1
All Blacks forgetting the play calls against England doesn't inspire confidence
I can’t say the performances of the All Blacks, nor the utterances of their attack coach Leon MacDonald, have filled me with enormous confidence.
ADVERTISEMENT
Good on them for beating England 2-0.
No, neither victory was entirely convincing but at least the All Blacks didn’t lose.
But I doubt I’m alone in saying I was hoping to see something a bit different now that Scott Robertson is in charge.
Especially because MacDonald said Robertson and the staff had “ripped up the playbook’’ ahead of the England series.
Didn’t look like it to my untrained eye but, hey, we’re only two games in.
MacDonald says the players are executing their new plays quite well at training. That’s nice.
It’s just that, as MacDonald went on to say after the team arrived in San Diego to play Fiji, the players forgot what the new plays were called once they had an actual opponent in front of them.
I’m not making that up. That’s what the man said.
Look, I get that teams have rehearsed plays from set pieces or to get out of their 22, but I kind of want players to play. This isn’t the NFL.
Yet I can’t escape the feeling, as I haven’t for a while, that this All Black doesn’t really understand that training and games are rather different.
ADVERTISEMENT
That this is a team that has a menu of plays and runs them, regardless of how ineffective they are or how well the defence is reading them.
It’s not restricted to the backline, either.
Never mind that the opposition lineout knows where the ball’s going – and are regularly stealing or disrupting the ball – the All Blacks seemed wedded to throwing it to the same place or player.
And, why not? It works at training, after all.
If I have a consistent criticism of All Black teams of recent vintage, it’s that they run out of ideas – even heart – when Plan A doesn’t work.
ADVERTISEMENT
They’ve rehearsed their plays, had them run like clockwork at training and genuinely don’t know what to do – other than kick – when they don’t work on Saturdays.
If I were the guy in the jersey, I’d be wanting to come up with my own solutions to problems. Solutions that I would settle on as the game progressed.
But I suspect we’re in an era where a backroom boffin has studied tape, decided where a defence can be breached and the players have been delivered a play by which to achieve that.
Only, according to MacDonald, pressure and fatigue caused the players to forget what those were against England.
Rugby is complicated which is why, I’m told, former players are fast tracked into prominent coaching roles.
Most of us watching are a long time removed from playing, never progressed to anything like Super Rugby and Test level and simply don’t understand the complexities of the modern game.
Only those who recently inhabited that playing environment are in a position to understand how difficult it is to get the ball from one end of the field to the other and score some points.
I have some sympathy with that point of view.
But, simpleton that I am, I still think that if you run harder and tackle harder than the opposition, you’ll win more games than you lose.
Yes, there’s more nuance to rugby than that, but you still need to earn the right to play.
For the time being, the All Blacks seemed determined to play their way. To run their prescribed plays irrespective of their effectiveness.
It’s not the plays themselves that broke down against England, apparently, just the execution of them.
Well, they’ll no doubt work a treat against Fiji, in what’s a glorified training run.
I’m just not sure it’s a recipe for success in real games.
I would understand players being a little awestruck by moving from training to a real game as 10 year olds, but most of this team just came within a whisker of being world champs. But now sorry guys we got all tired and forgot our game plan and calls. Stupid comments throwing the players under the bus.
Being a victim to scam can lead to depression and it's really devastating. I fell victim to them on Tiktok when a profile with thousands of followers and engagement convinced me to be my favorite celebrity Keanu Reeves. I first paid for membership and other request for money kept popping up till i get fed up giving them my money which ran into thousands of dollars. I reported to the authorities after my bank placed a hold on my bank and made me understand the fraud going on and it prompted my survival instincts. I went on YouTube and google in search of ways i can recover my stolen funds from these heartless scammers. Testimonies of different recovery agencies kept popping up but that of "REFUNDD POLICI RECOVERY SERVICES'' really got my attention and i gave them a trial after hesitating and finally seeking God's guidance in prayers.
They Successfully recovered and returned my funds to me using the information and evidence i provided including the bitcoin addresses of the scammers.
Here's information to reach Refundd Polici Recovery Services Incase you or your love ones ever fall into similar situations.
WhatsAp: +1 605963 9055
Telegram: @REFUNDDPOLICI
I’m a little surprised that the ABs ripped up all the playbooks.
I mean is that literal?
