Analysis: Where the All Blacks will target England
England’s tense 12-11 victory over the Springboks was won on the back of four Owen Farrell penalties and keeping the visitors to just one try.
Although they held the Springboks to just 11 points, a side that has troubled the All Blacks recently, the Boks performance at Twickenham left a lot to be desired.
South Africa’s attacking shapes were poor, with a lack of cohesion for a side missing two of its best players in Faf de Klerk and Willie le Roux. They missed untold amounts of opportunities to attack England on the edge and often fell out of structures too easily.
This weekend the All Blacks will be a much bigger test for England, with far more organized and clinical play, flatter structures and a more efficient passing game from 1-to-15.
On review of England’s defensive processes against the Springboks, this is where the All Blacks will look to attack.
All Blacks will want a Te’o-Slade midfield again
The All Blacks will definitely want to see another Ben Te’o-Henry Slade midfield combination. The two were disconnected against the Springboks, out-of-sync and playing two different styles of defence.
Henry Slade at outside centre played a high-pressure game, rushing out of the line and blitzing his opposite, while inside centre Ben Te’o was on his heels and played a passive up-and-out defence or slide defence.
This creates disconnection and a fragmented defensive line, with Slade coming out of the line in isolation, bringing opportunities for the attack to exploit.
On this attacking Springboks set-piece play, Henry Slade (13) flies out to pressure Jesse Kriel.
As the scrum breaks we can see the wide initial spacing between the midfielders.
Slade is already approaching top speed coming forward towards Kriel, while Te’o is drifting sideways playing non-committal slide defence.
For some unknown reason, fullback Damian Willemse has taken himself out of the back line, dropping deep despite his side having the ball. If he had been up in the line, England would’ve been potentially in trouble on the edge.
As Pollard releases the pass, the gap between the two midfielders has closed but Te’o is ball-watching inside and drifting out, while Slade is almost a blur, illustrating the speed at which he is flying up towards Kriel.
Slade gets in Kriel’s face and has a chance to grab the intercept but the ball is lost in contact.
We also can see if Willemse was available outside Kriel, a slightly deeper and wider pass from Pollard may have created a two-on-one on the edge.
It is also entirely possible that Slade decides to blitz on this occasion as he is aware Willemse is not the line and England therefore have the numbers covered, but we can still find other instances of this happening when this is not the case.
Here during phase play, Slade rushes out while Te’o holds off and drifts. The ball carrier Kriel (13) cuts back sharply off the left, beating a sliding Te’o on the inside shoulder.
Owen Farrell has to cover inside to make up for Te’o’s miss, while we see support running lanes open up for both Williamse (15) and Eben Etzebeth (4) on the inside.
Farrell does a good job ensuring Kriel cannot get an offload away.
Compounding problems is the fact that both players seem to be prolific ball-watchers, Te’o especially, so when one of them loses track of their man the midfield channel opens up.
On this play Te’o creeps in on the forward runner before Pollard lays a beautiful pill on the chest of de Allende, exposing Te’o on his outside. Slade turns in to close the gap, leaving a lane for Kriel on his outside.
Damian De Allende (12) breaks free but trips over trying to run instead of offloading to Kriel running to his outside.
Replace Kriel or de Allende with Sonny Bill Williams and you can already predict what kind of problems the All Blacks will cause England with a Te’o-Slade midfield partnership.
With Williams working into space, drawing contact and freeing up his arm for the offload, the All Blacks will create a number of these opportunities.
The tendencies of each player can also be targeted with specific lines – for Te’o, a ball-watcher who drifts and for Slade, a ball-watcher who rushes.
Te’o’s eyes will be looking inward while his body will be drifting out. It will be possible to target him with runners across his face, coming from his blind spot right across into the 10-12 channel.
The sweet spot is close enough to him for a late, weak arms tackle, but far enough away from Farrell to make the line break and maintain speed.
In Slade’s case, they can use the ball across his face to beat him, with a fullback outside or centre bouncing out. Early ball from 10 to 12 before a skip ball to 15 would be one easy option to do this. Slade might pull in the intercept, but that will be the risk/reward for both teams and shapes as one cat and mouse battle to look out for.
The All Blacks will have seen the tape and can be excited about the opportunities to cause some damage by manipulating this midfield.
They can scheme to beat them with running lines or use the world-class offloading abilities of Sonny Bill to pray on England’s disconnected centres.
If Eddie Jones doesn’t change this pairing up, Sonny Bill Williams shapes to have a big game for the All Blacks.
In the second part, we will look at the edge defence of England and how they fold after set-piece, which presents more areas the All Blacks will target.
Comments on RugbyPass
Brett, from my distant perspective, I hope you get to keep the Rebels. Any ideas of teams from Japan or Argentina are just crazy. Won’t happen. If you look at logistics, it is much easier to get to LA from Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney than to Buenos Aires. All with direct non-stop daily flights. You may even get some “gringos” to watch the games, with some younger players compared to Giteau and Nonu who still “play” in the area. I think it is virtually impossible to get a competitive Argie team for SR. All Pumas are in Europe, almost all second tier players are also in Europe. Fringe players are in South American pro rugby tournament (and many still in the MLR!) but these players who might be most interested in joining a new Jaguares do not have the skills to compete. As I have been saying since the Jaguares joined, they should have had TWO teams to make logistics for visiting teams better and Argie player development improved as well. Jaguares/Pumas was not ideal. But this is where Pichot and his cronies did not think long enough. Further the country with he new president “No hay Plata” Milei is in a very difficult situation. Galperin, the richest man in Argentina owns the Miami franchise of MLR. I don’t think you can get him to invest in Argentina. Actually, he played rugby himself. He was a fly half. He is worth around $6 billion!
