‘Large parts I was proud of ’: Foster
The All Blacks winger is brilliant with ball in hand, but there is work to be done on his game without it. Defensively, he has had some issues this year but you would also love to see him up his involvement rate when the All Blacks go direct. The All Blacks’ forwards have proved capable of punching some real holes in defences – if Clarke can get himself in and around the ruck in support he could be unstoppable. He’s capable of it – he showed that against the Springboks in South Africa – but he has been quiet over the past three tests.
Tyrel Lomax’s coming of age
England No 1 Ellis Genge is a bull – and rightly rated as one of the best looseheads in the northern hemisphere. However, Lomax did a job on him at Twickenham: he dominated him at scrum time on a number of occasions and you don’t often see the England scrum go backwards like that. It’s easy to forget that Lomax was hauled off at 33 minutes against the Waratahs in Super Rugby Pacific, such were the flow of scrum penalties and free kicks against his side. He’s now the anchor of the All Blacks’ scrum.
All Blacks coach Ian Foster says he was ‘‘proud’’ of large chunks of his team’s effort at Twickenham and feels the 25-25 draw to sign off the year reflected the ‘‘progress’’ made this year.
It was interesting, yet not a surprise, to hear Foster so defiantly upbeat following what could only be described as another final-quarter calamity from the All Blacks as they coughed up a 25-6 lead with nine minutes remaining against Eddie Jones’ England side yesterday.
On that, at least, he has been consistent this year as he has continued to search for the positives throughout a rollercoaster campaign from his side that has featured four defeats, a draw and two or three close scrapes against sides they should have handled with ease.
England roared home at Twickenham with three tries in those final nine minutes, aided by a yellow card to visiting fullback Beauden Barrett, to snatch an unlikely stalemate and underline the fragility of these All Blacks at the business end of big rugby tests.
Remember, they also saw an 18-point advantage gobbled up in the final quarter against the Wallabies in Melbourne, only to be rescued by a bizarre late penalty switch that provided an unlikely escape route, and were also outplayed over the run home by the Argentines in Christchurch en route to their historic win.
Even the previous weekend against Scotland they saw an early 14-0 lead quickly gobbled up by the hosts and found themselves in a tight spot over the closing stages, only for Mark Telea’s late try to seal an unconvincing 31-23 victory.
Once again the All Blacks mixed the excellent with the excruciating as they dominated the English for large swathes of a test they seemed in little danger of coughing up. But when the tide turned against them late, there was a telling inability to right the ship as it headed towards the rocks.