Scott Robertson has solidified his All Blacks team strategy, focusing on a powerful forward pack.
The team prioritises destructive scrummaging, dominant tackling and explosive ball carrying with a mix of size and skill.
Simon Parker’s inclusion adds strength, offering options against teams like South Africa, France, and England.
There’s no doubt that Scott Robertson, after a year of never appearing quite sure who he wanted to do what, has now developed a firm idea of what his best team looks like.
Having made just one change to the All Blacks starting team to play Argentinain Buenos Aires and a bit of injury-enforced shuffling on the bench, there is a definite sense that the coaching group have a confidence in their strategy that they never did last year.
Their team selections, while not consistent in specific personnel week-to-week, do align with a broader template that has tangible themes.
Once Tyrel Lomax has recovered from surgery, and Wallace Sititi and Tamaiti Williams – both in the match-day 23 for Buenos Aires and both making their first test appearances of the year – are more advanced in their match sharpness, there will be an identified and trusted pool of powerful, mobile, technically proficient forwards who can be set-up with minor personnel variations to suit the occasion.
The All Blacks are clearly building a pack whose primary focus is on the core elements of destructive scrummaging, accurate and varied lineout work, dominant tackling and explosive ball carrying and building a powerful driving maul.
Robertson has talked all year about wanting to play at a fast tempo, with a mindset of keeping the ball alive to increase the aerobic content.
Scott Robertson wants his All Blacks side to operate at a high tempo. Photo / SmartFrame
But while it would be unfair and untrue to say the pack he’s picked this week – and more broadly this year – doesn’t have the skill-set or athleticism to deliver that brief, their real strength lies in their set-piece power and ball-carrying crunch.
It is, albeit by a small margin, a pack that is more anaerobic than aerobic, and it says something that Scott Barrett and Ardie Savea are the two smallest athletes in the back five.
The selection of new cap Simon Parker – 1.97m and 119kg – has given the All Blacks their biggest No 8 in professional history, and he’s playing in a back-row that includes converted lock Tupou Vaa’i, who at 1.98m and 118kg, is most likely the largest blindside the All Blacks have ever picked.
When everyone is fit, the All Blacks will likely have a settled starting tight five of Williams, Codie Taylor, Lomax, Holland and Barrett, with Vaa’i the preferred six and Savea the preferred seven.
If Parker, who was relentless throughout Super Rugby in terms of his ball carrying, cleanout, and work rate, can transition his portfolio to the test arena, then the All Blacks will have a suite of options on how they can set up their loose trio.
Parker, who has been labelled “intimidating” by Robertson, brings the body shape and technical accuracy that the All Blacks may feel they need at No 8 against muscular sides such as South Africa, France, England and Ireland.
With him and Vaa’i in combination, the All Blacks have two destructive tacklers who can stop ball carriers dead, and two athletes with the power to smash over the gainline – high-value currencies in the high-stakes collision world of test rugby.
It also, significantly, gives the All Blacks four genuine options with which to pressure and attack opposition lineouts, and if nothing else, having four men the size of Holland, Barrett, Parker and Vaa’i simply standing there, is enough to heighten the anxiety of any opposition thrower.
The alternative to this super-sized combination is starting with Sititi at No 8 – and using his all-court game in tandem with Savea to enable the All Blacks to play with greater width and a higher tempo, confident they have the ability to recycle and protect possession at the far reaches of the field.
He’s quick, mobile and gifted and like Savea, he’s capable of playing both in the maelstrom and on the fringes.
It’s not that the All Blacks would look at playing one style with Parker at No 8 and another if Sititi starts there, but there would be a subtle shift in emphasis depending on which selection gets made.
The All Blacks have not yet strung together the sort of 80-minute, destructive, cohesive performance they dream of delivering.
But they have shown a consistency of selection that aligns with their general vision, and clearly demonstrates that the coaches have learned that the tenet of test rugby being won and lost upfront rings as true today as it always has.
