Analysis: Did the All Blacks ‘bottle it’ and shadow-box against Ireland?
After a review at the ‘macro’ factors surrounding the All Blacks try-scoring troubles abroad this November, a review of the ‘micro’ details of the Dublin test reveals a very uncharacteristic All Blacks game.
Aside from the execution errors, the decisions and game strategy executed by the players was very foreign, unlike anything we have seen for them this year.
“We are still stuck between the old way, and the new way, and we haven’t got it right yet,” explained Hansen after the 16-9 defeat.
There are many aspects of this All Blacks performance that just don’t add up on the face of it. The deeper you dive, the more suspect it becomes.
The first observation being the forward pack, the tight five in particular, looked like they had played a game already before stepping onto the pitch.
This performance had some of the poorest transitions into shape you will see from an All Blacks side, almost right from the start, with many of the tight five failing to retreat on kicks, and set up adequately with the pod ball carrier, dropping three-man pods down to two like flies, getting into position late and disrupting the flow during phase play.
It was like the forwards had run a marathon before the game, or were carrying significant injuries, with many walking around the field during play.
We know the main All Blacks squad skipped the Japan test to head to the UK a week early. Did they get flogged with pre-season conditioning for two weeks in order to be able to simulate fatigue during late-World Cup knockout games, turning these two massive games into a semi-final and final trial run?
With this tour being the only chance to play the top Northern Hemisphere sides before the World Cup, it wouldn’t be out of the question to turn this trip into a World Cup dress rehearsal and experiment with such an exercise.
It is also plausible the team could have just hit a wall with late-season fatigue, but with the quality of personnel on the field, it’s hard to fathom that they would be gassed after just ten minutes.
It was clear that something just wasn’t right and it only got worse throughout the match.
The All Blacks opened the game with a territorial kicking back and forth, before winning an attacking opportunity inside Ireland’s 22 inside the first three minutes.
It would be the first and last time in the match they would breach Ireland’s five-metre line. The Irish defence soaked up 12 phases, mainly of one-out forward carriers, before Read became isolated and Josh van der Flier and CJ Stander were on him like magnets.
It was odd in two ways, the approach was forward-dominate and conservative in an attempt to bully their way over but it also began to fall apart quite quickly despite being early in the match.
They played one-out rugby in tight quarters but lost shape in this early attacking raid, players were over-committing to rucks and they were churning through carriers. It looked like the 84th minute, not the 4th minute.
By phase 10 Owen Franks (3) is left with only Ardie Savea (7) inside. Jack Goodhue (13) offers an unders line outside him and back-up cleaning support. Four All Blacks are on the ground in a heap at the last ruck.
Franks takes the carry and is joined by Savea, Goodhue and even Ryan Crotty as cleaners, using another four players at the breakdown.
The previous ruck comes around the corner for the next carry, with Kieran Read (8) setting up first and Karl Tuinukuafe (1) and Sam Whitelock (5) struggling to make it around in support. The pass has already been delivered and both aren’t in ideal position yet.
Read is tackled and the Irish loose forward duo of van der Flier and Stander are quick to target the isolated runner, finding strong position over the ball and winning a penalty for holding on.
Aside from the concerning lack of energy, the tactics are worth pointing out.
This just isn’t All Blacks rugby in 2018 – they tend to stick with a width game inside the opposition 22, staying within their pattern and playing edge-to-edge through back door passes. However, this tight game off 9 is what Ireland do inside the opposition 22.
Just one week after beating the English at their own game at Twickenham, is it a possibility that they tried to do the same thing against Ireland and shelve their normal game plan?
Further abnormal behaviour from this side was the distinct lack of ball-movement from the forwards, in favour of one-dimensional carries. This was at times, a necessity given the inability to set-up correctly.
Here in the 12th minute in the early stages of the contest, the All Blacks spread to the right edge and we see a group of forwards, half of them walking, to set up the next carry back.
Aaron Smith has the pass loaded and only Ardie Savea is in position, with Whitelock in front of him and Tuinukuafe also on his left side.
As the play develops the spacing is a mess, and costs the side an opportunity to use McKenzie out the back. One Irish defender bites in on Whitelock leaving a massive gap between the next man Josh van der Flier.
