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<blockquote data-quote="Umaga&amp;#039;s Witness" data-source="post: 1096676" data-attributes="member: 65365">I don&#039;t really think you can read too much into either teams results this year as an indicator of how this series will go.Even though if you were to say the springboks and Ireland are equally good doesn&#039;t mean that they are equally difficult for the all blacks to beat. They are very different teams.Also, the boks loss against wales was a positive sign if anything - that they could almost beat wales with their second team. The start of the first game was a mixture of rust and an absolute shocker from Elton. To me the springboks were dominant in the second half of the first game and in the third game. But wales isn&#039;t great right now either.The all blacks showed some signs of improvement in attack but were still very disjointed and ultimately lacking. They showed zero improvement on defence and remained disjointed between carrier and cleaners. Tactics improved in the final test where we seriously dominated possession and territory but then couldn&#039;t handle ireland when they had their limited opportunities and also weren&#039;t good enough with attacking structures and cohesion to score enough points when we had the ball.Our defence might be better suited to combatting the springboks attack but I&#039;m still not confident in it.Schmidt will be analysing the springboks&nbsp; so will be interesting to see what we change against them. If he analyses Ireland I wonder if he would have advised us to have different defensive structures.Weren&#039;t really challenged in the air a lot against Ireland and will be interesting to see if we can handle their scrum. Ofa has been struggling there .</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umaga's Witness, post: 1096676, member: 65365"] I don't really think you can read too much into either teams results this year as an indicator of how this series will go. Even though if you were to say the springboks and Ireland are equally good doesn't mean that they are equally difficult for the all blacks to beat. They are very different teams. Also, the boks loss against wales was a positive sign if anything - that they could almost beat wales with their second team. The start of the first game was a mixture of rust and an absolute shocker from Elton. To me the springboks were dominant in the second half of the first game and in the third game. But wales isn't great right now either. The all blacks showed some signs of improvement in attack but were still very disjointed and ultimately lacking. They showed zero improvement on defence and remained disjointed between carrier and cleaners. Tactics improved in the final test where we seriously dominated possession and territory but then couldn't handle ireland when they had their limited opportunities and also weren't good enough with attacking structures and cohesion to score enough points when we had the ball. Our defence might be better suited to combatting the springboks attack but I'm still not confident in it. Schmidt will be analysing the springboks so will be interesting to see what we change against them. If he analyses Ireland I wonder if he would have advised us to have different defensive structures. Weren't really challenged in the air a lot against Ireland and will be interesting to see if we can handle their scrum. Ofa has been struggling there . [/QUOTE]

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