ABS’ ‘second week syndrome’
There has been a troubling little pattern emerging over the past two years that the All Blacks will want to stamp out on Saturday. Put simply, they struggle in the second week when they play the same opposition two weeks in a row.
The ‘struggle’ is in a relative sense, of course, but the stats are strong nonetheless.
In ‘second week’ matches against the Wallabies, British and Irish Lions and France since 2016, the points swing towards the opposition averages 18.5 points.
If that plays out this weekend, the All Blacks would win by seven points and the conversation would move to how the Wallabies restored their pride and closed the gap. A week is such a long time in test football.
So why do the All Blacks have these issues?
First, let’s take a look at the results that underpin the ‘second week syndrome’.
In 2016, the All Blacks smashed the Wallabies 42-8 in Sydney and then won 29-9 in Wellington the following week.
In 2017, they hammered the Wallabies 54-34 in Sydney and then won 35-29 in Dunedin.
Against the Lions, they won the first test 30-15 in Auckland but then lost 21-24 in Wellington.
As for the French series this year they won 52-11 in the first test and then were poor in beating them 26-13 one week later in Wellington.
There are three clues here as to the All Blacks’ ‘second-week syndrome’, all of them interconnected.
The first is the size of the victory in the first week. In all of the examples above the scoreline blew out somewhat, meaning that a closer scoreline in the following game was almost an inevitability.
The second is that in all of the games above the winning margin was somewhat misleading.
Even last weekend was a good example. Although 38-13 gives the impression of a canter, it wasn’t until Waisake Naholo scored two soft tries late on that the All Blacks actually pulled away.
In fact, for parts of the game their set-piece attack and phase attack was average at best, something Aaron Smith identified earlier in the week.
The third factor is human nature.
The jokes were flowing at Brodie Retallick and Scott Barrett’s press conference on Tuesday and no doubt the All Blacks will be feeling pretty good about life this week.
That’s a dangerous state to be in the buildup to a test.
Indeed, in every game identified above, the All Blacks were coming off a big win and may – just may – have taken their foot off the pedal a little bit.
The opposite will be true of the Wallabies this week. We can all have a giggle at their Waiheke Island retreat but their coaches have an easy task this week.
In fact, if their players are fair dinkum, the coaches will hardly need to be involved at all.
They would have shown the players a replay of the last weekend’s game, asked them why they embarrassed themselves with their defensive efforts, and left the room.
Job done.
It would be a big surprise if the Wallabies were not significantly better at Eden Park – the Wallabies may be no better than fifth in the world at the moment, but Sydney was inconsistent with their tough series against Ireland in June.
The All Blacks are therefore in a challenging spot. They know an opposition response is coming but as yet have not found the answer to it.