first a big belated congrats to the wallabies for a fine win over the All Blacks and for becoming the 2nd team to win the RC.
All Blacks were outmatched in all facets of the game and the form team of the 2015 RC are the rightful winners,
from a NZ point of view though this is completely unacceptable, this is a horrible way to send of king richie in his final season of test rugby and im very filthy with hansen and some of the players.
there are a number of factors which have led to this disastrous RC result.
heres my two rand on some of those factors plus where we IMO should be going from here,,,
selection policies
hansen has used the tests in 2015 to ask questions from the players, against the Boks
as we get ready for the RWC which has resulted in some baffling selections.
many myself included thought we should have fielded our strongest team, but the All Blacks beat the Boks and its hard to argue against the selections, when those selections achieve the objective and introduced us to sopoaga.
last weeks test though saw hansen asking questions again, but this time at the expense of the All Blacks winning tradition.
skudder might of had a solid debut, but the All Blacks would have been better served with dagg and especially piutau out on the wing.
romanos selection of whitelock was also rubbish of the highest order. whitelock and retallick are the best locks in the world, they should have started last week.
whats annoying about this loss, is that its the exact same thing which happened in 2011 when the wallys won it last, only the error in selections lay at henrys feet.
hansen should have known better, were the All Blacks, we dont sacrifice tests just to build towards a RWC, and shame on hansen for not knowing better.
scrum
u know ur F**ked, when u pack gets beat by the wallabies pack, even had the All Blacks won that test, the mark of shame at getting bested by pack wearing yellow is enough to make u vomit.
pull ur finger out ur donkeys All Black tight 5, and make sure that dosent happen again.
breakdown
this was a huge error of disappointment for me and would have been the most shameful thing to see if not for our pack getting pwned the same night.
we were completely outplayed here in the breakdown, the physicality that wallabies brought overpowered us, and the hunger they had let them maintain that physicality for much longer periods in the game.
its not uncommomn to see the All Blacks bested in a particular facet of the game regardless of the result, what is very rare to see though is that particular facet of their game be exploited two tests in a row.
Boks had in the last All Black tests showed similar power and urgency in the way they dominated the All Blacks at the breakdowns.
we should have after that match been aware of this area of our game and the need to improve on it.
but we didnt, and that is not something i have seen from the All Backs for a long long time.
hunger
u got to want to win more than the opposition, its not prerequisite for winning, but it does provide an amzing source of fuel.
there seemed to be no hunger in the All Blacks as the succumbed to their thrid loss in hansens tenure, and if the same thing happens this weekend, we can kiss the bkedisloe goodbye.
daniel carter
i love carter more than mutton birds..... ok thats a lie, but i do love carter,
he is the greatest 10 to ever grace the game of rugby and kiwis are indebted to him for the way he has led the All Blacks for many a successful season.
it pains me to say this, but carter is not the Al Blacks inc-u-mbent 10 anymore, his mojo is gone.
his attacking with ball in hand game is no longer there.
his tactical kicking is not as good as slades or barrets.
his goal kicking is subpar (as is all the kiwi goal kickers).
his astute vision and once impeccable decision making is gone.
IMO cater is NZs thrid best flyhalf.
heres the uzumaki NZ flyhalf order.
1 b barret
2 c slade
3 d carter
4 l sopoaga
expereince is the only reason he is currently ahead of sopoaga, but if sopoaga was to continue with the form he had on debut, then carter would have been bumped to 4.
whats even crazier is that crudz is out of the equation cos of injury.
players who didnt preform
julian savea
i heard that savea was not selected to play the Boks because he looked unfit.
after watching that performance vs the wallabies, he should have remained unpicked.
hes still the best 11 to play the game since jonah, but damn he let us down last week big time.
SBW
WTF was with all those useless kicks???
maybe if SBW stopped pi55ing around with that mediocre boxing career and switching back to league he wouldnt be looking quite as useless as he has been since returning from the roosters.
even now just thinking about those useless kicks is enough to make me facepalm.
when SBW left to go back to league in 2012, he was by a country mile the best 12 in the world, even knocking the consistent nonu down on the pecking order.
but a lot can change in 2 years, and it has with SBW.
what a waste, SBW could have been one of the rugby greats, now hes just a meh, a player were thankful to have for the sake of depth and depth alone.
no doubt SBW is like all the kiwis aware that theres a big diffeence between him and nonu at the moment, nonu has a ton more different skills and a rugby brain to back them up.
aaron smith
smith is the wrolds best halfback, but not in 2015.
the confidence he has built within the All Blacks during his time there has this year led to some poor erratic decisions on the field.
his problem though is the easiest to fix of all the players above i mentioned.
Pro6,277 posts
12 Aug 2015, 20:54
#1
12 Aug 2015, 20:54#1
