@Victor-Meldrew said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@Chris-B said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Guys....we won!!!

Billed as the biggest test on NZ soil since the 2011 RWC Final - or maybe Lions III

We didn't lose the Eden Park voodoo. We stopped the rot vs the Jaapies. We're the number 1 team in the world and we're leading The Rugby Championship - with 2/3 home games to come.

Saw an article today suggesting we're a year ahead of Rassie in developing players for the next RWC.

Maybe the worm is turning!

Channel the Eagles: Take it easy. Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy!

Ways to go yet, but def. getting there.

We re-captured the spirit of the RWC2023 knock-out stages last night and I think that's hugely significant as it's now with a set of forwards with some depth. Hope we can keep doing that.

Need to build some depth from 10-15 pretty urgently though. Looks a bit of a mess to me.

It's stale Victor.....historically, there was always shinier toys coming in through in the backs.....but we dont pick them anymore. There is a cozy cadre of incumbents.

Milner Skudder got 13 caps.....and then off to the knackers yard.

The likes of Rieko and ALB should not be 80 cappers.

Forwards win matches, backs decide by how much, as the old adage goes.

None of our players bar Jordan can create something out of nothing.

@Nepia said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@Jet said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@canefan said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@Jet said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@His-Bobness said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@Frank Yes, there’s still plenty to admire about BB. And he is a quintessential professional. No argument. My point, however, is the team is not developing. They’ve risked new names in the forwards in the past year and it’s paid off - Sititi, Holland, Parker - but they’re still shuffling from the same old deck in the backs. It seems inordinately conservative. To be fair, the half-back pandemic has tied their hands.

I think they actually kneecap their own bolters too with this method of conservatism.

You get selected for the squad ala Love or Leroy Carter and then instead of riding the crest of the wave of the media and familial circle jerk that follows, you're left to stew in camp for 4 or 5 or 6 weeks without getting a gig.

You must be a ball of nerves by the time you get your chance, and everything is riding on it (in your mind).

Whereas post initial selection, give them minutes off the bench in the first test or so and they can relax into camp after getting their cap and they properly feel like they belong.

Its also a reason I lament the disappearance of the early season "touch up" against a Fiji or a Tonga.

Give lads first caps, get monkeys off backs, pre/post match press conferences/interviews etc...then get on with the job at hand for the rest of the season with a fully bought in and not disillusioned squad.

Now we are having conversations like "you cant start Love against the Boks"......."you cant start Preston"......."you cant throw him in there" etc etc. Its nonsense.

We need to show a little more courage, and expose them to the top teams without tossing them in the deep end

Picking Leroy Carter or AN Other over Rieko is not the winning or losing of a match.
Why can they not bring themselves to do it?

Well it could very well have been yesterday. Bok try when Rieko stopped the try in close could have seen them run over top of us ...

Even a blind squirrel finds the odd acorn.

Flicked over to the replay of the match. Kirifi was unlucky at 78 minutes. Pollard clearly knocked on. Did the TMO actually correct the original penalty, but found another infringement to penalise us for?

@canefan said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Flicked over to the replay of the match. Kirifi was unlucky at 78 minutes. Pollard clearly knocked on. Did the TMO actually correct the original penalty, but found another infringement to penalise us for?

Yes. Which tells you everything you need to know about that boys club.

Arse cover merchants.

@nzzp said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@Chris-B stoked that we won.

But this is not a vintage side. Lots of errors and poor decision making. Bokke were uncharacteristically bad with unforced errors.

We won, but like a lot of our victories it was far from comfortable - despite some early points.

Exactly. My impression watching live (and reasonably sober) was unforced errors kept us in the match - despite our lead on the scoreboard. I'd be interested in seeing if my impressions were backed up by their entrances and time spent in our 22.

It seemed that we stopped trying to play more expansively once we continually put ourselves under pressure with slow ball to obvious recipients and from that point forward resorted to hoofing it towards the clouds. A strategy not fit for purpose when we weren't winning aerial contests.

@antipodean said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@nzzp said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@Chris-B stoked that we won.

But this is not a vintage side. Lots of errors and poor decision making. Bokke were uncharacteristically bad with unforced errors.

We won, but like a lot of our victories it was far from comfortable - despite some early points.

Exactly. My impression watching live (and reasonably sober) was unforced errors kept us in the match - despite our lead on the scoreboard. I'd be interested in seeing if my impressions were backed up by their entrances and time spent in our 22.

It seemed that we stopped trying to play more expansively once we continually put ourselves under pressure with slow ball to obvious recipients and from that point forward resorted to hoofing it towards the clouds. A strategy not fit for purpose when we weren't winning aerial contests.

