'Call a spade a spade': Sonny Bill Williams says current All Blacks don't like pressure

Former All Blacks midfielder Sonny Bill Williams says that the current day All Blacks team “don’t like it” when faced with pressure at the international level.

After they let three possible wins go during the Rugby Championship with late fades in the final quarter, Williams believes that they “struggle” when the going gets tough.

He believes it comes from the style of play in Super Rugby Pacific where scoring as many tries as possible is the modus operandi where defences are not as tight as the  international level.

“It’s a good question, I feel like you build that DNA just through winning games,” Williams told Off The Ball.

“We were very fortunate to have the squad that we had in that era, and South Africa have that now.

“It’s a hard one but I feel that New Zealand, the All Blacks, if we are going to call a spade a spade, when the going gets tough, when the microscope is put heavily on them, they don’t like to feel the pressure.

“We like to blow teams away at the minute, it’s kind of like that Super Rugby style of play. The way your leading, playing well, everything is free flowing and things are comfortable as a rugby player.

“But as soon as the heat comes on, as soon as that battle intensifies, and we’ve seen it. Like you said, three out of the last six games, that last 20 minute period when the heat is on, we’re struggling and falling away.”

The solution according to the former All Black is to change the way they use the bench to fight “power with power”.

The top two ranked nations, Ireland and South Africa, routinely select less than three backs on their bench, while the All Blacks have stayed true to their formula.

“I try and look at the things from an open perspective. We can’t just blow teams away anymore,” Williams said.

“We’ve got to look at what the greatest teams in the world at the moment are doing, what’s Ireland doing, what’s South Africa doing?

“Example, the Bomb Squad, they’ve been putting no backs on the bench, these guys are crazy. Well, how about we meet power with power?

“We’ve got Beauden Barrett that can play a few different positions, we’ve got Rieko Ioane who can slide onto the wing.

“How about we mix it up and put Dalton Papali’i on the bench? We should be carrying an extra forward. We’ve got the depth, we’ve got the talent, I just feel like the coaches need to accept that we are not where we once were.

“We’ve got to fight power with power, test the waters so to speak.”