HowFoster cankeep his job
Ian Foster has 80 minutes to save his job. The coach may not be sacked immediately if the All Blacks lose against Argentina, but he will go sooner rather than later.
The problem is that the All Blacks are not a quick fix. Successive defeats revealed more holes in their game than are found in a trawlerman’s net. But here are the five mighty fixes Foster needs to get sorted.
Forwards
Yeah, we have been here before, but the big men were not even close to good enough. Iwonder how long we will keep pointing this out before we reach the conclusion that this is not a temporary state of affairs.
Patrick Tuipulotu, whose opinion we presume Sam Cane values, said straight after the loss to Argentina: ‘‘They wanted it more. They ended up beingmore physical on D. We couldn’t get any good go-forward carries and when we did, they managed to keep us under pressure in terms of their ruck speed, slowing it down and getting people over the ball. We just didn’t adapt quick enough.’’
The pack was manhandled. Foster said beforehand his team needed to be ‘‘more consistent around our setpiece’’. Didn’t happen. The team was physically dominated, just as England had physically dominated them in the World Cup semifinal.
The loss of Owen Franks, Brodie Retallick, Richie McCaw, Jerome Kaino and Kieran Read from the team that won the 2015 World Cup is starting to look catastrophic. But Foster could at least pick a balanced back row. Cullen Grace, Hoskins Sotutu and Sam Cane looks a far better longterm bet than anything we have seen so far.
Unity
This is the question that fans keep asking me about. Tuipulotu even referenced the ‘‘wanting it more’’. One team was playing for their country, for their people, for the shirt. You saw it when Pablo Matera banged his chest and gave it back to the ref.
When Angus Gardner told Argentina’s captain he needed to show some leadership, Pablo Matera wasn’t having it. He said: ‘‘I can’t see our guys hit in the face by one of their men. It’s not respect. I play for my country.’’
Matera pointed to his chest, and the passion and the sincerity of the man turned Gardner around. He began to empathise with Matera. But where was the All Blacks’ passion? Where was the All Blacks’ unity?
Agustin Pichot caused a storm when as deputy chairman of World Rugby he pointed out that only South Africa and Argentina fielded truly representative teams. But those words are resonating now. The All Blacks need to stand up and be counted, to show unity and to do it for every second of every day and not just for one-off performances.
But when the coach drops his first-five after his best performance in an All Blacks shirt, you wonder what that does to team unity. RichieMo’unga was half the player when he came back as were some of his comrades. It looked like a dumb move and it was a dumb move.
Coaching
Does anyone know what was going on in the first test against Argentina?
My guess is that the All Blacks wanted to keep the ball in play and run Argentina off their feet. This has become predictable, but then much about this team is predictable from a coach who has a lot of questions to answer.
Where is the coordination between the defence coach and the forwards coach? Why are the All Blacks, who want not a bar of Lachlan Boshier, not contesting the loose ball? They are the world’s best team off turnover possession, but they don’t want to try to win any. Bizarre.
England’s George Ford said the other day: ‘‘What seems to be the trend defensively is to have quite a lot of numbers in the line and try and get high on the edges and spook the attack to go inside.’’
Argentina spooked New Zealand all right. They were obsessed with the 12 channel when all the space was wide and in behind. Dave Rennie, the coach of Australia, wryly pointed out a few days later: ‘‘You can’t be one dimensional against them [Argentina] – the All Blacks tried to go through the middle of them.’’
Ouch. Rennie said New Zealand’s attack squeezed Argentina up and created space wide and in behind, but the All Blacks failed to exploit it. The coaches had better smarten up or the team of Scott Robertson, Leon McDonald and Jason Holland will soon be taking over their chairs.
Captaincy
We can cut Sam Cane some slack early on, but right now his captaincy is not looking too flash at either international or super rugby level. Captain Cane’s words in the huddle did not exactly get a full endorsement from Tuipulotu in his post match interview. And then there was Cane’s dissing of the fans. Big mistake.
But perhaps the captain’s biggest work-on is with referees. It took Richie awhile, but he became the master of the whistleblowers. That is now just a memory. At themoment a lot of refs are starting to treat the All Blacks and their captain as recalcitrant schoolboys. But when Shannon Frizell and Dane Coles slap people in the face, Beauden Barrett takes a player in the air and Caleb Clarke deliberately knocks on a ball, you can see why refs might get miffed.
Gardner could not keep the annoyance out of his voice when he said to Cane: ‘‘I know you’re the captain, but please don’t ask me for warnings, eh. It’s the first time you’ve come down here.’’
Cane needs to lead with more than just actions, or we will all soon be thinking that Foster appointed the wrong Sam.
Kicking
It is no coincidence that the All Blacks’ two best performances of the past 14months – in the World Cup quarter against Ireland and in the third Bledisloe against Australia – have been based on superb kicking performances.
Yet most of the time they seem to suffer from some sort of kicking allergy, presumably instilled by the coaches. They need to smarten up. Cameron Munster broke open the State of Origin decider with three kicks in the space of 10 seconds. Nicolas Sanchez broke open the first test between Argentina and the All Blacks with a little grubber in behind. England opened the scoring against Ireland at the weekend with a cross kick.
There were huge holes in behind Argentina, so why were they not being communicated to Mo’unga? You also wonder if Ngani Laumape might be better at putting the ball in behind than Jack Goodhue. The kick is probably the most valuable tool in breaking up the rush defence. Argentina will be tired after two physical tests. It is time for the All Blacks to kick on.