Ng game plan: Let’s get physical
decisions that game under pressure we didn’t make very well.
‘‘I can’t ignore that, so we’ve got to go back and have a rethink.’’
Foster tagged his 10 and 15 selections a ‘‘moving feast’’ worthy of further assessment. ‘‘I love both as rugby players. When you look at games where we played both, Beaudy would have had as many, if not more, touches than Richie. When we played Beaudy at 15 we were still able to engage him heavily in what we wanted him do.
‘‘That required some tweaks in how we played. But it’s a new year, and we don’t need players sitting still thinking we’ve got a formula that’s going to work. We’ve got Damian [McKenzie] coming back from injury and growth in the likes of George Bridge and Jordie Barrett. No doubt [fullback] is going to be a tough area to pick.’’
Foster also didn’t mind tagging lock as the position likely to come under the most scrutiny, particularly with Sam Whitelock and Brodie Retallick playing their rugby in Japan. The former will return for test duty mid-year, but his readiness remains somewhat of a test case.
‘‘It’s certainly the area we’re going to spend the most time on. The quality at the
All Blacks coach Ian Foster
But the new bloke understands that he has to stamp his own mark on this team. He has to continue to grow its game, strengths and personnel to meet the fresh demands of the ever-evolving international game. The guest inquires of the host just how he might go about that.
‘‘We’ve got a couple of choices here,’’ he replies with a smile. ‘‘We can sit back and say the last eight years were a great success and in terms of how we play, we’re actually doing pretty good. But we’re always looking to grow and we’ve got added motivation to make changes. We lost a semifinal in the World Cup . . . We played really well in the tournament but not that game. Why? Was it our preparation, was it mental attitude after climbing the mountain against Ireland, or was it the things we do on the park? There’s a lot we’ve been sifting through.
‘‘And, secondly, I’ve got some new coaches with some great ideas. I don’t want Plum and Feeky, with all their experience, Brad with his energy and Stormy [McLeod] with his experience, to come in and tell them this is the formula, now go coach it. We’ve got time.
‘‘We’re not No 1 in the world now and we haven’t got a little gold cup in our cupboard. We have to make some movements.’’ top end is OK, but depth is the issue.
‘‘There will be opportunity for some new young locks this year . . . that’s exciting. I know [John Plumtree] is thinking about it every day. We’re clearly going to have to be a little ambitious with some selections.’’
But Foster confirmed All Blacks management would be visiting Whitelock in Japan during the year to monitor and assess his progress.
‘‘We’ve been talking to Sam and he’s enjoying the freshness of it. He’s taking on something that no-one has done before, coming from Japan to walk back into the All Blacks and show he’s grown his game.’’
Foster also indicated he had decided on his captain for the year, though was not yet ready to anoint the new leader, thought to be a choice between Whitelock and Sam Cane.
‘‘We’ve lost some iconic leaders the last four to five years and we’ve got some pretty special people in there and now we need to challenge them on how we go forward.’’
The new All Blacks coach also confirmed he would not be pulling any players out of Super Rugby this year for camps ahead of the July tests.
‘‘I want people to enjoy Super Rugby; I don’t want the All Blacks camp to compromise its quality.’’
Foster happily goes into some detail on where the All Blacks need to get better. Most notable among his thoughts are shifts needed in their physicality. It is time, to paraphrase the great Gregg Popovich, to bring back some nasty.
‘‘Some areas are reasonably obvious where we need to shift. We’re growing but we’re not the best defensive team in the world. Yet we want to be. We haven’t had the most consistent lineout/set piece . . . and last year has shown that’s where teams have attacked us and got some benefits.
‘‘We’re an attack-minded team, and that comes natural to us. What we’ve got to figure out is what an attack-minded team does when we haven’t got the ball. We’ve got to get more ambitious in that space. And what an attack-minded team does when it involves a lot more close-quarter play, and not treat that as a defensive mindset.
‘‘You’ve still got to be skilful, and that’s an area other teams are working hardest on. It’s always been an All Black edge and perhaps now we’re not as consistently in front in that space as we’d like to be.’’
It’s here Foster reveals that intent to match some fire with fire.
‘‘Generally, we score bucketloads of tries, beat more people, make more linebreaks and all that stuff. Teams spend a lot of time figuring out how to shut that down and, at times, they’re successful.
‘‘What we’ve got to add to that is how good are our plan Bs and Cs when we can’t play that style we really want to and how tough is the physical side of our game when we need to take teams on that want to play us that way. We’ve got to make sure we define what being physical means and how it fits with our game plan. Some games over the last two years where teams beat us, they’ve hit us in that area. . . if we don’t get physical, then it’s a long day in the office.’’
Food for thought. Or, to continue the metaphor, water for the parched. July can’t come soon enough.
‘‘We’ve got to make sure we define what being physical means.’’