1 Go to commentsWell done Baby Boks we will take the Draw. No 9 senseless long passes in those conditions. let’s move on and hope for some good weather
4 Go to commentsHow did it end a draw. South Africa didn’t score any points as far as I can see
4 Go to commentsNo doubt this will be a fantastic occasion and I plan to be there, but I think the bean counters have won out over the rugby brains. In my opinion, it is foolhardy to give the Black Ferns the experience of playing in front of 60,000+ at Twickenham a year before they might be playing there in a World Cup Final. Better to play France at Twickenham and Black Ferns at Kingsholm. The difference in takings would be miniscule.
1 Go to commentsDom kant
193 Go to commentsBen is a little incel desperately trying to stir the pot and stay relevant. We used to get mad at his articles. Now we just feel sorry for him
193 Go to commentsPerhaps we may need to put an asterisk on NZ’s ‘87 WC win since the Boks weren’t there. You know, just as a reminder. Poor Ben Smith. Go cry somewhere else.
193 Go to commentsNz should have won. I didn't watch the game, but the ref was at fault and the bounce of the ball and the Bokke used the Bomb squad and the Bokke slow the game down and the Bokke scrum. They should remove the scrum. The Bokke are to strong. Not fair. Nz should have won
3 Go to commentsThanks for a much more balanced piece Ned and not that BS that Bin Smuth just posted a short while ago. read this article and then Bin Smuth’s and tell me there isn’t a huge difference🙄
3 Go to commentsWere the Baby Boks part of this game or did the Baby Blacks play themselves?🤔 That man Bin Smuth once again does a little write-up on the game and it is like 95% about the Baby Blacks🤣 Glad he ends off with the Baby Blacks were actually in cruise control for most of the game and weren’t actually playing for the win WTF🤣🤣 Maybe he was expecting the Baby Blacks to run rampant….
4 Go to commentsOne does not expect anything more from Ben Smith who epitomises the worst of New Zealand media arrogance and an inability to balance what he has to say about any team that beats the All Blacks. His reference to context is pathetically thin. He does not comment that Frizell deserved a red card given his blatant manipulation of his body to ensure that he could drop his body weight onto Mbonambi’s lower leg. No mention of the ball lost forward before the All Black’s try (lost in-field of the 5 metre line and gathered beyond). The All Black commitment and effort was superb and there was little in it. Given the Springbok passage to the final and the loss of their hooker in the first three minutes, their resolve and capacity to win their fourth final out of eight attempts (not three out of ten) deserves the praise that has been forthcoming from media around the world, worth reading and listening to. Ben should join his “pundit” friends on TV - he would fit in well. This sort of article reduces any credibility Rugby Pass has ever had. Why persist with this sort of nonsense? The man does his country and a rugby blog a disservice.
193 Go to commentsEtzebeth went on to say: “I would never dream of saying that systems stay in place following a change in captain. To say that would be deeply, deeply, disrespectful of Siya. A while back an Irish person told me they would be fine without Sexton, so I’m just responding to that.”
3 Go to commentsClose games are what we want to see…. What a match it was…. I am sure that everyone was drained by the end of it. The reality of it all there has to be a winner and a loser. The fact that we still talking about it is almost 6 months to the day Rugby is the winner.. Asante sana… Here is to 2027 and what it will bring out.
193 Go to commentsIt’s going to be a good game. COYQ
1 Go to comments“Shock”, the guy was casually saying he was just slightly surprised. Nowadays if you say anything it gets taken completely out of context. Calm down everyone.
156 Go to commentsAll I can say after reading this bitter, sour, sad piece is… Thank you very much! This will be read in the change room just before kick off on 31 August…
193 Go to commentsLook, we know contradicting opinions and wacky comments bring readers and clicks, so well done to RP for allowing always-wrong-Ben to say something here. However RP needs to put a disclaimer next to his comments for their own credibility. NZ was and is incapable of acknowledging their opp beating them. They refused so with Ire and with Arg in 2022 and also the Boks in 2023 x 2. Nothing Ben says here holds water, NZ attacked backwards, except when Kolisi and Kolbe was off And cyncialy took out Bongi, we played without lineouts for 75mins. Kolisi and Kurt-Lee almost scored twice. Thats 3 vs 2 for Boks, but the Boks opportunities was legal. Boks should have been 16-3 up by half time. Tacticaly the Boks attacked better defended better scrummed better (without a hooker) kicked better and crossed the whitewash more times. Boks beat Fr Eng Nz to win in 23, comeon give some credit at least. Even Federer Verstappen NY Mets, Mamoa, was able to see a great human sport achievement by the Boks and their DNA Boks #RWC27 !🏉
193 Go to commentsForget the 85kg bit, that can become something else. However I do like the one off test on ANZAC day idea. SR plays Fri/ Sat, test players travel Sunday and the squads have the full week together before playing Saturday. Rest of SR has a week off. Either involve women's teams in same location or in the other country and rotate annually. Herbert is right in that change is needed.
3 Go to commentsI’ve read loads of nonsense before but this article takes the cake. Or perhaps someone changed the date for April Fool's Day.
3 Go to commentsReally Rugbypass? Ben Smith I think you forgot what the Springboks did to the All Blacks at Twickenham 8 weeks earlier? Springboks 35 All Blacks 7. There is alot of ifs and buts in your article. The All Blacks threw the sink at the Springboks and unfortunately they were not good enough regardless if they played with 14 men or not. It was the Springboks who forced the All Blacks to make mistakes! Sorry but not Sorry the Springboks is the best ever Rugby World Cup Nation in the world. 4 Cups baby!
193 Go to comments