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Stephen Donald's three takeaways from close All Blacks contest
By Henry Lee
As the All Blacks head into their third match of the end-of-year Northern Tour against Ireland, they will be reviewing what was a brutal Test match against familiar foes England.
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Scott Robertson and his side were fully aware of what threat England was going to pose, having played the “Red Roses” twice in July at home, winning both encounters narrowly.
Former All Black and host of SENZ’s Run Home afternoon radio show Stephen Donald appeared on Sky Sports Breakdown to discuss his takeaways from the Test match.
The 23-Test match first five thought the kicking tactics of Robertson’s side improved on the weekend.
“Last week we talked about how we got caught in a box kickathon, in those first two Test matches in New Zealand, essentially we played a slow game and we didn’t get to put our game and break up the game, essentially playing into England’s hands.
“But I thought Beauden Barrett’s first 25 minutes shaped the way that the game was gonna unfold and broke the game up.
“Beauden will always go to a cross-kick if it’s available to him, quite often they went out to Tele’a on the contestable bombs, again Beauden trying to get the ball out to the wide channels, all this is doing is trying to put some doubt in this blitz defence.”
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Northern Hemisphere teams have continuously put the All Blacks under pressure in recent Test matches with their quick blitz defence that gives the first receiver another thing to think about.
The rush defence has been prevalent in games against the All Blacks since the 2017 British and Irish Lions tour that first used it against New Zealand.
“It’s not coming up with the same pace that it has in the past, and by doing that, it’s sowing seeds of doubt, guys are shooting out of the line, not together,” Donald said on England’s rush defence.
Over the years of trying to counter the outside-in rush defence system, the All Blacks have tested different attacking patterns to reduce the effectiveness of the rush defence.
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Donald noticed a change in how the All Blacks use their halfback and first five in attacking positions.
“There was a change this time around, a lot off 9, however where I thought we got ourselves in trouble with the off 9 stuff is we went back and forth and we weren’t getting any momentum from it as we essentially all we were doing was running ourselves back into the same forward that got himself off the ground.
“There’s not much pressure on the English forwards, and it wasn’t until later on in the game where we decided to go down the wide channels.
“But when you can get down the wide channels off momentum, like what we saw with the Will Jordan try and the match-winner with Tele’a, it was guys going down and getting one-on-ones with footwork, and not just feeding the forwards in the middle of the park.”
With the rush defence being used by England from set pieces, there was many chances for the All Blacks to go out the back and spread the ball wide.
Donald pointed out that off most of New Zealand’s set pieces, the pass to the front runner was often used instead of the person out the back.
“With a lot of our play, it was all about hitting the front man because the blitz is coming.
“We were all about the front runner because we were going to beat the blitz tonight by going through them, I was just a bit surprised that we had two or three more scrums in similar situations, where clearly we were hooking their midfield, getting their wide winger to chase, but we didn’t go out the back at all which I was surprised we didn’t make the adjustment.”
I like Stephen Donald's perspective on the Breakdown. He is observant and sees what is happening. I agree that the lack of adjustment to tight defenses has been frustrating for AB supporters. Going out the back in order to get wide is a missing key. BB was varying his kicks to some degree of success but that is not the only tool. Hopefully, the AB attack coach is paying heed.