lacklustre foster
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@reprobate said in All Blacks 2023:
@stodders we have picked some low risk error free players - they're on our bench to come on against tiring opposition and rip them to low risk error free bits.
All those Cantablacks of the early 2000s would have been superstars in this era
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@stodders said in All Blacks 2023:
@antipodean WR certainly feels v euro-centric. And with SA hitching their horse to the euro-wagon, that is only going to be amplified.
NZ are really going to have to innovate to compete. First stop - stop the bleeding of the grassroots game and get more kids playing rugby for longer. Increases chances of late developers being identified. NZ have never had the largest playing numbers, but they’ve been most efficient with what they have. Ireland are leaving them in their wake right now.
Never mind Ireland. Leinster alone are leaving them in their wake.
There are 5 or 6 more back rowers ready to take Van Der Fliers place.
They also had Dan Leavy who's career was cut short due to an illegal clean on his knee.
He was arguably better than VDF.
They are churning out quality players up there.
I think NZRU thought heritage alone would keep us on the crest of the wave. But professionalism and money has turned the likes of France and Ireland into production lines of ready made athletes.
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@antipodean said in All Blacks 2023:
@Steve said in All Blacks 2023:
@antipodean said in All Blacks 2023:
@Steve said in All Blacks 2023:
@reprobate said in All Blacks 2023:
@nzzp i really don't think we are going to be ripping anyone apart bringing on the likes of christie, newell, laulala (once lomax is back), havili, ALB, jacobsen etc.
surely if that's the plan you'd pick a different bench?Foster has definitely been conservative in his selections, squad wise and on game day.
I think Beauden Barretts inclusion is a massive problem because he also creates collateral damage on the bench.
If you had a Jordan or Stevenson at 15
Lol thank fuck you're not a selector.
Do you think the last few years of Barrett at 15 have been productive?
No, for various reasons.
Do you think we should continue?
Yes. If he's not the best option he's second best.
He is one of my favourite players of all time but its not working in my opinion.
It's not going to work with players that are less skilled.
SS has glaring issues in his game he needs to address. Jordan just gave a horror show on top of his obvious frailties in the defensive aspect of the game.
What about DMac? He's a much better punter than Beauden and actually is an attacking threat unlike Beauden.
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@antipodean said in All Blacks 2023:
Jordan just gave a horror show on top of his obvious frailties in the defensive aspect of the game.
what I found odd was Jordan is usually pretty good at contesting balls in the air and often takes them, yet on Saturday, he went through for 3 and didnt get off the ground for any...
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@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2023:
@antipodean said in All Blacks 2023:
Jordan just gave a horror show on top of his obvious frailties in the defensive aspect of the game.
what I found odd was Jordan is usually pretty good at contesting balls in the air and often takes them, yet on Saturday, he went through for 3 and didnt get off the ground for any...
Yeah that was weird. Then I went to Penrith and the bloody Warriors did the same thing all game.
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@antipodean said in All Blacks 2023:
@Steve said in All Blacks 2023:
@antipodean said in All Blacks 2023:
@Steve said in All Blacks 2023:
@reprobate said in All Blacks 2023:
@nzzp i really don't think we are going to be ripping anyone apart bringing on the likes of christie, newell, laulala (once lomax is back), havili, ALB, jacobsen etc.
surely if that's the plan you'd pick a different bench?Foster has definitely been conservative in his selections, squad wise and on game day.
I think Beauden Barretts inclusion is a massive problem because he also creates collateral damage on the bench.
If you had a Jordan or Stevenson at 15
Lol thank fuck you're not a selector.
Do you think the last few years of Barrett at 15 have been productive?
No, for various reasons.
Do you think we should continue?
Yes. If he's not the best option he's second best.
He is one of my favourite players of all time but its not working in my opinion.
It's not going to work with players that are less skilled.
SS has glaring issues in his game he needs to address. Jordan just gave a horror show on top of his obvious frailties in the defensive aspect of the game.
We are all agreed that it's not working.
SS / WJ / DM all have issues sure. But they also all have an x-factor. BB just has issues right now, the x-factor is long gone. Yeah, we can argue he is playing Fozzie's tactics, and maybe dismiss some of the frustrating kicking - but he also makes a shitload of errors, and has a generally poor kicking game, both exits and bomb accuracy. When is the last time he actually did something of truly high quality? He's not making breaks or counter attacking any more, he's not hitting the line with any venom. Defensively maybe he's the stronger of the 4, but DM might argue that.
I just don't see what he brings. If he was super-safe but unexciting, then I could be convinced that making a change was dangerous. But he's really not. The others guys for me offer way more upside, and a similar level of downside.