The All Blacks are not prepared for, and not interested in, using a swivel pass and releasing McKenzie for this opportunity.
This carry-first approach was apparent throughout the whole game, evident in some telling statistics.
The forward pack, bench or starting, had zero offloads, just one tip pass and used the backdoor pass just four times from a possible 29 situations in the game. That’s only 13 percent of the time they moved the ball once the target received the ball off 9.
As a comparison, during the third test against France in one of the most clinical performances of the year, Damian McKenzie got the ball 60 percent of the time he lined up in the diamond.
From the minimal set-piece platforms they had, it’s not apparent what they were working for.
They often worked the same way with multiple carries and succeeded in creating short numbers in the Ireland defence, but didn’t use them. Above on the third phase the same way after a scrum, the halfback’s pass has released with only three defenders covering outside Squire.
Damian McKenzie (15) is looking for an unders line off 9 outside the two forwards, over commits and has to back-pedal.
With Garry Ringrose biting down, if Squire is able to play Barrett out the back the All Blacks would have an opportunity down the left edge with Rieko Ioane out of shot, even with McKenzie having to recover.
Squire is intent on playing the pre-programmed carry in the movement, with eyes only for contact despite drawing two defenders.
On the next phase, Barrett tries the first of four grubber kicks used in this area of the field during the match, all four which were cleaned up and recovered by Ireland.
Another carry by Squire late in the first half has McKenzie wrapping around the outside with an overlap developing, but the ball dies again in the tackle.
Even in the transition game, with limited turnovers the All Blacks usual ‘two-pass’ approach and intent of pushing to the edge was absent.
With Ardie Savea (7) winning a loose ball on Ireland’s scrum early in the second half, he breaks to the open side with a full back line but opts to carry with acres of space available on the edge. On his next turnover opportunity, he uses a kick through that resulted in a 22 restart.
There was a distinct lack of intent to move the ball in situations the All Blacks usually thrive in. At times it was due to a lack organisation before the play, which looked to be the result of fatigue.
The decision-making and game plan was night and day from their last test against the Wallabies in Yokohama. As good as Ireland’s defence and line speed is, the decisions and game strategy are two controllables that are determined by the All Blacks, not pressure from the opposition.
Did they shadow-box this game to stop Ireland getting familiar with them? Did they deliberately exhaust their players in the preparation as part of a bigger plan? The performance on attack was so far off what you normally get from this side that suspicions start to formulate, especially when world-class players struggle to align consistently and hold onto the ball.
As much as a conspiracy theory as it sounds, the All Blacks received Board-level approval from the NZR to play a second string side in Japan. There has to be a reason for that. Is a pre-World Cup simulation exercise, that involved putting the players under exhaustion, out of the realms of possibility? Or did they just hit a massive, end-of-season wall?
They didn’t play like their normal selves, in more ways than one. It’s probably time to give them an off-season to recover.
Comments on RugbyPass
Maybe if you come once in your life in France you won’t writte so much nonsense 🙃
1 Go to commentsWhy did they kill 14 people at a gaelic football match? What had happened earlier that day? Dowson sounds absolutely pathetic, believing what the Irish say about his people, rather than believing what his people say about the Irish.
1 Go to commentsI haven't really experienced the Irish as arrogant but I guess the players maybe got ahead of themselves after a big win. Just thought it being Ireland and their love afair with WC QF exits and it being the ABs maybe they would have taken it a bit more seriously. Maybe they did and just lost anyways, who knows.
3 Go to commentsNot surprising, they tend to get very carried away with themselves very quickly. I’ve never seen a team so devastated at the final whistle than those irish players in that QF, you’d think they had lost the final.
3 Go to commentsJust a roundabout way of claiming to great fun. Self -praise is no praise, frenchie.
1 Go to commentsIreland have played the ABs since the first game 1905 a total of 37 times. The ABs have won 32 and Ireland 5 times. If we look since the first WC, then they have played each other 28 times. All Ireland’s 5 wins have come since 2016. So the ABs won 23 games. Since Ireland won their first game in 2016, they have won 5 and the ABs 4 times. Fairly even. Whatever anyone says, beating ABs consistently is bloody difficult, and when you manage to win a few, show respect to them. Period.
