amazing game, I'm happy it was Ireland & Schmidt to break the run and make history. They played very well, had a great gameplan and it was thoroughly deserved.
cant take anything away from the Irish win but this was one of those nightmare games for the AB's.
Hansen & Co have an untouchable aura and its often frowned on to question their decisions but I think they made a lot of tactical and selection mistakes in this game.
Retalick & Whitelock out plus Romano. The Kaino at lock experiment simply didn't work and was clearly targeted. I guess you never know how a player will go on short notice debut but Barrett seemed to handle it well when he went on and helped sure the line outs. I think this situation was even deeper because Dominic Bird is injured as well. I think in future the coaches will be a bit smarter here, we have the best locks in the world and you cant just take them out and get a flanker to play lock.
Crotty getting injured early really upset the balance of the backline, its pretty clear that Fekitoa would have replaced Moala if not for the injury. Generally I thought Moala played ok but he got injured at the worst time just as we were looking like we could get ahead.
Julian Savea back to his worst, I think I said earlier in this thread I dont like the Naholo & Savea wing combo. Have one or the other but not both, and on form Naholo should be selected first, I think hes still not quite 100 after his injury issues. With all the other disruption and changes in the side this was not the game to rest Dagg. I think we would have been safer with ALB involved as well.
Aaron Smith was off his game still. I'd think that unless Smith can turn things around against Italy then Perenara should start in the rematch. Italy may not be enough of a test to really see where Smith is at. I Think TKB or Weber would have done better.
I think overall the selection was such that if something did go wrong it was going to really going to put us under pressure. Maybe I get the feeling the coaches took the Irish a bit lightly. We had the locking injury issues to cover, Aaron Smith to slot back into the side somehow after his issues and the coaches still found room for rotation and experimentation as well? The side was just a bit agricultural.
As it happened we finished the game with Read at lock, Squire at 8, Taylor playing flanker, Ardie Savea out in the back line somewhere and both Cruden & Barrett on. Its been a long time since we had a mishmash like that.
As it happened, with ~10min to go at ~33-29 I thought at that stage we were almost sure to win, I was very confident, Bauden started really attacking the line and subsequent phases were making a lot of ground and we found the tryline.. At that stage we seemed to make ground at will and be well on top of the Irish defense, some of which looked out on their feet. It was that point Moala got injured and we lost that momentum. After that we lacked patients, forced things a bit and started to make mistakes to the point where the last min or so was an absolute mess.
Joe Moody's Card obviously had a massive impact on the game as well, let two trys in and really helped Ireland pile on the early pressure.
It sucks that we lost, but the worst thing about winning all the time is that it gets a bit boring with results being the same. This is going to really spice up the rematch in Dublin. We will get to see how this All Black side reacts to a loss.
We should learn 10 times more from a loss than a win. But we do still have injury issues with the locks and now we have Crotty & Moala injured. Perenara should start and we need to be smarter selecting our back 3.
