ABs: The myth and legend
8 Oct 2012
JON CARDINELLI says the All Blacks’ perfect balance between kicking and running, as well as their high level of execution, has allowed them to become the undisputed champs of world rugby.
As if the World Cup, Bledisloe Cup, Freedom Cup, and Rugby Championship title were not enough. The All Blacks didn’t just win that Rugby Championship trophy, they didn’t just win six out of six, they once again made a statement about how the game should be played.
It’s seems an obvious thing to say about the All Blacks, but then there is more to this side than what is perceived at a first glance.
They have some of the most gifted attacking players on the planet, but many forget that a team cannot win championships without a balanced approach. If attack was all you needed to be a success, the Lions would be reigning Super Rugby champions.
Before you celebrate the All Blacks as outstanding innovators and finishers, consider how they get themselves into those scoring positions. It is through a great mix of power, intelligence, and a fair bit of trickery that they win the forward battles. It is through sharp decision making that they can switch between kicking for territory and counter-attacking. And don’t underestimate the role experience has played in the All Blacks’ 16-Test winning run.
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer said earlier this year that experience helped the All Blacks win that 2011 World Cup, and went on to explain that it is experience that boosts a team in areas like defence, kicking, discipline and game management. You can have all the attacking talent in the world, but if you can’t succeed in these other aspects, you aren’t going to win championships.
Take the Rugby Championship finale at Soccer City as an example. The Boks were in fine attacking form early on, and that try from Bryan Habana will go down as one of the best of their season. But as flat as the All Blacks were during the initial stages, they stuck to their defensive task. They absorbed the pressure and then struck back before half-time, and then again after the break.
Meyer praised the world champions afterwards for the way they went about closing out the game. Meyer said Dan Carter was the key man for the visitors, as his decision making and execution during this period allowed the All Blacks to play the game down in opposition territory.
The stats substantiate the statement. According to ruckingoodstats.com, the New Zealanders kicked the ball from hand on 30 occasions (the Boks kicked 23), keeping 11 of those kicks in play. It was the tactics of Carter and company to put the ball behind the Boks and ask them to counter-attack. And when the Boks made mistakes or bad decisions, the All Blacks were quick to pounce.
It was another thing Meyer pointed to: this All Blacks side has made a habit out of punishing opposition errors. Again, the stats suggest that the All Blacks were better off in this department, making just four handling errors to the Boks’ 11. What those stats don’t say is how the All Blacks turned Bok mistakes into point-scoring opportunities.
Defence was an issue for the hosts last Saturday, with the Boks missing 12 tackles. The All Blacks missed 10, but that number needs to be put in perspective, as the visitors spent more time on defence (they had just 43% possession). While the Boks missed one in four tackle attempts, the All Blacks missed one in six.
The goal-kicking has been poor throughout the tournament, and again the Boks missed four of their eight attempts.
All in all, the Boks were guilty of spurning their own chances, and also guilty of providing the opposition with scoring chances. It was like two teams were playing against the Boks last Saturday: that is the All Blacks and the Boks themselves.
The All Blacks were good enough to first claw their way back into the lead, and then punish the South Africans to the tune of 16 points. That’s a hiding.
Meyer says his team has a long way to go, a statement that was later followed by Steve Hansen’s assertion that this All Blacks side can get better. The New Zealanders have won 16 in a row, and having brushed the Boks aside you’d have to expect them to breeze through Europe and overtake Lithuania for the most consecutive Test victories.
The Boks were No 2 in the world on Saturday night, but were overtaken when the Wallabies beat the Pumas in Argentina later on. Nevertheless, the Boks and the Wallabies are in the same boat in that they are nowhere near the All Blacks in terms of balance and experience.
The Boks are playing the right game, but their execution is not where it should be. I agree with Meyer that the forced introduction (because of injuries) of a number of youngsters has left this Bok side light on experience in key positions. That in turn has compromised their consistency as well as their ability to close out tight Tests.
A 16-point defeat at home is never going to be excused or be anything but embarrassing. At the same time, there has to be some perspective about where this young Bok team is in relation to what is (or at least will become after breaking that world record) the best All Blacks side in history.
