'Searching for that': Jason Ryan looking for set piece perfection

The All Blacks coaches don’t often settle for imperfect performances in the black jersey; this week is no different after a narrow victory over France last weekend in Dunedin.

All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson has named a relatively straightforward 23-man squad for the second Test in Wellington this weekend, featuring one debutant, Timoci Tavatavanawai, off the bench for impact.

One area where there was clear improvement in the first Test was the set piece, which All Blacks forwards coach Jason Ryan is happy with, but not fully satisfied.

Ryan joined the DSPN Podcast hosted by Martin Devlin, where Ryan explains that despite the near-perfect performance at lineout time, the numbers are still not up to scratch for an All Blacks team.

“Oh, yeah, look, we’re reasonably happy with the line out. We’re still always striving for top quality ball, and I think we’re around 67% and we see that the All Blacks standard should be around 92%, so we want to grow that,” Ryan told Devlin on the DSPN Podcast.

“The faster we can get the ball into our backs’ hands, or if we’re mauling with a little bit more dominance, I think we’re always searching for that, but we were satisfied.”

When asked about his expertise around the forward pack, Ryan explains that he feels like the All Blacks weren’t up to scratch in the opening 20 minutes in Dunedin.

“It’s where the contest has won, and to be fair, we were a little bit off in that first 20 minutes of last week, and you know that’s that part of the game that hasn’t changed at all.”

Head-to-Head

Last 5 Meetings

Wins

3

Draws

0

Wins

2

Average Points scored

29

24

First try wins

20%

Home team wins

100%

The reports are that Wellington’s Sky Stadium will pose very different conditions than last week’s game at Forsyth Barr Stadium, so Ryan believes the All Blacks will have to adjust accordingly.

“This will be a different contest completely, with potential weather forecasts being a little bit wet, and you’ve got the wind, so it’s a different game. How the Test match will be won will be in a different way and a different sort of strategy to do that.

“But Saturday, as I said before, it’s going to be a different contest. I think it’ll be a lot more collision-based, our maul defence and our scrum will need to be better and the start to play could be a little bit different this week.

“So, how you win is different, how you strategise and how you need to make sure the boys have got that understanding of our plan A, whatever that is this week, as well as the plan B.”

Ryan admits that the All Blacks may not have been as accurate around the high ball as they would have liked, so they have made the necessary adjustments to rectify it.

“The loose balls and just that real hunger to clean up the scraps, whether or not the balls are in the air, on the ground, is quite an important one.

“I think just being a little bit more connected defensively and having a little bit more speed off the line has been sort of the focus.

“When you review a game, there’s always something that you’re striving for that you’ve got to be better at and that probably you’ve been exposed a little bit, so in some of our skill execution we’ve driven that pretty hard this week around our tackle height.”