I'd love the stats on the contestables, how many of our own kicks we recovered, and how many they recovered. It felt lopsided against us, especially in the second half

@Jet said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@canefan said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Flicked over to the replay of the match. Kirifi was unlucky at 78 minutes. Pollard clearly knocked on. Did the TMO actually correct the original penalty, but found another infringement to penalise us for?

Yes. Which tells you everything you need to know about that boys club.

Arse cover merchants.

I mean, it was clearly a high tackle before Pollard knocked the ball forward.

@Mattasaurus said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Morning after replay thoughts.

I am very happy with tight five - we have some good depth here now.
Regarding the scrum - we should remember , we're up against world class opposition here and more than held our own - we are very rarely going to get 100% dominance in scrums against the top teams in the world and inconsistent ref calls.

best starting loose trio in years -- just not sure Kirifi is the bench player I would choose.

as other have said Christie is 4th choice 9 for a reason - and considering that played well enough tonight.

we really have a depth problem at 10 -- we need to blood some talent here cos surely BB and Dmac can't be the plan for RWC27 - both are passed their best for sure.

12 13 better on D and Proctor hasn't done a lot wrong , but the combo is still very clunky on attack we need an effective combo-- I really want to see them put Jordie at 13 and Quin at 12. and see how that goes.

Happy enough with back 3 performance, however we lose very little by giving a few others ago over Rieko or Sevu.

Agree with most of this. Just do not rate Christie. He played OK but we really need Cam back. Would like to have seen more of Kyle Preston. Definitely need to blood more backs. !!

Been thinking about Christie and the comments on here.

4th choice in most people's estimation.

As others have mentioned - and which I agree with - he's massively over performing until he doesn't. And his drop off is due to him 'playing up'. He's exhasuted mentally and that's when the mistakes happen. He needs to be subbed earlier.

It's quite obvious that Razor wants Roigard at 9 and BB at 10.

But without Roigard at 9 and his ability to inject pace off the back of the scrum/ruck and keep defences guessing then it becomes very easy for the defence to 'guess' what BB version 2025 is going to do once he gets the ball.

He's going to shovel on or kick most of the time because he's the 2025 version and the speed of delivery from Christie is slower than Roigard.

This gives the AB midfield limited time and space to do anything significant hence the propensity for crossfield dinks or miss two passes from BB.

In Roigard's absence perhaps Christie and Dmac - who will take the ball to the line and commit defenders - are a better combo.

Reflecting on last 12, possibly our weakest period.

Parker off, Wally off. Holland on, Kirifi on, RD to 8.

Did that add much? Or detract?

Of course, RD did get that marquee steal from 8, and maybe Wally wouldn't have. We'll never know.

With hindsight, I think we'd have been better to bring Holland on for Scooter.

As far as Kirifi for Wally, for me the jury's out.

@pakman Yeah JB is fine, I was more referring to Christie trying to box kick us out of the 22, he rarely made much distance past our 22. If you look at the kick offs, SA always got the ball back near our 22. If that was Ireland, SA we would get the ball back closer to the 50m line.

The AB's have to figure out how to exit to at least the 40-50m line. Giving the opposition the ball 20-30m out is simply a fail to exit. Ireland use their wingers all the time, SA 9 can box kick to half way almost. We have JB so its strange they keep going for 9. It just confuses me as they must have the stats and skills to exit, yet we simply can't which just puts pressure on us.

I think this is saying SA only had 30% of possession in their half and 70% in our half. Where as we spent 49% in our half and 51% in theirs. That makes it pretty obvious we struggle to exit our half.

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

If WR wants to make the game more appealing then they have to stop protecting the scrum half

Soon as they get hands on they should be fair game

And allowed to be absolutely mullered

agreed, in general there should be less rules stopping players having to "get better"....your halfback needs protections...then protect him

anyway...havent read the whole thread, watched at the pub, great mix of Aussies, Saffas and kiwis, good chat and hand shakes all around

all in all a good game and nice to be reminded the south africans you met in real life arn't the trolls you find on line, they critique their team as much as we do, they dont understand a lot of Rassies decisions either, and were happy to congratulate us

what do i expect razor to do?...the players with big quesiton marks like BB, scooter and Christie....their safe...they guys that stood out like parker and vaai....will get dropped or at best moved to other positions

I noticed on at least one occasion when the Boks kicked off they kicked high to Jordie, meaning he was caught with the ball and in the ensuing ruck. Not sure if this was by design or accident, but with the rest of the team being unable to kick further than a primary school kid, I would be positioning Jordie so the other team can't find him when restarting.

