@reprobate said in All Blacks v France I:
@Mauss said in All Blacks v France I:
@brodean said in All Blacks v France I:
He has the tools but I don't think its in his nature. It's difficult to teach an old dog new tricks and I feel that at 31 that's his instinct.
The carry stats are wrong and where I think we struggled in the game. The highlighted should not be carrying that much considering their roles.
Top Carries
18 Ardie Savea
17 Damian Mckenzie
15 Will Jordan
14 Beauden Barrett
13 Fabian Holland
I do think Savea could be a good openside option, especially within Robertson’s system, which seems to be based around ball-movement, constantly shifting the point of attack and getting in behind the opposition defence. Due to the sheer dynamism of the attack – 259 passes, 9 offloads, 182 ball carries, 425 post-contact metres, 13 line-breaks against France – I think it’s very difficult for a classical openside to consistently stay close to the source without being exhausted after 10 minutes.
So what’s important for an openside in this system is game understanding, the ability to cut corners around the field and anticipate what’s going to happen. And I do think someone like Savea has an uncanny ability to see certain plays unfold before they’ve occurred, whether it’s a line-break or an opposition player becoming isolated. So I’d like to see him given an extended run in the jersey, and see whether he can adapt to the requirements.
But what Robertson does need to be mindful of, I think, in the upcoming tests is to have enough “fresh” carrying options on the field at all times. In the France game, Lio-Willie spent the opening 10 minutes of the 2nd half mostly just tackling and cleaning, which meant that Savea did most of the hard carries through the middle on his own. If Robertson goes to his bench earlier – bringing on Taukei’aho and Norris, for example, at halftime – then I think it would’ve been easier for Savea to share the carrying load and maintain his own energy levels.
The attack seemed quite different to me in this game vs last year. Jordie Barrett probably made as many passes in that game as he did in the whole of last season, and was frequently at first receiver too - this I really liked, especially with McKenzie on the field too - it's got to be hard to defend against. I don't like the Barbarians style 'score off every play' mindset though. Other teams will knuckle down when they've got inside the 22, apply pressure and more often that not get a penalty advantage and continue applying pressure until there's a card. We either score immediately or throw (kick) it away.
Totally agree with this. Gone are the days where we can win games by 30 points with 40% possession. This bizarre need to score immediately, to lack the patience to run multiple phases (read: 15+ sometimes), it’s quite bewildering. It seems if we don’t go forward for 2 phases on a row, we feel the need to try something new - an unnecessary pass , a grubber, a cross-kick, or to launch a shitty bomb or box kick that effectively says to the opposition “here, you have a go now”.
We can’t we understand that it’s ok to reset, to control the ball and force the defense to make 20 tackles in the space of a few minutes, proving but playing smart?
It’s the same strange tactics that never sees us making long exits anymore. I know BB doesn’t have the range so some of that is ability. But DMac and Jordie can both kick long but rarely seem to. It seems so rare that we see an exit from our 22 get even close to halfway anymore.