187 Go to comments‘Mom'.
1 Go to commentsA specialist in hitting smaller guys hard and late. Serial cheap shot merchant who deserves more than the usual token sanction for such actions.
1 Go to commentsI like to see the Crusaders lose as much as the next non-Crusaders fan, but the fact that most of their best players have not been available this year is being hand waved away like it shouldn’t effect them. It’s no coincidence that their first dominant performance came when they had more of their best players back. This is not rocket science. If they can stay fit their team at the business end of the season will include Tamaiti Williams, Codie Taylor, Fletcher Newell, Scott Barrett, Quentin Strange, Ethan Blackadder and Cullen Grace in the forwards - most of whom have barely, or not played this year. That is an outstanding pack that have not played together this season. McLeod, Havili, Aumua, Reece, and Halfpenny will be a very different prospect behind their first choice pack as well. Having said all that Penney’s record is scratchy at best, but given the players that have left and their injury list I’m reserving judgement. Penney’s appointment, a bit like Foz, has a similar stench of the incumbent having too much say in his replacement. They are lacking a truly high quality and experienced 10 which will make it hard for them to go the whole way IMO, but the list of teams who would want to play them in the finals will be very short.
17 Go to commentsWhere’s this people's champion come from? Irish people yes….other people? Their arrogance has become breathtaking. Not tested? Oh dear.
187 Go to commentsIf a coach having Crusaders heritage is so sacrosanct, why did the Crusaders not pursue Vern Cotter as Scott Robertson’s replacement?
17 Go to commentsFinau is definitely operating on razor thin margins. He hasn’t done anything wrong… yet. But a player going into contact 6 inches lower than he is expecting, without him even knowing, will end in disaster. You can imagine a situation where the pass dies on Edmed and he has to bend down a little lower to catch it at the last second. Finau’s hit would have been catastrophic. The margins are just too fine. He needs to study how PSDT, at 6’7”, manages to drop his tackle height and exert just as much force with close zero danger of taking someone’s head off. Given how poorly NZ has adapted to lower their tackle height, and that this issue which has plagued the ABs for years and played a big part in them not winning the World Cup, I thought NZR and all SR coaches would be prioritising sorting this issue out. If I was Razor I would be on the phone to Clayton MacMillan and Samipeni Finau saying exactly that. Finau is a monster and shaping up to be the closest thing to Kaino since Kaino, but I wouldn’t risk selecting him for the ABs at the moment.
18 Go to commentsThe surprising stat I saw in the Blues game when showing Sotutu equaling the Blues forwards record was that Akira has not scored a try since 2019. Now my memory is pretty bad when it comes to those sorts of the things, I can remember his AB try though, but anyway I can’t see I can remember his last blues touchdown or any in recent years. Surely that still has to be a bogus stat. Maybe excludes SRA games?
3 Go to commentsDude to me looks pretty fast for a big man, nearly 2m and 130kg, in his workout vid he was signed off. Possibly a bit slow on his reads movement wise though, but I’ve not got anything to compare him to. Hope the dude nails it and finds his sport, could have been a devastating lock in rugby if he wasn’t a footballer growing up.
4 Go to commentsWell, does that make it every year Moana has lost it’s best player the following year? Normally it’s more immediate I guess, at least there best player had a follow up year this time.
1 Go to commentsFinally, an answer to Dan Carter.
1 Go to commentsNever read such tripe. He was hit just as he passed the ball which was reviewed and deemed legal by yes the Australian TMO and referee
18 Go to commentsTerrible idea…will be too hot, no one will travel, fan zones will be promised nice cold guinness and last minute will get water. Also how do you squeeze this into the already busy battle rhythm, Prem, summer series, 6 nations & world cup….if, and its a big IF you’re going to do this, do it in a rugby nation.
2 Go to commentsWell let’s hope world rugby doesn't read some of this nonsense, because next on the agenda will be…“players will only tackle other players deemed to be in their weight class, and only with moderate velocity”.
18 Go to commentsI was never allowed to adjust boots, or ever replaced, while I was playing and staying on the field. If I had issues, I had to go to the sideline and fix them myself. Then I would ask the ref to get back in. That would really make you deal with it FAST!
6 Go to comments