AB coach’s wild ride of highs, lows
All Blacks coach Ian Foster says consistency and focus are his team’s two key challenges at the end of a 2020 test campaign he tagged ‘‘satisfying’’.
Foster spoke to Sky Sport’s The Breakdown show from his managed isolation facility in Auckland and ran the rule over his first season in the head coach’s job that yielded three victories, two defeats and a draw, plus two trophies stored away in the New Zealand Rugby cabinet.
The All Blacks’ three victories were all impressive, as they comfortably tucked away the Bledisloe Cup with that 27-7 Eden Park bounceback effort and then the record-breaking 43-5 dismantling of the Wallabies in Sydney.
They also signed off the year in style, cruising to a 38-0 victory over an under-strength Argentina outfit in Newcastle to clinch the Tri-Nations silverware as well.
Balancing that were back-toback defeats to the Wallabies in Brisbane and the historic loss to the Pumas in Parramatta and a first-up 16-16 stalemate with the Australians in Wellington.
‘‘I’d have to say I’m pretty satisfied with the campaign,’’ Foster told The Breakdown.
‘‘I thought we showed how good we can be. We won two trophies.
‘‘But there’s also the lows, and particularly the Argentina game, that were really, really frustrating. So it showed that consistency is missing with this group at the moment and it’s something we’re striving for and really going to work hard to get.
‘‘2020 gave us some fantastic experience and fantastic [lessons] and I’m sure that Brisbane game and Argentina game will hold us in good stead going forward.’’
Asked about areas where the All Blacks needed to get better, Foster indicated there remained plenty to build on as they head towards what is hoped will be a more normal 2021 campaign.
‘‘We need to get a little more physicality and use our set piece as a weapon,’’ he said. ‘‘Ironically our lineout went from No 10 in the world last year to No 1 this year, so we saw real positive signs in that area – particularly our driving play off it and the consistency of ball.
‘‘So we made some key gains in some key focus areas.’’
But there was also a downside.
‘‘The area we’ve got to work hardest on is when teams distract us. In both Brisbane and Parramatta we struggled with some refereeing, particularly at scrum and breakdown, and didn’t make great adjustments there.
‘‘We also enabled teams to niggle us off the ball and that resulted in some patterns and behaviours in our attack game where we got blinkered and really went to the wrong places. We spent a lot of time after that Argentina game working hard on what we thought were the cues for us getting into that state and learning what the opposition and other things do to get us out of kilter.’’
But Foster felt the last outing demonstrated palpably that his All Blacks had taken some of those key lessons on board.
‘‘That’s why I’m immensely proud of that last game. Whilst we deserved criticism for the loss to Argentina, I thought that 38-0 was an absolute methodical game where we applied a lot of the things we had learnt from the previous two and really stayed clearer and more focused on what we wanted to do.
‘‘That’s probably our major challenge in ’21.’’ clear
The Champions League football match between Paris SaintGermain (PSG) and Basaksehir was postponed a day when players walked off the field after alleging that fourth official Sebastian Coltescu of Romania used a racial term when identifying an assistant coach.
Players from the Turkish team were furious after assistant coach Pierre Webo was shown a red card by referee Ovidiu Hategan of Romania at Parc des Princes in Paris, saying Coltescu had used a racial term to describe Webo, who is from Cameroon, before he was sent off.
Basaksehir substitute
Demba Ba demanded that the fourth official explain himself, while leading PSG players Neymar and Kylian Mbappe also demanded an explanation. Basaksehir coach Okan
Buruk said ‘‘you are racist’’ to Coltescu.
The score was 0-0 when the incident took place 14 minutes into the match yesterday.
Uefa, European football’s governing body, said the match would resume this morning with new officials.
‘‘Uefa has – after discussion with both clubs – decided on an exceptional basis to have the remaining minutes of the match played tomorrow with a new team of match officials,’’ Uefa said in a statement. ‘‘A thorough investigation on the incident that took place will be opened immediately.’’
Television footage captured the exchange between the fourth official and the referee, with Coltescu telling Hategan that Webo should be reprimanded for his behaviour on the sidelines.
‘‘Go and give it [the red card] to the black one, this is not possible
‘‘We’re at a disturbing tipping point – not a week goes by without an incident involving race.’’ Rio Ferdinand
former Manchester United and England defender
[tolerable], go and identify him, go verify, the black one over there,’’ Coltescu allegedly said, in Romanian, about Webo.
Webo was enraged and was heard to repeat at least six times