Three Bad Decisions
1: Barrett at Blindside
In what was a classic case of it seemed like a good idea the time, the decision to play Scott Barrett at blindside against England in the semi-final was not the right one.
There is an argument to be made that it was the right call – designed to put pressure on an English lineout that only had two jumpers – but the execution failed.
Maybe. But on balance, it felt like the All Blacks made a mistake not matching England's twin threat of Sam Underhill and Tom Curry with their own twin threat of Sam Cane and
Ardie Savea.
As Hansen said of the decision to start Barrett ahead of Cane: "If I turn round and say it backfired, then Scott is going to feel pretty average. So I'm not going to turn round and say it backfired. I'll take that one on the chin.
“Scott came out and played as well as he could. Did we want to win some more lineout ball? Yes we did. But we didn't. It takes more than one person to do that.”