Scott Robertson’s All Blacks struggled against Argentina, highlighting issues with discipline.
The team lost three players to yellow cards, impacting their performance significantly.
Robertson’s side need to improve their kicking game and backline strategies ahead of facing South Africa.
It may be, borrowing Sir Steve Hansen’s quote, that the second test against the Pumas was Scott Robertson’s “dunny” moment. As in, the flushing of.
Hansen came up with that elegant phrase to describe moving on after a poor performance when the All Blacks struggled to beat Italyback in 2009. Robertson’s charges looked a bit like Sir Graham Henry’s All Blacks that day (Hansen was then the assistant coach) – uncertain, physically matched, error-laden and lacking penetration.
These days, a loss to Argentina is not the signal for the handwringing, wailing and cries for blood that normally accompany an All Blacks loss to a supposedly lesser side – who have now beaten the team with the best-test-win record in the business four times out of the last seven.
It’s all part of the great levelling which has occurred in the modern game, thanks to the field catching up but also the influence of the complex rules, the refereeing of the same and player safety concerns.
The All Blacks, let’s not hide it, were pretty bloody awful against a committed Argentina. These days, a test can swing on minute detail – so losing three players to yellow cards for piffling offences was a major blow. All those cards, have no doubt, were justified.
The ref, Nic Berry, is well-known. Berry knows all the rules in the rugby handbook – and often seems to apply them all in one game. He is aided by assistant refs and the television match official (TMO); there is no escape.
The All Blacks know full well the importance of playing to the ref, particularly that kind of ref, with penalties flowing faster than Donald Trump’s misinformation.
Jordie Barrett expresses frustration on the way to All Blacks' defeat against Argentina, in buenos Aires. Photo / Photosport
Apart from discipline, the major concerns are the kicking and kick-receiving game and a lack of attacking creativity in a backline that looks short of answers. The right players are already in Robertson’s squad, so you’d have to say the rest is down to coaching and player accuracy.
Which is why I believe the Pumas test could be an aberration. You’d imagine the All Blacks will be much more in sync for South Africa. One of the big reasons: the Boks are looking shaky themselves.
Those two tests against the Wallabies were remarkable. The first began with the Boks looking like world champions – snorting, pawing bulls thundering at frightened schoolboys. Thirty-eight unanswered points later, the Boks often looked like tired old past-its as the Aussies ran around them.
In the second test, the Boks reverted to their keep-it-tight, kick-the-goals tradition but the Wallabies could have, and should have, won.
That they didn’t was down to two errors from 35-year-old first five-eighths James O’Connor; a shame, as he otherwise had a fine match. However, the Boks look startlingly like World Cup champions on the way down, even recognising the Wallabies’ major improvement.
So what do the All Blacks have to do? It’s a reflex action but you’d hope the coaching will emphasise the peril of the attempted intercept. Tupou Vaa’i and Sevu Reece were yellow-carded for batting down Pumas passes, Reece’s a particularly absurd attempt. Rule No 1: don’t go for the intercept. Rule No 2: if you overlook Rule No 1, use two hands.
Talking about Vaa’i, the limitations of posting a lock on the blindside flank were seen in the Pumas’ winning try. No 8 Pablo Matera peeled off the scrum and charged, running a curve. The blindside flanker has responsibility for that 5-10m area on that side – but Vaa’i, mobile though he is, got nowhere near Matera until too late.
Blindside defence has always been the Achilles heel of playing a lock at No 6, but that will likely be less of a problem against the bigger, slower Boks.
However, it must be said the forwards are going pretty well at scrum, lineout and – when not being out-passioned – at the breakdown. As for the backs, one question playing in my head as I watched the backline struggle to use what ball they managed to get was: are they missing former backs coach Leon McDonald? They look uncertain, muddled.
Any reasonable person would suggest that Rieko Ioane and Reece have played their last tests – for now anyway – on the wings. However, no one knows how close Caleb Clarke is to returning, a bloke who had a poor Super Rugby Pacific season and who’s been injured for ages. He at least has experience but playing the world champions with no rugby under his belt? Same goes for potential debutant Leroy Carter.
They may inject Emoni Narawa now – but we may also be stuck with Ioane and Reece if the selectors resist (as they should) shifting Will Jordan to wing. Beauden Barrett is needed at No 10; Damian McKenzie is not the answer to the high ball at fullback. Jordie Barrett? Maybe.
The All Blacks brains trust will have noticed the success the Wallabies had turning the Boks around, including little kicks behind the rush defence. South Africa, however, are the best aerial team in the world; they will have relished New Zealand’s glaring inability under the high ball.
So the solution is maybe not to kick the ball to the opposition so much – and I think the All Blacks will revert to their helter-skelter, get-it-wide approach against the Boks, not the more direct, up-the-middle stuff against the Pumas. Didn’t work – and seems unlikely to work against the Boks.
Paul Lewis writes about rugby, cricket, league, football, yachting, golf, the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.