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401 Comments
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8 Oct 2012, 08:23 am
@jacoshark-48:
Who should replace him?
8 Oct 2012, 08:25 am
Habana’s try came off a blatant forward pass. Forward passes which Jean de Villiers seem to deliver the entire match, and which the assistant ref, and ref just seemed to ignor.
8 Oct 2012, 08:31 am
No excuses from my side. The Boks were well and truly beaten by a superb AB side! I have no doubt that we have the talent to challenge and beat the AB’s in the future. But much will depend upon the personnel and game plan employed by Meyer. It’s in this area that serious doubts arise that i cannot seem to shake off! The Arsenal supporters always say…In Wenger we trust. I don’t have any of that feeling in Meyer.
8 Oct 2012, 08:36 am
@Slartibartfast-51:
I don’t know about actual replacement, but input from a non “provincial blinkered” mindset could be a way forward.
You had that in 2007 with Eddie Jones, but his input was a short sharp affair focused on the WC only.
Jones would not necessarily be any good for a long campaign in building the Bokke machine up to a level where they are consistently matching and even bettering the AB’s, or even the Aussie’s, who still hold a 64% win ratio over SA since Dean’s was appointed.
I don’t advocate Mitchell. He is a weirdo tosser supporters will come to hate rather quickly.
8 Oct 2012, 08:38 am
Sean Fitspatrick made an interesting comment after the game-he said that NZ are quite happy playing without the ball. It’s an interesting comment considering how much emphasis we put on possession.
8 Oct 2012, 08:39 am
@rossoneri-52:
It was not forward. It was knocked back by and All Black. Anyone with HALF A BRAIN knows this already.
8 Oct 2012, 08:39 am
@catchlightuk.com-55:
I hope he clarified that with some sort of logic, because I have yet to see a team who hold all the possession score points against themselves.
8 Oct 2012, 08:40 am
I have to agree with the article. ABs were very impressive. Well done to them. They are setting the pace. Challenge is for Boks to catch them.
I know they can do it.
8 Oct 2012, 08:41 am
With all those missed kicks on Saturday does anybody perhaps have the stats from the last game played there in 2010?
Seems like the kickers had something in common there.
Also crowd attendance please, I saw a lot of empty seats.
8 Oct 2012, 08:41 am
@The Analyst-56:
Are you speaking on behalf of all people with half a brain?
8 Oct 2012, 08:44 am
@BrumbiesBoy-59:
What was wrong with the crowd.
There were about 90,000 people who fronted for one reason only, to watch a dead rubber between NZ and SA.
8 Oct 2012, 08:51 am
Rugby refs and cricket umpires judgement will always be scrutinized and dissected ad nauseam. They are making split second decision based on what they see before them.
But good and bad decisions will always cancel it other out.
If their is life beyond our Galaxy and they had advanced satellites to watch Saturday’s game they could clearly see the AB’s are by far the better team.
HM keeps on blaming the players after bad performances. His a psych graduate but what he told the players during half time definitely didn’t work.
8 Oct 2012, 08:51 am
I didn’t know kiwi land had so many regular bloggers on here. ??
anyway. Good win, good for you.
The Boks still missing their kicks. If we kicked the extra 12 points when it still mattered, the game could have been closer.
Unfortunately Jantjes and Goossen didn’t exactly unlock our backline with 3/4 tries, like most Morne haters expected.
HM made a few interesting calls already this year. We’ll wait, we’ll see.. what happens in the last tour and next year. Dissapointing season really…
At least Ieast we’re not OZ.
8 Oct 2012, 08:54 am
@Brads-61: I didn’t say there was anything wrong with the crowd, I’m just curious to know the exact figure after seeing all those empty seats.
I read a report on Saturday of 2010s game having a figure of 94 700-and-something and would like to compare that’s all.
