Jason Ryan questions All Blacks preparation after 'messy' win

Throughout the week leading into the last game of 2024 for the All Blacks, Scott Robertson and his coaching staff talked about putting on a performance to be proud of to finish the end-of-year tour.

Robertson and his side got the win on what was a freezing night at Allianz Stadium in Turin, but are clearly disappointed with the cohesion they had on attack.

All Blacks assistant coach Jason Ryan wasn’t impressed with his team’s start to the Test match.

“It was pretty messy isn’t it, to be fair I thought we lacked a lot of quality in our skill sets, to be honest, ” said Ryan on Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Sport show with Jason Pine.

“I think there were some areas of the game where we were good, but we didn’t get off to a good enough start and we weren’t really where we needed to be, which could have been potentially a little bit of a reflection of a big 14 Test year calendar, by no means an excuse, but a bit of reality.”

When asked about the continuity and the attack with the ball in hand, Ryan believes the weather at Allianz Stadium played a huge part.

“It was extremely wet, a lot wetter than we probably prepared for, but we put our skills under pressure with silly passes or offloads when it wasn’t needed, and we didn’t respect the ball as well as we could have. 

“We found ourselves not being able to get through the defensive line because our carry height was far too high, especially in the first half, and it was probably a mix of a bit of everything just a little bit messy all around really, but I guess the positives are we found a way and we still won.

“We can be pretty satisfied with the performances that we’ve put together for this whole Test calendar as a whole, we can be pretty satisfied that we’ve introduced probably more new All Blacks to the Test arena than normal, but we’ve definitely got some completion stuff that we will need to work on heading into next year.”

Ryan gives lots of credit to the Azzurri in a Test match that the All Blacks were heavy favourites for.

“Let’s not take anything away from Italy, like they were immense. It was a big Test for them at home, they had a lot of hurt from the World Cup game.”

The All Blacks have had a full-on schedule in the past five weeks on the end-of-year Northern Tour, playing Japan, England, Ireland, France and Italy in consecutive weeks.

Ryan questions whether the All Blacks’ preparation for the game against Italy could have been better.

“Was our preparation as genuine as it could have been? I think it definitely could have been better.

“Just getting up for the mental challenge after three huge Test matches when you go England, Ireland, France and then the Italy Test might have been a bit of an awakening for some of the guys that are getting used to that Test arena, and for how consistent you have to be with your preparation every week,” Ryan told Jason Pine.

The All Blacks were dominant at set piece time, winning seven penalties with the scrum. 

With the All Blacks under pressure at the start of the game in Turin, Ryan acknowledges his team’s scrummaging prowess lifted them out of a slow early start.

“I think that we probably got ourselves out of what could have been a real hole if it wasn’t for some of our scrum penalties that we won.”