@Goffman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

I noticed on at least one occasion when the Boks kicked off they kicked high to Jordie, meaning he was caught with the ball and in the ensuing ruck. Not sure if this was by design or accident, but with the rest of the team being unable to kick further than a primary school kid, I would be positioning Jordie so the other team can't find him when restarting.

That would be very smart if they did that and strange the AB's don't have JB in a different position setup to clear.

One tactic i highly enjoyed was our aggressive counter rucking. We blew over a fair number of rucks, as well as giving Williamse massive issues trying to get quick/tidy ball. The impressive thing was that the saffas had often actually committed a couple of forwards, but we still were able to get in there and disrupt. This was particularly targeted at the first or second ruck after a boxie. A tactic that came off well

@DurryMexted said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

One tactic i highly enjoyed was our aggressive counter rucking. We blew over a fair number of rucks, as well as giving Williamse massive issues trying to get quick/tidy ball.

Especially important given the conditions - at the presser they were talking about how greasy the ball was. Put a bit of doubt in the mind of the scrumhalf as to how quickly he's going to get the ball away.

On attack was very noticeable the ABs trying to hit the edges over the rush defence.

Scrum battle was weird - at times both sides looked very shaky. Bok reserve bench particularly noticeable under pressure.

Regarding that shitty scrum, was Vaai still on at the time? I recall he went down injured shortly before and because that scrum was such an aberration I am wondering if somebody was not at full strength for it. I noticed shortly after that Vaai had been replaced.

@chimoaus said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@pakman Yeah JB is fine, I was more referring to Christie trying to box kick us out of the 22, he rarely made much distance past our 22. If you look at the kick offs, SA always got the ball back near our 22. If that was Ireland, SA we would get the ball back closer to the 50m line.

The AB's have to figure out how to exit to at least the 40-50m line. Giving the opposition the ball 20-30m out is simply a fail to exit. Ireland use their wingers all the time, SA 9 can box kick to half way almost. We have JB so its strange they keep going for 9. It just confuses me as they must have the stats and skills to exit, yet we simply can't which just puts pressure on us.

I think this is saying SA only had 30% of possession in their half and 70% in our half. Where as we spent 49% in our half and 51% in theirs. That makes it pretty obvious we struggle to exit our half.

View image

A million times yes! An exit is a fail if you're not comfortably outside your 22 at the bare minimum. This is so crucial in dictating the next stanza of play. Especially in such a tight game.

Multiple times we had the initial ruck somewhere around the middle of our 22 and the goal-line. Christie's box kick would then get literally 8 - 12 metres and just heap the pressure right back on us. No wonder we couldn't get out of our half. It's just not good enough to get that distance. His exits were tolerable in the first half, so fatigue probably an issue but it just handed SA the momentum.

@DurryMexted said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

One tactic i highly enjoyed was our aggressive counter rucking. We blew over a fair number of rucks, as well as giving Williamse massive issues trying to get quick/tidy ball. The impressive thing was that the saffas had often actually committed a couple of forwards, but we still were able to get in there and disrupt. This was particularly targeted at the first or second ruck after a boxie. A tactic that came off well

Loved this. Compared to the NH teams (Ireland in particular), we rarely focus on this so was great to see it applied effectively. It's a simple effort play but had a noticeable impact - slowed the ruck speed, caused them to send an extra fattie in and got the halfback thinking twice.

Pretty big shift from Savea, be nice to see what he could do from seven with better loose forwards next to him. Sititi, Kirifi and Parker all very average to anonymous.

Vaai has been good at six, and was excellent again at lock. Leave him at six as much as possible and get a bigger eight/seven on the bench.

You can't have Savea and Kirifi on at the same time.

For the backs, Christie was huge and played great wet weather football. Proctor is utter, utter shit. Tried and failed, move on.

Felt sorry for Nawera, he made something magic out of a small chance.

Jordan keeps scoring trys, would prefer him on the wing if he's going to drop high balls at fullback.

Time to start seeing what we can get out of Love.

Oh, and Reiko's defence may have save the game!

@NTA said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Scrum battle was weird - at times both sides looked very shaky. Bok reserve bench particularly noticeable under pressure.

Could it have been the grass?

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Been thinking about Christie and the comments on here.

4th choice in most people's estimation.

As others have mentioned - and which I agree with - he's massively over performing until he doesn't. And his drop off is due to him 'playing up'. He's exhasuted mentally and that's when the mistakes happen. He needs to be subbed earlier.

It's quite obvious that Razor wants Roigard at 9 and BB at 10.

