Watching the game last night - in what felt like a freezer in Wellington - I think the All Blacks coaches would have seen a few more of the ingredients they need for their World Cup starting team; mainly form players and high work rates. Last week they went through
Richard Loe: Every test is now also a trial
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Ali Williams is not up to his best. Photo / Getty Images
Looking at the opposition and seeing their limited capabilities; it was a messy first half that verged on boring. The try the Springboks scored shouldn't have happened, just like the two Fiji picked up last week. I know it's still a way out from the World Cup but these are test matches and there's still tidying up to do.
I wasn't overly impressed with the set piece either. I thought the All Blacks scrummaged well but the Springboks weren't particularly aggressive. We did okay in the lineouts but if we were meant to be so much better and the Springboks so poor then I'd like to have seen more dominance. If they've got 22 people at a rehabilitation camp or whatever it's called, their first XV is going to be a lot better.
In fact it's amazing how we look at the World Cup now. Nothing would have got in the way of it, say two tournaments ago, but all three countries are now using it as a warm-up which makes you wonder whether these matches should be awarded test status.
As for the new jersey, well, someone said "it's quite retro" but I don't mind that. It's a fairly short white collar but I've got no issues. It's not slapping the face of tradition. The same goes for when someone asked me about the coloured boots last week. They said we've never done that before and I assured them we had. Even before I was an All Black, adidas came out with fluorescent stripes. Gary Knight and John Ashworth wore those sorts of boots for goodness sake and no one would've given them too much stick. From memory the forwards had luminous green stripes and the backs had orange ones. I think Fiji came out here years ago in white boots, too. It's nothing revolutionary.