8 Oct 2012, 08:55 am
@Brads-32:
I think it is some kind of wishful thinking really considering the comments that were made on this site last week. We South Africans are so desperate to defeat the Blacks that whatever reason I bring up will be held on to hope we achieve the impossible. We just would not admit that the Blacks are just too good for anyone. Meyer as a coach was some kind of a wunderkind based on what? Winning against a weak Aussie team and poor performance by Blacks in Duniden or Blue Bulls rugby achievement of yonder years. It is totally insane.
8 Oct 2012, 08:57 am
@Brads-54: “…the Aussie’s, who still hold a 64% win ratio over SA since Dean’s was appointed.”
Apart from the egregious apostrophe abuse, this factual quote makes that smug yarpie nickname “Wobblies” look really, really silly.
8 Oct 2012, 09:00 am
Springbok coach win percentages since 1996 after nine matches:
Andre Markgraaff: 44.4%
Carel du Plessis: 37.5% (only coached eight matches)
Nick Mallett: 100%
Harry Viljoen: 66.7%
Rudolf Straeuli: 55.6%
Jake White: 77.8%
Peter de Villiers: 55.6%
Heyneke Meyer: 44.4%
8 Oct 2012, 09:00 am
i_love_u_bakkiesbotha
You need to go to bed and have a sleep mate.It is obvious you been up all night dreaming up a lot of ****.
8 Oct 2012, 09:02 am
@Brads-54:
I agree but I would like to know from the people calling for his head who they want in his place.
8 Oct 2012, 09:02 am
Friends, Bok fans, Saffa countrymen…..I honestly think it’s about time the denialists start admitting to a few things:
1. Heyneke Meyer is not the Messiah – he is a coach struggling to make the step up (as predicted)
2. The AB’s ARE (and have been for many years), the finest and most PROFESSIONAL team in the world
3. Pulling ‘head in the sand’ moves, makes us as a nation look fuckingstupid and whingy.
4. We are NOT the victims of world rugby – we just enjoy playing that role.
What Meyer does next, is where it get’s interesting.
8 Oct 2012, 09:04 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-70:
Tell me, what stands out in the statistics I posted in 67 above?
8 Oct 2012, 09:05 am
Inexperience and the lack of battle hardened veterans played its part on saterday. When the kiwis scored their first try against the run of play at the time….you could almost sense a slump of the shoulders….which was quite ironic because the look on sam whitlocks face was that of sheer exhaustion. We had the kiwis on the rack but let them back in through a couple of very soft moments. It was almost as if the boks adopted a sort of “bahhumbug” attitude because the kiwis scored off of one half chance and we had already left so many points on the field.
There was a definate drop in intencity and focus after that.
We should really just have stuck to the task at hand and kept the kiwis having to make tackles.
For me, not the greatest kiwi side as i have mentioned before that i take the calibre of opposition into account when trying to determine this sort of thing but definately the most clinical. Every time they got quick ball in the second half i thought they were going to score.
Very dissappointed but it was a good game these boks will go places if we can keep the entire unit together. I would definately try and get guthro and dupreez back for next years comp though.
8 Oct 2012, 09:05 am
@Peter Mkata-65: Who else is there that will put up with SARU ? I also believe that HM was poorly served in his appointment timetable and should have been recruiting assistantts after RWC 11 .. instead of Jan 12 ..
What I would like to see is HM pushing for a backline specialist and a defence expert ..
8 Oct 2012, 09:07 am
@Black Power-68:
He needs more than sleep BP.
He needs to see a Shrink.
8 Oct 2012, 09:09 am
@Slartibartfast-69:
There is a man who is only 55 years old, who played rugby at the highest level for South Africa, who holds three tertiary qualifications, who represented the University of Oxford in both rugby and cricket…
8 Oct 2012, 09:09 am
@WP-Forever-71: Yeah, I also noticed that.
Scary!
Not trying to “dig-a-grave” for HM are you?
8 Oct 2012, 09:10 am
@Slartibartfast-51:
id like to see a mix of provincial coaches and experienced “old heads”
ie a staff incl. naka, plumtree, os, mallet
doesnt really matter who youre gonna make head coach
it cant get any worse than things are atm
springbok rugby is on a downward spiral and i dont see things changing anytime soon
8 Oct 2012, 09:11 am
@ shooter 63: but Australia came ahead of you in the RC! And are the second ranked test nation!!!
