Scott Robertson’s All Blacks aim to balance speed with accuracy for effective gameplay.
The team have improved forward depth, enabling stronger performances against power teams like South Africa.
Concerns remain about the backs’ depth, with key players’ fitness critical to success.
One season and one series into the Scott Robertson era, and the All Blacks continue to be more blurred shapes and fuzzy outlines than they do sharp lines and clear pictures.
The big hope is that Robertson knows what he’s drawing, and that if he’d really wanted to,he could have fronted the media after the All Blacks’ 29-19 win in Hamilton to clinch the series, adopted a knowing grin and asked: “Can you tell what it is yet?”
Presumably he knows what he wants this team to be, and it’s more nuanced than his consistent and primary message of “fast”, which he offered throughout the last three weeks.
There has to be more to his vision, because one undeniable finding to come out of the French series is that his All Blacks are most effective when they play at a tempo that is in equilibrium with their skillset execution and game understanding.
All Blacks captain Scott Robertson is seeking speed and accuracy from his side. Photo / Alyse Wright
When they tried to move the point of attack at breakneck speed and generate a kind of speed-induced chaos, they just got chaos, and their attacking shape disintegrated a few times, most notably in the second test in Wellington when they opted to quickly tap penalties to keep the French running.
Robertson may need to run a split narrative where he continues to externally promote his desire to see a fast game to encourage officials to stamp out the inevitable time-wasting that is part and parcel of the international game, but tone that down internally to ensure the focus is more heavily on combining speed with accuracy.
There is a sweet spot somewhere – a magical overlap in the Venn diagram - where the All Blacks can use the sharpness of their pass and catch, their dynamic ball-carrying, instinctive ability to exploit space and raw athleticism all at a speed and intensity that forces the power teams such as South Africa to go into oxygen debt.
There’s a sense that this brand of aerobic, innovative, smart and destructive rugby is not far from breaking out, primarily because the past three weeks have delivered a strong body of evidence to believe that the All Blacks now have a depth of forwards who are purpose-built for the confrontational world of international rugby where collision and set piece are the only real, hard currencies.
Unlike last year, when the All Blacks were only able to hold their own for 55 minutes against South Africa before everything was blown up by the arrival of the “Bomb Squad”, now they seemingly have the depth and quality in their tight five to go the full 80 minutes.
Fabian Holland has been the find of the season so far and Tupou Vaa’i’s encouraging forays at blindside, combined with the solid work of Patrick Tuipulotu, has given the All Blacks the potential to include all three of them, and captain Scott Barrett, in their preferred match-day 23 and fight size with size, but with a quartet that are frighteningly mobile and comfortable with the ball.
Tamaiti Williams is still to return from injury and when he and Tyrel Lomax are fit, the All Blacks will be able to inject Ethan de Groot and Fletcher Newell off the bench and potentially continue the new trend of winning scrum penalties in the final quarter.
Weaponising their scrum in the final quarter has been the Springboks’ trump card in recent seasons, but it’s a trick the All Blacks may now also be able to nullify.
The ease with which Kirifi Du’Plessis has graduated to the test arena and the knowledge that Wallace Sititi is on track to return for the Rugby Championship has deepened the talent pool at loose forward – and potentially the only disappointment on that front was the inability to take a look at the injured Chiefs prospect Simon Parker, who may be the long-term preference ahead of Samipeni Finau.
But maybe the bigger game-changer has been the arrival of Bryn Evans as a specialist lineout coach. The former Hurricanes and London Irish lock has not only improved the accuracy and quality of the lineout, his arrival paved the way for assistant coach Jason Ryan to focus more heavily on the scrum.
It felt that Ryan was perhaps being stretched too thin at times last year, and having had his brief tightened has resulted in an increase in the scrummaging horsepower and improved maul defence.
What equally became clear, however, during the French series is that the All Blacks don’t have the same depth in their backs, and that they are heavily reliant now on ensuring Cam Roigard, Beauden and Jordie Barrett and Will Jordan all stay fit.
Halfback Cam Roigard is key to Scott Robertson's plans for the All Blacks. Photo / SmartFrame
These four are critical to the fortunes of the All Blacks, because Roigard brings an attacking dimension none of his halfback peers can match, Beauden Barrett is head and shoulders the best game manager in the country, Jordie Barrett has the unmatched ability to be both battering room and tactical general, and Jordan is the best back-field operator.
It’s not clear yet who the two best wings are and whether Billy Proctor is the right choice to persevere with at centre – although he probably is – and there is a defined sense that the All Blacks will continue to be in the market for more outside back options, be it getting Caleb Clarke back into top form, recalling the just-returned-from-France Leicester Fainga’anuku or elevating one from a promising cluster that includes Leroy Carter, Chay Fihaki or Caleb Tangitau.
In time, it is likely that speed will become the All Blacks’ great differentiator. That they will learn the art of being able to attack accurately at a tempo that breaks defences.
But for the next six tests, their ambition needs to be tempered by the realisation that they don’t yet have the intuitive understanding of their attack patterns, and the instinctive skillset execution that comes with familiarity, to be playing an all-out pass and run game.