I'd be starting WJ at 15 if I was picking.
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@pakman said in All Blacks 2023:
@Steve said in All Blacks 2023:
@African-Monkey said in All Blacks 2023:
Meanwhile, there is a Blackadder shaped hole in the ABs squad incase you didn't know.
Consider that Blackadder shaped hole now filled you cheeky little fucking pup.
Hope he has better luck with injuries.
Seems he got nod as cover for Captain Sam.I’m concerned that the absence of Bok teams from Super Rugby has lulled selectors into thinking jack of all trades loosies can cut it against the big boys.
100%
IMHO you could extend that from the not just the loosies but the forward pack as a whole.
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@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks 2023:
@antipodean said in All Blacks 2023:
@Steve said in All Blacks 2023:
@antipodean said in All Blacks 2023:
@Steve said in All Blacks 2023:
@reprobate said in All Blacks 2023:
@nzzp i really don't think we are going to be ripping anyone apart bringing on the likes of christie, newell, laulala (once lomax is back), havili, ALB, jacobsen etc.
surely if that's the plan you'd pick a different bench?Foster has definitely been conservative in his selections, squad wise and on game day.
I think Beauden Barretts inclusion is a massive problem because he also creates collateral damage on the bench.
If you had a Jordan or Stevenson at 15
Lol thank fuck you're not a selector.
Do you think the last few years of Barrett at 15 have been productive?
No, for various reasons.
Do you think we should continue?
Yes. If he's not the best option he's second best.
He is one of my favourite players of all time but its not working in my opinion.
It's not going to work with players that are less skilled.
SS has glaring issues in his game he needs to address. Jordan just gave a horror show on top of his obvious frailties in the defensive aspect of the game.
What about DMac? He's a much better punter than Beauden and actually is an attacking threat unlike Beauden.
I've been keen to see him get more time based on his form this year.
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So the Richie, Beauden axis didn't work in 2019. Having a lock at 6 didn't work in 2019. Having a high-tempo game, and running the opposition off their feet didn't work in 2019.
Add poor exits and a short kicking game from your 22 in 2023.
Tell you, Foster is a stubborn bastard but you have to admire his ability to stick to his original ideas. -
@Old-Samurai-Jack said in All Blacks 2023:
So the Richie, Beauden axis didn't work in 2019. Having a lock at 6 didn't work in 2019. Having a high-tempo game, and running the opposition off their feet didn't work in 2019.
Add poor exits and a short kicking game from your 22 in 2023.
Tell you, Foster is a stubborn bastard but you have to admire his ability to stick to his original ideas.Speaking of….why didn’t S Barrett switch to blindside instead of Vai’i ?
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2023:
@Old-Samurai-Jack said in All Blacks 2023:
So the Richie, Beauden axis didn't work in 2019. Having a lock at 6 didn't work in 2019. Having a high-tempo game, and running the opposition off their feet didn't work in 2019.
Add poor exits and a short kicking game from your 22 in 2023.
Tell you, Foster is a stubborn bastard but you have to admire his ability to stick to his original ideas.Speaking of….why didn’t S Barrett switch to blindside instead of Vai’i ?
He's our best lock right now
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2023:
@MN5 said in All Blacks 2023:
@Old-Samurai-Jack said in All Blacks 2023:
So the Richie, Beauden axis didn't work in 2019. Having a lock at 6 didn't work in 2019. Having a high-tempo game, and running the opposition off their feet didn't work in 2019.
Add poor exits and a short kicking game from your 22 in 2023.
Tell you, Foster is a stubborn bastard but you have to admire his ability to stick to his original ideas.Speaking of….why didn’t S Barrett switch to blindside instead of Vai’i ?
He's our best lock right now
So they chuck a guy who has played three matches at Super level at six ?
Those Barretts and their versatility complicate things some……
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@MN5 said in All Blacks 2023:
@canefan said in All Blacks 2023:
@MN5 said in All Blacks 2023:
@Old-Samurai-Jack said in All Blacks 2023:
So the Richie, Beauden axis didn't work in 2019. Having a lock at 6 didn't work in 2019. Having a high-tempo game, and running the opposition off their feet didn't work in 2019.
Add poor exits and a short kicking game from your 22 in 2023.
Tell you, Foster is a stubborn bastard but you have to admire his ability to stick to his original ideas.Speaking of….why didn’t S Barrett switch to blindside instead of Vai’i ?
He's our best lock right now
So they chuck a guy who has played three matches at Super level at six ?
Those Barretts and their versatility complicate things some……
Maybe, if Fozz didn't screw up his initial squad, he'd have someone like Finau who could have deputised