The greatest team in the history of the game deleted all their playbooks and started from zero? They didn’t have any good stuff worth keeping?
No IP or institutional knowledge worth hanging on to?
I have a strange feeling that, if that statement is literally true, that Razor is trying to prove a point and I don’t think he needs to. He inherited ABs for heavens sake. Not his local clubs 2nd team.
I should mention that I LOVE being abused by Kiwis.
Go.
Bull shark you are absolutely right. Love the kiwis
Stop believing Hamish the Kiwi hating Kiwi. He is a anti NZ NZer. Always writes hateful things about his own team. Traitor comes to mind.
Your a Dick Head
I believe they’re just feeding the narrative around how they’re a revolutionary coaching staff and that things will be different (rightly or wrongly) - I have no doubt we’ll see some innovation in time but with a 10-day run-in for a series, ripping the playbook up would be foolish and I’m skeptical it happened.
And this comment isn’t going to make me any new friends either.
But why did Joe Schmidt make a pretty visible improvement on the Wallabies compared to where they left off in 2023? With less time to work with?
Didn’t Razor have like 12 months to get ready for the role? Maybe start sending the guys copies of the playbook to familiarize themselves with?
This isn’t the Maritzburg College 5th team for heaven sakes!
Now go.
Yes that’s the solution, just “run harder” and “tackle harder”
Don’t worry about how much modern defences have changed and how good they are, just “run hard” - I’m sure the best players in NZ have not through of that. They go into every contact at 50% and wonder why they are not making ground.
Don’t worry about complex, well executed attacks like Ireland’s that left NZ embarrassingly chasing shadows like school buys until we actually modernised our defence. Just “tackle hard”.
As a “journalist'“ maybe this guy should take the time to speak to modern coaches and players to understand what they are talking about. It is clear his understanding of modern rugby is completely non-existent. I’m surprised Fozzie didn’t tap him on the shoulder to join his dream team in 2019 who also didn’t understand modern rugby.
That backroom boffin was a great test player, I think he does know the difference between training and games, and you are certainly not qualified to call his experience into question lol. What a schmuck
Nothing inspires confidence in Bidwell.
He is crude nz version of a cartoon of the stereotypical whinging Pom.
His pieces are the sports equivalent of angry letters sent by pensioners to the tv guide.
Spot on. His hatred pieces are vile.
I THINK . EVERYONE SHOULD JUST CALM DOWN . ITS CALLED , PUTTING A NEW TEAM TOGETHER . THERE ARE WORSE THINGS IN LIFE TO WORRY ABOUT. NIGHT NIGHT
Crazy how upset All Black fans are. You beat a very good England team. Be happy. The days of world domination is over.
I’m a kiwi and was impressed with England they have great team ! He is a journalist & doesn’t reflect the everyday fans of NZ. Yes there are some who still hold on to the traditional belief that that we should win every game but the majority realise that so many players & coaches leave here & ply their trade overseas so yes its evened up the playing field. End of world domination? I’m not sure yet
He coached the Blues for a few years & made a few finals but didn’t make the grade. Cotter took over & won the Championship playing to Auckland’s strengths with dare I say it Northern Hemisphere strengths! Big forwards and electric backs. So why didn’t more Blues players make the ABs? Because all of the selection team are from Canterbury
hmm along with his ‘putrid’ ABs piece in The Roar I’m beginning to think Hamish is not a fan…..
This guy again has no idea
What a hack
Total hack
Yeah, maybe that’s the problem.
You do realise Hamish that all pro rugby teams have a playbook, and use these plays especially off early phase attack? And they train them? And they have to learn them? And it takes time?
Why am I bothering. Even reading this hack piece has made me dumber.
Sadly.
He’s not alone though, the game has changed from most everyone that played it in their in their younger days until RL came along. And we certainly don’t have much help from the people Sky employ to bring that experience to us.
Some of the girls have actually been great, being recent players, but we have no one of the caliber of Michael Hooper coming through. It was a battle between Marshall and Mehrtens for our screen time, and unfortunately Marshall was cheaper (I have no fn idea what I’m talking about I must ack.).
Great, an AB coach shares great insight, & this idiot has a dig. These two come-from-behind wins against a formidable opposition, inspires great confidence for me. And of course there are huge work-ons ahead - as expected. No wonder coaches eventually end up in evasion mode with media.
I saw who wrote it and just skipped to the comments to read something more interesting and less cynical.