Liam Napier

AB road: All Blacks at a crossroads and need their forwards to step up to provide room for the backs to run, writes

EWe played our same game plan for a number of years and it started to get picked off, especially around our forwards. Brodie Retallick

veryone knows the heat is on the All Blacks forward pack to lead the response against Ireland. But how they plan to improve their physicality, to dominate the collisions, has been much less clear until now.

The absence of a dominant platform against the world’s best defensive teams that’s led to cripplingly slow ruck ball, and a predictability to their ball carrying, are the most pressing issues facing an All Blacks team at a crossroads.

Some of the game’s elite potent attacking threats — from Beauden Barrett to Rieko Ioane — are rendered irrelevant without ball carriers punching through defensive lines or quick, clean ruck ball.

Too often in recent years — as was evident in successive defeats against Ireland and France to end last year as well as at times in duels with the

Springboks — the All Blacks looked lost on attack as they floundered well behind the gainline. That’s largely because their forwards allowed the backs to be suffocated.

All Blacks lock Brodie Retallick, the 92-test veteran, has experienced good and bad times in a black jersey. He knows where the team must improve to rectify their struggles.

During their offseason the All Blacks coaches trawled footage to identify specific issues around ball carrying, ruck speed and the need to evolve.

“Credit to Fozzie and the coaches, they went away and looked at different aspects of our game,” Retallick explained.

“They brought in [assistant coach] Andrew Strawbridge to look at our skillsets and what we’re doing. It has been positive the last two weeks. We had a camp in Tauranga and then up to Waitangi and we’re starting to see some improvements around those areas. We’re building up to a performance on Saturday now so hopefully we see it out there.”

Physicality is typically defined as outmuscling your opponent — yet there’s so much more to it than that. Often the most effective course of action is not to run over but around a tackler; to target weak shoulders, weak points in defensive lines.

Technique, particularly with the prevalence of cards in the modern game, is now more important when it comes to cleaning from rucks.

These are areas the All Blacks forwards have drilled into and attempted to refine.

“There’s different focuses around our footwork and the way we were carrying the ball,” Retallick said. “From a physicality point of view, you can just run straight at someone but nine times out of 10 the tackler is going to win because they’re going to get lower so it’s about winning the collision by using our footwork or skills to get in behind them. Once we’re going forward that becomes easy.

“Physicality is a massive part of it — you saw that at the end of last year but a lot of that came from slow ruck ball and giving the defensive line time to set. That has been one of our real focuses.”

There was a time, not so long ago either, when ball skills from the All Blacks big men, their offloading and tip passes at the line, set them apart. Evolution is well overdue, though, as the world caught up and the All Blacks tactics became stale.

“We played our same game plan for a number of years and it started to get picked off, especially around our forwards and through the middle of the park. It’s the same with anything in life. Businesses, people, evolve. Skillsets evolve. I don’t want to give away too much, but hopefully it’ll start to show on Saturday.”

Since halfback Aaron Smith’s injection to the test arena — almost 10 years to the day against Ireland at Eden Park — the All Blacks have based their game around utilising speed.

Smith’s pass has the ability to set the All Blacks’ backline alight, but only when he receives the desired platform. How do the All Blacks reclaim that ascendancy?

“We’ve tried to narrow it down to our carry and clean and letting our forwards use their skills. Hopefully you’ll see that over the next few games against the Irish,” said Retallick. “It’s easier said than done, especially against good defensive teams, but that’s one of the things we need to work out — how we’re going to break teams down and put those backs into space to let them use their speed and skills.”

Emerging from their worst season in 12 years — the first time they suffered three losses in one campaign since 2009 — should light a fire within the All Blacks.

After seven months stewing on back-to-back losses, a return to fortress Eden Park, where they are unbeaten for 28 years, must evoke an immediate response against an Irish team who have won three of their last five tests against the All Blacks.

As rugby’s adage goes, it all starts up front for the All Blacks.

“We were a better team than what we showed but full credit to the way the Irish played. Even in the Six Nations defensively they were the top team which is no easy feat,” said Retallick.

“Maybe the loss has created a bit of excitement around New Zealand. Most of the tests have sold out already. You know those losses weren’t good enough. It does hurt because no one likes to lose. The expectation from within the group and outside is that we win.

“The coaches have gone away and it was probably a timely reminder about some of the stuff we were doing and we’ve made some adjustments.”

The time is now to put those plans into action.