But without Roigard at 9 and his ability to inject pace off the back of the scrum/ruck and keep defences guessing then it becomes very easy for the defence to 'guess' what BB version 2025 is going to do once he gets the ball.

He's going to shovel on or kick most of the time because he's the 2025 version and the speed of delivery from Christie is slower than Roigard.

This gives the AB midfield limited time and space to do anything significant hence the propensity for crossfield dinks or miss two passes from BB.

In Roigard's absence perhaps Christie and Dmac - who will take the ball to the line and commit defenders - are a better combo.

IMO Christie can play solidly and dutifully, no one doubts his commitment, but once he starts dropping off, making bad decisions or just being indecisive, he seems to have trouble recovering. And his worst mistakes, the most glaringly slow passes, seem to be at key times and stand out like dogs' balls. Not sure why. Maybe it just appears that way to me, being a Blues supporter.

one of the biggest problems when reviewing players is the extreme language people use

"the bokke are playing abysmally! and the AB's are outstanding"....when there is like a 7 point difference

or someone will be verbally flayed as the worst in the position to ever play....and they're having a 6-7 out of 10 game

christie...yes...very slow pass and i dont like him with BB as hes also a bit slow with the pass....and he made some suspect decisions...but also was pretty solid, got around the park and put up a lot of kick for them to deal with in wet weather...6.5/10...hardly deserving of the harsh critiques or praise

@nostrildamus said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@NTA said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Scrum battle was weird - at times both sides looked very shaky. Bok reserve bench particularly noticeable under pressure.

Could it have been the grass?

Maybe, but if so the props should have used longer studs

From the Boks pov: Marx was very ordinary, and really has been during TRC in general. Does not have the presence about him of past years, when he had the benefit of coming off the bench with the bomb squad.

Lot of mistakes which is usually OK playing clatterball but things out in the open were their undoing IMHO.

Le Roux missing the tackle for the first try was laughable. Almost as laughable as his faux-confused look whenever he does something wrong like give away a penalty.

There is still a lot of talent there, and it would be unwise to write them off, but they're not getting any younger and RWC is over 2 years away.

@Goffman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

I noticed on at least one occasion when the Boks kicked off they kicked high to Jordie, meaning he was caught with the ball and in the ensuing ruck. Not sure if this was by design or accident, but with the rest of the team being unable to kick further than a primary school kid, I would be positioning Jordie so the other team can't find him when restarting.

If he's not catching it, he's often asked to carry.

Just managed to login.
Well done AB's - well deserved victory.
The Boks.... eish.
We have some work to do. Way too many facets of the game where we are not at our best. Most of them in fact.
Hoping for a better performance in game 2.

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

@Bones Any aping of Maro Itoje is to be discouraged.

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

View embedded content

Was he wrong in his observation?

@MiketheSnow He looks right on the lineout. However, all good teams play to the ref. I also think that Boks, by having a pow wow 2m away and then coming in, open themselves up to this. If they stand 0.5m from line of touch from beginning then ABs kept honest.
IMO one or two times Nche could have been pinged for shenanigans. Conditions didn't help.

@NTA said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@nostrildamus said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@NTA said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Scrum battle was weird - at times both sides looked very shaky. Bok reserve bench particularly noticeable under pressure.

Could it have been the grass?

Maybe, but if so the props should have used longer studs

I thought that. It was very noticeable that before scrum set the Boks loosies were kicking their toes (and thereby studs) into the turf to get set. Not the ABs.
I'd have thought a day for the gnarliest studs allowed.

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

View embedded content

Was he wrong in his observation?

Probably got a fair point or two.

Now let's open the other eye and analyse South Africa ...

Oops, sorry, they were 100% squeaky clean and did not transgress any laws.

@booboo said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

View embedded content

Was he wrong in his observation?

Probably got a fair point or two.

Now let's open the other eye and analyse South Africa ...

Oops, sorry, they were 100% squeaky clean and did not transgress any laws.

What, no screenshots, arrows and lines showing the SA jumper at the lineout between our jumper and our halfback?

That video takes me back to Green and Gold Rugby, circles and arrows.

Love a good whinge.

@Bones said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@booboo said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@MiketheSnow said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

@pakman said in All Blacks v Springboks I:

Cunning AB lineout tactics:

View embedded content

Was he wrong in his observation?

Probably got a fair point or two.

Now let's open the other eye and analyse South Africa ...

Oops, sorry, they were 100% squeaky clean and did not transgress any laws.

What, no screenshots, arrows and lines showing the SA jumper at the lineout between our jumper and our halfback?

Ha. #booboo. But only just.

@booboo To be fair he did reference the abnormally high Boks error rate. My hunch is that rain was a big factor.