A creaking scrum. A concerning final-quarter collapse. Familiar discipline lapses and fresh aerial issues. This is the daunting list of problem areas the Herald’s chief rugby correspondent, Liam Napier, picked out after the All Blacks’ first-ever Rugby World Cup group stage defeat to France over theweekend.
Napier is in France with Herald sports reporter Gregor Paul, who isn’t filled with confidence about the All Blacks’ prospects either. “The last 20 minutes in Paris were so patchy and ill-disciplined as to provide only the most tentative and fragile confidence that the All Blacks can rebuild themselves as the country’s North Star,” Paul wrote on Sunday.
Time for a debrief. We asked Napier and Paul to join NZME’s editor-at-large Shayne Currie for a live discussion about the All Blacks’ campaign so far, the wider competition, and what it’s like to be on the ground in France.
Got questions for our panel? Submit them here and we’ll pass on as many as our team can tackle in the time they have.
Thanks for your questions. We’ve booked Liam Napier for a live Q&A on Friday morning - if the panel didn’t get to yours in this discussion, look out for it there.
