Kapiti’s Dane Coles shines in black
The All Blacks’ dominance in world rugby is summed up by one man, Dane Coles.
The skills of the All Blacks hooker were on full display on Saturday night in their 41-13 win over the Springboks.
He played major roles in three of the All Blacks’ six tries with passes that any midfield back would be proud of.
Most hookers would have pinned their ears back, charged at the line and been stopped short.
But not Coles. He had the vision and the awareness to know the pass was need. Then he displayed the ball skills needed to get it to his man.
There are midfielders running around international football who would not have been able to achieve what he did.
Coles could slot in for many teams if you inserted a one in front of the No 2 on his back.
And that is where the All Blacks have pulled away from the rest of the field. There are no specialist players who only do grunt work or are only there as attacking threats. Every player can do every role. While most teams find the smaller numbers halt their attacks, many times players in those positions offer the All Blacks’ attack some extra spark. It works on defence as well.
There is no such thing as a mismatch for the Kiwi defence which makes it hard to crack.
South Africa had few answers for the All Blacks and relied too much on individuals rather than
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a team approach.
Unsurprisingly Bryan Habana was virtually unemployed on attack aside from his try.
They are missing the powerful forwards like Schalk Burger, Bakkies Botha and Victor Matfield who used to allowed them to control the breakdown.
Those players forced the All Blacks to allocate more players to each ruck and that hurt their attack.
Ultimately, the Springboks gave the All Blacks what has become their standard match. They stuck with them for 60 minutes but then fell away.
It now seems unlikely that they will lose a test in 2016 and as long as New Zealand rugby keep produce players with the talent of Coles, they will remain on the top of the world.