I think ill follow suit and post here. Theres arguably not enough interest in the all blacks on this forum to justify dedicated match threads.
first, well done to fiji. Especially Their 6 and 8 who were the best players on the park last night.
i thought the all blacks were pretty poor. The scoreline didnt reflect the match, for the most part, just reflected that fijis discupline could have been better, that beauden can kick the ball out on the full between the 5 metre line and the goal line from a penalty, that our lineout can finction, and that our ability with the attacking maul is better than fijis ability with the defensive maul.
our ability to secure our own rucks was terrible. One could argue fiji werent always supporting their body weight, but noone can argue that we let them get to the ruck first, in a giid position, and failed to clean them out. You could argue they were unlucky to give away penalties a few times too, instead of being given the turnover.
so whos fault is that? The coaches, definitely. But no matter what your structure players need to adapt and take responsibility. So youd have to say the entire forward pack was partly to blame. Its hard to say people shouldnt have gone to ground when they did, taken it to th line when they did. A lot if the time it would only have taken a little bit more eagerness and alertness from the suppirting players to clear the ruck. To fijis credit i think they chop tackled a lot more than the all blacks were expecting, so we put more emphasis on eunning hard at the line with low body position to make ground, because we expected theyd be trying to drive us back in the tackle. It was especially frustrating that we didnt seem to address the problem in the half time break because, although fiji got penalised, we got ourselves isolated at the very first ruck in the second half.
its going to be hard for thw all blacks to pick a team next week, since so many of the players last night were poor, but it would be unfair to compare the performances of the players last week who played agains a much inferior opposition
patrick at least brought a physical presence that we would have struggled without. First game back for brodie, so perhaps he can be excused. Shannon has been without game time for a reasonably long period, so can expect him to get better. Hoskins did some good things.
Im not sure who else is available next week. Ardie? Alb? Ennor?
coles continues to show he makes a difference at test level, and no im not talking about 'his' three maul tries.
whitelock is clearly our best forward, clears rucks good.
papalii put his hand up.
apart from that?
i think for next week id go fir the back 5 firwards
Whitelock
Tuipolotu
Jacobson
Papalii
Sotutu
I think that has a good balance
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www.allblacks.com
