Opening up game ABs’ top priority
There’s been plenty of commentary about what All Blacks coach Steve Hansen should and shouldn’t be worried about in these opening rounds of Super Rugby.
It’s World Cup year, so every dropped ball, missed conversion and groin tweak will perhaps be over-analysed and given greater meaning than it deserves.
Everyone it seems is looking for reasons to be worried — hunting for parallels to draw with previous World Cup years and therefore have an evidential basis, however tenuous, to support their argument.
Most of it, however, has been an exercise in filling column inches and air waves and veered more towards entertaining than valid.
Look back to any World Cup year and there will be great stories that don’t provide proof of anything other than sport is marvellously unpredictable and heart-warming and heart-breaking in equal measure.
Cory Jane was a shambles for the Hurricanes throughout 2011 and then quite magnificent for the All Blacks at the World Cup.
The same was true of Ma’a Nonu. He came into the World Cup that year having been fired by the Hurricanes and without certainty about his Super Rugby future, and yet there he was, rock solid for the All Blacks throughout the tournament.
In contrast, Mils Muliaina was looking relatively sharp and eager with the Chiefs only to be displaced at fullback by Israel Dagg, who missed most of Super Rugby due to injury and then set the World Cup alight.
Individual form in March is no indicator of anything really and nor is there any reason to be worried that a bad collective campaign by one of the Super Rugby sides will have a detrimental impact on the All Blacks.
There is no better example of that than the All Blacks-laden Crusaders, failing in 2015 for the only time in the past 17 years to make the playoffs.
That was a disaster by their standards but the core of that team were also the core of the All Blacks side that surged so magnificently in the last three weeks of the World Cup.
Which is why, presumably, whoever wrote that the All Blacks’ World Cup campaign is hanging by a thread because the Chiefs have started so badly is simply in need of a lie down and a cup of tea.
The All Blacks campaign would be hanging by a thread if in the next few weeks Kieran Read is abducted by aliens, Beauden Barrett and Aaron Smith run off to Mexico together, and Ben Smith, Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock all pack it in to become organic berry farmers.
Until then, or until the All Blacks are 20 points down to Ireland in a quarter-final with 10 minutes remaining, it’s probably best not to hunt so hard for a headline.
But there might, or at least there should be, one thing troubling Hansen and his coaching team. It should actually be bothering just about everyone interested in seeing New Zealand rugby preserve its place as the world’s leading rugby nation.
And that’s the continued lack of strategic innovation and skill execution to manipulate and exploit space in the face of fastmoving defences.
Since the Lions were here two years ago, it seems that New Zealand players have lost the art of finding space on the field when they are confronted by defensivelyminded opponents.
New Zealand Super Rugby sides have enjoyed incredible success against Australian teams largely because the Aussies approach the game with a similar mindset to take risks and attack.
That’s true of tests between the All Blacks and Wallabies. It’s not that they don’t value defence, more that they are willing to let the game open up so as they can play off turnovers and run against broken defences.
But mostly every other major international team these days builds their game plan around their defence and a conservative attacking plan.
That’s creeping into Super Rugby as well and New Zealand sides aren’t adapting quickly or cleverly.
In 2016, New Zealand’s sides were on a different level with their skill execution and vision.
Super Rugby was being dominated by the creativity of the likes of Barrett, Damian McKenzie, Ben Smith, Anton Lienert-Brown, TJ Perenara and Ardie Savea.
No one could shut down the best New Zealand sides because they had too many ways to break the defence.
That’s not been the case so far this year, as mostly the rugby produced by New Zealand’s teams has been error-ridden and clunky. It has lacked imagination.
And that’s what might have Hansen a little concerned: this continued inability of New Zealand teams to structure an 80-minute performance where they find ways to play through or around the rush defence.