All Blacks - Wallaby Game

Very entertaining game to watch.   Best player by a mile was Sunny Boy.   Off-loads in tackle situation was wonderful to see.   Williams and Dagg were the best two players on the park.   The win by the All Blacks was largely the result of enforced penalties given away by the Wallabies.

There was many positives for the All Blacks - they were by far the better team on the day.   However, there are some negatives also.  Critical passes that could have and should have resulted in tries did not go to hand - as a result the All Blacks managed to score just one try - there should and could easily have been more.  

The line outs of both sides were rather scrappy.   The scrummaging also rather problematic for both sides.   The defence of the All Blacks were excellent.

I think that on the Wallaby side Quade Cooper had a poor match - one that he should rather forget.   Genia was constantly under pressure - but was binned as well - so no good at all.    Carter had a very good game and when Cruden came on he off-loaded a ball very well in a tackle situation

On the whole the All Blacks is a very good team - but there are areas of the game where improvement would truely make them unbeatable.  They cut out probably half the mistakes made in the first test and the result reflect the situation.   They should improve their line-out performance and not throw iffy passes that allow for loose balls lieing around.

However, a very good win.    Pity about that only one try was scored.   However, the win indicated one thing clearly.   Under pressure the Wallaby backline is not up to standard.   

There was a number of players that did perform better than last week - the one mentionable is Read that was more involved and not as questionable as in the first test.   However, he still is a very average no 8.   Mccaw had a more quiet game than last week - hence the decrease in penalties.    Not impressed by the lock forwards - too dicey in the line out situation.   Retallick came on and took one good line-out ball.    

Slight improvement on the part of McCaw - he only gave away 2 penalties this week - and that knock-on when over the tryline was not really impressive.   And no discussion with the referee today!:)

Hope I was objective and fair in my assessment of the game.

I enjoyed the game immensely and your assessment is a fair representation of what went on. There are a few different views that I have particuarly around Kieran Rieds performance. I thought the guy was massive in many ways and really rate him considering he has been off for a while?

I disagree that he is an average no8 simply because his work rate, ability to run, metres gained, offload and jump in the line out makes him probably there best forward...and he has the results on the field to back him up. I have never seen him go misssing in the big games.

The Ab's ability to offload is risky and exciting but hugely rewarding when it sticks and theyscore many points from this area. They always have and I envisage this not changing and it was interesting that the fast defensive line in the first half by the Wallabies countered it somewhat. However, it was clear that the started sticking in the second half and but for despreate defence and a bit of luck further carnage would of been inflicted. 

The Boks would have noticed that the lineouts from both teams were pretty shoddy but I couldnt help but notice that  the ref was letting those lineouts get real messy particuarly the gap and between the teams and there were at least 3 lineouts not called for being not straight...go figure.

The Wallabies played with a heap more passion and conviction however they just dont have the personnel and tactics to compete and are sorely missing, Pocock, Horwill, O Connor to give some stability to their team dynamics.

Nonetheless, the AB's gave away 4 tries in my count however they are scaringly only an inch or two away from making them stick and we may see them unleash hell against the poor Argies......giving them good momentum coming into the last two games against us.

The AB's will only improve further and so must we against the Argies. We just need to get through without any more major injuries as our task to beat the AB's is difficult already. I m not sure about you mike but the Ab'sooked like they were in cruise mode in the last 15 minutes???

 Keiren Read is probably the best 8th man in world and would definitely be 10 top influential players playing the game right now, absolutely superb tonight, the most consistently high work rate of any player in the world IMHO.

nice assessment there clevermike, pretty much on the money as usual. there were a number of players who stood out for me, SBW, dagg but aaron smith was my man of the match, crisp deliveries regardless of the situation. as smith gets more and more game time, he is gaining confidence and looks to stamp his mark in the ABs, by the end of the year he is going to be very lethal and start pushing will genia for the worlds best halfback title. many kiwis think he already is, but im not one of them but he has the best chance of any halfback in the world at the moment.

agree with dagg and SBW, but im a little worried about dagg, a few times i thought he could have passed the ball out wide to support players, but its good to back themselves i guess.
SBW couldnt have asked for a better send off, keeping the ranked No2 team scoreless and helping NZ secure the bledisloe cup AGAIN, will look nice with his ITM title, ranfurly shield, hillary shield(NZ v eng), spXV title, RWC and after this weekends results, helping the All Blacks have a firm grip on the IRC cup, not bad for under two years work, lol.

im with radtad and poi-e about kerean read though, he is a player of tremendous note and would easily be the top 5 NZ most important player within the All Blacks IMO and many others. he can literally do it all and the numbers do back him up. the other thing about him is, while hes been playing decent rugby for us, like the All Blacks he aint nowhere near his best, which is scary or awsome if ur an All Blacks fan, lol.

the greatest thing about this game was the All Blacks keeping the wallabies to zero. around the 55th minute mark, i started thinking to myself, wow, i dont care if we score any more tries, i want to keep the wallabies down to zero, it was super impressive to be able to do that to the IRB ranked No2 team and it reminds me of when we did it to the Boks in newlands in 2008 where we won 19-0.

the herculean like effort required to keep such powerhouses of rugby to zero is unbelievable, even by All Blacks standards and something that will be in the forefront of my rugby memories for a long time.

the All Blacks team i want to see against the pumas,,,
1 b franks, 2 a hore, 3 o franks, 4 b retallick, 5 s whitelock, 6 l messam, 7 McCaw, 8 k read, 9 a smith, 10 a cruden, 11 h gear, 12 m nonu, 13 c smith, 14 c jane, 15 b smith,
16 k mealamu, 17 c faumuina, 18 l romano, 19 s cane, 20 p weepu, 21 d carter, 22 i dagg

pumas forward pack cant be trifled with, they are experienced and raring to go, if woody is fit, i would also start him and bench b frnaks.

a smith needs to continue to get more gametime, cos he is the future, only injury can halt the momentum of his career right now, but he is our incumbent till the RWC no doubts about it. the more experience he gets, the better of the All Blacks are.

starting carter would be a mistake, carters not getting any younger and hansen needs to consider resting carter and saving him for some big games.
starting cruden and playing him for the whole 80 mins is ideal for giving carter the rest and cruden some much needed gametime to stay sharp and what have u, and we can bring on carter if we need too which i doubt as it is only the pumas. after the Bok/puma test, i guess i need to lose that frame of mind,,,,,

gear needs to start IMO, he needs to know he will get every opportunity to improve his game, this will be rapid to the All Blacks in full, when he starts to assert and demand the ball more. benching gear for say savea might do him more harm then good.

nonu/smith for the midfiled so the former hurricanes duo can polish of any rough edges before the epic Bok tests.

dagg on the bench to give him some much needed rest and ben smith to start and show us his rugby wares. helps dagg remain fresh and ben smith to remain sharp.