All Blacks report card: Grading the All Blacks’ chances of World Cup success

Sevu Reece and George Bower have both been ruled out of the Rugby World Cup. Photo / Photosport

Phil Gifford writes an All Blacks report card as we count down the 19 weeks until they face France in Paris in the opening game of the World Cup.

Mixed with the nightmares last year were signs of promise, and a B could jump to an A quickly at the World Cup.

What counts at international level is improving tactically every year. There’s huge computer analysis available to coaches now and the All Blacks have Joe Schmidt, recognised internationally as a deep rugby thinker and innovator, who will no doubt, with others in the coaching team, be poring over every move World Cup opponents have made in the last two seasons, and plotting counters.

Jason Ryan has charge of the forwards, where there’s been improvements in scrummaging and lineouts. Ryan has learned from the best in Mike Cron, universally acknowledged as an all-time great coach. Ryan is a man as grounded as a strainer post, who played as a stalwart prop in the Sydenham club side in Christchurch. His skills, and ability to impart them, have been a major reason for the forward dominance of the Crusaders in Super Rugby.

Joe Schmidt and Ian Foster. Photo / Photosport

Ian Foster has weathered the most invective directed at an All Blacks coach since the All Blacks were stunned and eliminated at the 2007 World Cup by France. With the appointment of Scott Robertson for next season, a weird side benefit is that public and media criticism of Foster may now just become background noise.

Foster’s role, as it is with all current test coaches, is to co-ordinate and organise the management team. The blood and thunder days of fiery speeches from the coach are now echoes of a distant past, ever since 2005 captain Tana Umaga asked a leading question of Graham Henry, “Ted, those team talks you give. Are they for us, or for you?”

Is Foster a coach who rules with fearsome energy? No. But is he the sort of collegial, hard-working man who in 2023 may draw all the All Black strands together? I think so.

In the early weeks of the last international season this would have been a C grade, but by the end of the year there were positional moves that were working, and promising new faces being introduced.

Mark down Jordie Barrett at second-five as a change for good. It never does any harm when a player’s favourite position is where the selectors are placing him.

Despite the season-ending injury to Sevu Reece, there’s now a horde of wings, from Mark Telea, to Leicester Fainga’anuku, to Shaun Stevenson, who offer impressive finishing abilities.

Great Cup sides have special players, as the best team the World Cup has produced from any country, the 2015 All Blacks, did with once in a lifetime legends, Richie McCaw and Dan Carter.

Will Jordan, who last year Foster rated as the best player in Super Rugby, could be exactly the fullback to set the backline alight. Fingers crossed his return to Super Rugby, after what must have been nightmarish issues with migraines, will be everything he and the All Blacks would want.

The exciting wild card is Damian McKenzie. Coach Foster’s made his faith in Beauden Barrett clear, but it certainly does no harm to have a firecracker like McKenzie as an alternative to the more conventional style Barrett and Richie Mo’unga offer.

Damian McKenzie is the exciting wildcard for the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport

Aaron Smith has been hugely generous about France’s halfback and captain Antoine Dupont, two years ago saying Dupont was “on another level.” Hard to argue with that summation, but Smith, even in the struggling Highlanders, looks ready now to challenge his own assessment of Dupont.

Late in the 2022 season this grade could have hit B+. After demolishing the Wallabies 40-14 at Eden Park in late September, the first 70 minutes against England at Twickenham was a masterclass by the All Blacks forwards, who dominated the scrums, and mauls. But the last 10 minutes at Twickenham was C- stuff.

Soon to be sacked England coach Eddie Jones was aiming to monster the All Blacks the way his England team had in Yokohama at the 2019 World Cup. For Twickenham in ‘22 he picked two loose forwards whose forte was making hard yards with the ball - Billy Vunipola, who weighs 130kg, and Sam Simmonds, who has the build and combative attitude of a prop.

Until the 71st minute Jones’ tactics didn’t work. The first choice All Blacks forwards found their mojo, and, as they had at Ellis Park in the 35-23 win over the Springboks, and looked ready to take on the world pace-setters, Ireland and France.

But then England went from being down 25-6, to drawing the match 25-all. How did the revival begin? With a try to replacement prop Will Stuart from a forward drive that you felt earlier in the age would have been stymied.

It’s a harsh fact the All Blacks need their best forwards to be uninjured and in form to take on the world this year, so in particular, Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock need to stay fully fit. There’s plenty of promise at lock, but the veterans are still the gold standard in the middle row.

Yes, I know. There will be those in the room who will snort with outrage at anything higher than an E.

And yes, there was the reported debacle of New Zealand Rugby offering Scott Robertson the coaching job then changing their minds. Short of setting up a camp city on the grounds of Parliament, Ian Foster could hardly have made it clearer that he was unhappy with the coach for 2023 being appointed before the 2022 World Cup was played.

But as the dust settles there are small, but promising signs. It’s clear that Robertson was given a completely free hand to choose his own coaching team. Amen to that idea.

The collaborative coaching style that took the All Blacks to World Cups in 2011 and ‘15 was based on a group of men who respected and liked each other. Behind closed door discussions, a coach from the ‘11 collective has told me, could get loud and be peppered with very strong language. But after consensus was reached there was never any lingering resentment.

Appointing Dame Patsy Reddy as NZR board chair is a wise decision. Nobody spends a successful 11 years in the 1980s shark tank of Brierley Investments without being an astute and hard-nosed businesswoman. On the other hand, I can still clearly remember the easy charm and charisma she exuded on the only occasion we’ve met, at the premiere in 2011 of “Billy T: Te Movie”, when she was chair of the New Zealand Film Commission.

It’s a tiny straw in the wind, but Reddy defused the most ludicrous issue raised by opponents to Robertson’s appointment as national coach, his on-field breakdancing. He was allowed to do so, she said with a smile after a press conference question, “only when he wins the World Cup.”

NZR chief executive Mark Robinson may have a chairperson whose advice will be hugely valuable to him as he tip-toes through the potential minefield of supporting Foster, who was basically dismissed by NZR before he had a chance to prove himself at a World Cup.