'Worried': Justin Marshall flags concern for Dave Rennie after Stormers clash

Former All Black halfback Justin Marshall believes there are multiple areas of concern for Dave Rennie after their 17-point triumph over the Stormers in Cape Town.

Rennie and the All Blacks overcame a physical challenge by the United Rugby Championship side on Saturday morning NZT, where they were put under enormous amounts of pressure on several fronts.

The All Blacks were penalised and yellow-carded on multiple occasions by English referee Karl Dickson, which highlighted areas where Rennie’s side must improve before the four-Test series against the Springboks.

Marshall, who is on the ground in Durban ahead of the second match of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour, told Sky Sport that the All Blacks will be aware of the specific areas they need to improve on.

“Look at the end of the day, they’ll be really worried about how the set piece functioned, and that affects the front row, doesn’t it?

“You know, the fact that they went into the game knowing that the Stormers, the URC, they had the best stats out of that competition in maul and scrum, so the All Blacks knew that they would bring that, but yet they still couldn’t combat it very well.

“We got on the receiving end of both of those challenges throughout the game, so that’ll be a concern for the All Blacks, and that then puts pressure on individuals.

Marshall also added the high-ball part of the contest as a work on, after the All Blacks struggled to contain the Stormers’ aerial kicking game.

“You know, equally, the aerial game probably not as dominant as what we would have been, and as accurate. So the All Blacks will look at that because they’ll know that there’s going to be a lot of that coming.

“Particularly also when you get to the Test matches, and you need to get that area right.”

There were standout performers, though, according to Marshall, pinpointing performances from Josh Jacomb, Fabian Holland, and Peter Lakai as positives from the Stormers clash.

“So question marks will be around that. But there were some key guys out there and some great performances. A lot of them off the bench, I thought Josh Jacomb, when he came on, was really mature and had a real impact on the game.

“Guys like Peter Lakai really fronted up. Fabian Holland, how good was he, having not played a lot of rugby, and equally you can just see the balance of that side and players that hadn’t played a lot.

“They hadn’t had a lot of minutes, and we spoke about that before the game. So look, kind of a mixed bag in there, but ultimately at the end of the day, they still had to work their way through adversity against a team that was on their heels, coming at them hard.

“They were in the hurt locker a little bit at stages, but they still comfortably won it, and I’m sure that’s what pleased Dave Rennie because they’ll get a lot of that throughout this tour.”