Head coach Ian Foster runs through drills during a New Zealand All Blacks training session at Bruce Pulman Park on June 25, 2021 in Auckland, New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images.
Head coach Ian Foster runs through drills during a New Zealand All Blacks training session at Bruce Pulman Park on June 25, 2021 in Auckland, New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images.
OPINION:
It won't be a moment of truth or judgement day, but the clash with Fiji in Hamilton will reveal plenty about the adaptability and resourcefulness of the All Blacks coaching group.
Fiji posed a series of hard to answer questions in the first test and now the All Blacksmust bounce back in Hamilton with all the answers.
That's how these things go. It's what coaching, in essence, is all about: the ability to effectively analyse strengths and weaknesses and adapt accordingly.
The All Blacks have long been the quick-fix masters – exposed as lacking in a specific area one week, they tend to respond with an innovative solution the next.
That ingenuity on the fly is a big part of their success. Think back over the years and the All Blacks have tended not to let problems fester.
What beats them one week is unlikely to do so the next as the All Blacks have a learn and adapt mentality which has enabled them to outsmart and beat most teams.
Think back to 2015 when they were exposed at the breakdown in the first Bledisloe in Sydney. They weren't quick enough or dynamic enough to ward off the twin threat of David Pocock and Michael Hooper.
Come the World Cup final, though, they had a detailed plan to depower the influence of those two by targeting them with their ball carrying.
Teams can catch the All Blacks cold once, not twice seems to be the rule and hence there is a need for Ian Foster's team to demonstrate in Hamilton how resourceful and adaptable they can be.
Head coach Ian Foster runs through drills during a New Zealand All Blacks training session at Bruce Pulman Park on June 25, 2021 in Auckland, New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images.
The pressure gauge, to those viewing it inside the All Blacks camp, never deviates much. It sits close to the top of the dial, seemingly oblivious to whether there is an early season test against Fiji or a season-defining clash with the Springboks looming.
The All Blacks are permanently under pressure. Expectation is their shadow and it doesn't make allowances. Winning has been a non-negotiable for the All Blacks since as far back as anyone can remember and this weekend's clash against Fiji in Hamilton is like every other in most ways bar one.
This is a significant chance for Foster and his coaching team to demonstrate that they have the capacity to troubleshoot quickly and effectively.
It's a key coaching requirement in the international arena and a quick and easy means to determine this group's readiness to deal with the season ahead where tougher challenges await.
This business works to a cycle and having seen problems arise in Dunedin on Saturday night, the onus went on the coaching staff to begin understanding those by Sunday morning, present solutions by Monday and start practically implementing new ideas by Tuesday.
A coaching team at this level lives and dies by the speed of their analysis and response. They are ultimately judged on their ability to rebuild a plan when their first attempt wasn't spot on.
We saw, to a limited extent, that Foster and his team were able to bounce back from defeat to Argentina last year. Having lost almost every key physical contest in the first test, the All Blacks were more patient, direct and confrontational in the second, posting a 38-0 victory.
As much as that was due to the coaching staff redrawing their battle plan and adapting, the dramatic turnaround also reflected, to some extent, the emotional plunge that the Pumas had suffered after such an historic victory in the previous test.
It's also true, though, that the All Blacks lacked a physical presence in their loss to the Wallabies in Brisbane last year and didn't do much, if anything to address that before they played their first test against the Pumas.
Sevu Reece of the All Blacks makes a break during the International Test Match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Fiji at Forsyth Barr Stadium. Photo / Getty Images.
In specific regard to being able to hotfoot it between tests, astutely addressing weaknesses and coming up with strategic innovations, this coaching crew have produced mixed results.
This test, then, carries some importance in that regard as it's an opportunity to swing the balance and for this coaching team to lay out their credentials and stiffen their case to be seen as a group with the collective skills to conduct running repairs.
The key task this week is for the All Blacks to find greater urgency, speed of movement and thought and greater accuracy and intensity in their ball carrying, cleanout work and tackling.
Fiji were also able to cleverly play the referee in Dunedin with Foster saying this week that he wasn't sure how their players could have been so low at so many breakdowns and yet be deemed to have been supporting their own body weight.
The expectation is that the All Blacks will have worked out how to shift them legally or how to prevent them from being able to take up such strong positions over the tackled ball.
