LONG READ Will the real All Blacks please stand up?

There has, rightly, been some fan critiquing of the rugby media in New Zealand in recent weeks – a fair accusation made that one week the All Blacks are hailed as being on the verge of greatness, the next, they are written off as hopeless.

In defence of the media, the All Blacks have been impossibly difficult to assess in 2025 – they weren’t much easier to get a handle on last year either – because they have been so hot and cold.
They play well one week, regress a little the next and even within games that they have won, they fluctuate from looking cohesive and fluid to being all over the place.

Their results have been moderate by historic standards under head coach Scott Robertson – prior to the two Test series against South Africa the All Blacks were sitting on 14 wins from 19 games – but not so bad as to kill all hope of the team finding a higher level of consistency to their performance.

The picture was confused but the weight of evidence supported an optimistic forecast about the potential, and so there has always been this expectation that consistency is coming: that a good All Blacks side playing to a high standard every test is waiting to breakout.

The strongest basis for thinking this is the quality of the All Blacks playing personnel. The 2025 crew may not stand comparison with the best sides of the past, but they are hardly without talent.
Ardie Savea is arguably the best player in the world, Tyrel Lomax would be widely considered – certainly in 2023 – one of the best tightheads in the business, Beauden Barrett has twice been world player of the year, and Will Jordan is one of the deadliest finishers in history.

Throw in the emerging Cam Roigard, the growing presence of Tupou Vaa’i and the all-round playbook of Jordie Barrett, and it’s undeniable that New Zealand has a core of players as good as any other team in the world.

And while their coaching and wider management team is relatively inexperienced, again, there was ample reason to believe in them.

Robertson had won seven straight Super Rugby titles with the Crusaders before he was appointed to the All Blacks. Some have said that anyone could have done that given the available talent, but that’s kind of the point, the Crusaders didn’t win a title between 2009 and 2016 – with an even more gifted group.

Robertson cleaned out huge swathes of the All Blacks’ previous regime – bringing in not only a new coaching group, but new medical staff, physios, conditioners and analysts – so the media have been willing to be patient and accept that it will take time for people to find their feet.

The stage appeared to be set for the All Blacks to double down in Wellington and build on what they delivered at Eden Park.

When the All Blacks beat South Africa at Eden Park in the first encounter, it did genuinely feel like it may have been a breakthrough a moment.

The Springboks were the nut the All Blacks couldn’t crack in 2024 and so to be able to hold up against them physically in Auckland, (albeit the scrum was shaky), attack their lineout and play with more intensity and structure for long enough to win 24-17, carried the appearance of being a turning point.

The stage appeared to be set for the All Blacks to double down in Wellington and build on what they delivered at Eden Park.

It was their chance to show they could back-up a good performance with a good performance and fall into that routine so many of their predecessors have, of being able to play well regardless of opposition or occasion.

It was going to be the game in which Robertson’s All Blacks came of age – the point in this World Cup cycle where they started to find themselves and add layers to their game.

For the All Blacks to then collapse the way they did and tumble to a record defeat in the capital has left everyone flabbergasted at the scale of their regression in just sevens days.

But, on the plus side, it has at least cleaned up any doubt about the direction of travel. This up and down pattern from the All Blacks is not a precursor to them blossoming into a great team but is in fact simply who they are and likely to be for the foreseeable future – inconsistent, unpredictable and stuck on the 70 per cent success ratio they have posted since 2024.

The Eden Park victory, it can now be seen, had more to do with the Springboks picking the wrong team and playing poorly than it did the All Blacks finding a new groove.

As former All Blacks captain Kieran Read said on Sky Sport after seeing the 43-10 hammering in Wellington: “You have to look at that All Blacks side, okay something isn’t right there, there’s something within that group when you are able to just leak and leak, where’s that spine we want to see?.”

Who could say he’s wrong? It was unprecedented to see an All Blacks team implode in such a dramatic fashion – the scrum was crushed, the lineout malfunctioned, the defence opened up and no one could catch a high ball.

I’ll take full responsibility for my area in the set piece. We pride ourselves on that and we weren’t up to standard.

Jason Ryan, All Blacks forwards coach

On top of that, some of the decision-making went awry too – Damian McKenzie strangely trying to kick pass on the run when there was a three-man overlap and Billy Proctor throwing an intercept pass to Cheslin Kolbe.

“We had a bit of a meltdown with a couple of decisions under pressure, couldn’t get any rhythm and they got away on us in that second half,” forwards coach Jason Ryan said in a radio interview with ZB the day after the loss.

“We lost timing in our set piece as well and that’s on me. I’ll take responsibility for that.

“We missed a couple of lineouts at key times. In the scrum, they won three penalties to our two, so they had the edge there.

“I’ll take full responsibility for my area in the set piece. We pride ourselves on that and we weren’t up to standard.”

With so many items on the fix-it list it’s clearly not wise to hold expectations about how the rest of the season will play out for the All Blacks, but it is worth pointing out that there are obvious solutions to some of their issues that they should be able to sort out ahead of their Bledisloe Cup campaign that starts on September 27 at Eden Park before heading to Perth the week after.

Some of the dramas the All Blacks experienced at scrum time could relate to the lack of rugby Lomax has played this year. He missed long periods of Super Rugby, spent another six weeks injured after the French series in July and looked tired 30 minutes after starting in Wellington.

When he’s at his best the All Blacks scrum is usually at its best, and presumably the key to improvement lies with getting him more minutes rather than any major overhaul?

The lineout malfunctioned after hooker Samisoni Taukei’aho was subbed after 55 minutes and Brodie McAlister came on, and without being overly harsh, didn’t throw with the requisite precision.
It was that simple – and with the vastly experienced Codie Taylor set to return from a concussion lay-off, maybe that’s the guts of the lineout issue sorted.

The problems under the high ball could be improved by injecting Caleb Clarke on the right wing as he’s easily the best catcher in the squad.

The return of Roigard – who hasn’t played since the French series – will give the All Blacks better ability to play wider as he poses a running threat to fix defenders around the ruck, and is also in a different class to Fin Christie – who played most of the series against South Africa – at clearing the ball quickly and accurately.

The problems under the high ball could be improved by injecting Caleb Clarke on the right wing as he’s easily the best catcher in the squad.

That shift would enable Jordan to return to fullback and in one other twist, it’s arguably time for Leicester Fainga’anuku to replace Proctor at centre.

The latter has had a decent run in the jersey but hasn’t been able to bring the same slick distribution or astute defence to the All Blacks as he does with the Hurricanes.

There is a lot to fix, but some of the solutions are easy to implement and should have an immediate impact.

But no one should be fooled into making any proclamations about the trajectory of the All Blacks if they use the sting of their record loss and the desire to protect their record at Eden Park to secure the Bledisloe Cup.

The chances are that defeat will follow in Perth because that’s the patter this All Blacks team is locked into and doesn’t seem to have the answers yet about how to break free from it.