8 Oct 2012, 09:12 am
@BrumbiesBoy-76:
Hey, I’m just posting statistics.
Same as a certain coach who claims certain players are too small.
8 Oct 2012, 09:12 am
@WP-Forever-71:
At least 38% of SA’s last 8 Coaches have some French ancestry. Most likely Huguenots.
8 Oct 2012, 09:13 am
@cane-74: I believe his shrink had a nervous breakdown last week…
P.s> Good morning & congratulations Cane, excellent performance.
8 Oct 2012, 09:13 am
67….to be fair, win percentage only tells half the story in this case.
What is the loss percentage.
8 Oct 2012, 09:18 am
73…..i am fairly certain that 1 coaching position needs to be filled by a non white.
In that regard we are very limited, who exactly is out there.
Meyer asked a bloke that he at least new and had worked with.
8 Oct 2012, 09:18 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-70: Agree .. we need a specialist backs coach and some Intl standard Defence coach .. Just training harder or running at oppo harder wont work ..
Very interesting if anything happens to assistants as HM needs to be supported by SARU ..
8 Oct 2012, 09:21 am
@shooter-63:
They ALL came out the hobbit’s cave over the weekend.
Or someone opened the Kiwi gate
8 Oct 2012, 09:22 am
@WP-Forever-71:
It’s obvious.
Is it a trick question?
8 Oct 2012, 09:23 am
@The Analyst-56: Pass from Jean was FORWARD!!!
8 Oct 2012, 09:24 am
@WP-Forever-71:
The coach with the 100% record is the one sitting in the fuckingsupersport studio?
8 Oct 2012, 09:26 am
@Brigadier Van Zyl-83:
Non-white?
BEE?
You gonna wake STBUR
8 Oct 2012, 09:28 am
84….we need a new defence coach.?
Why?
This is the first game we have lost by more than seven. In fact, 10 tries conceded in 5 games in the toughest comp in the world is par for the course for me. Attack wise and probably truthfully….finishing is our biggest problem at the minute and that is a player problem to fix. Until saterday we had conceded 6 tries in 4 tests, in fact had the boks stuck to that ratio and trend we wouldmhave won.
8 Oct 2012, 09:28 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-23:
You are all alone Bakkies.
Everyone saw an AB team that was on fire and had a point to prove. We were penalised out of the first half yet you still saw another 23 penalties. lol classic.
I see the only person that believes you is fern…….hahaha wow what a team.
@Rage-29:
Can you imagine the game if Bakkies reffed.
60 penalties against opposition and 3 against the Boks. He is as one eye as his trouser snake.
8 Oct 2012, 09:31 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-70:
I have to agree on everything said! The whiners from the Cape are being proved correct now…
@WP-Forever-67:
Mallet stands out head and shoulders – and yes, he has the brains as well…
Not too late to make the change. Better sooner than later. HM is really looking quite stupid with his comments lately… Did we not drop back to three where we started when HM took over. If correct we are not going anywhere…
8 Oct 2012, 09:31 am
@Brigadier Van Zyl-83: I would enjoy it if you or Taccy could assist us in deciphering justwhatthefuckitwas Meyer was doing in terms of replacements on Saturday?
I realise that those of us who don’t know or understand the genius that is Heyneke, might seem to be a negative bunch, when it could just be that we haven’t evolved enough to ‘grasp’ his genius (or read his mind) in the way you fellows can….
8 Oct 2012, 09:32 am
23….you were penalized in the first half because you were being dominated in the collisions,territory and possession. In fact, your lock was lucky to still be on the park. The kiwi side is very clinical that is their special ability.
8 Oct 2012, 09:32 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-93:
Indeed
The game was over for me when Eben was taken off.
WTF
8 Oct 2012, 09:33 am
We must be the only country that has to blame something for our poor showing. We have a young side, we have a new coach blah blah blah… The truth is we don’t have the coaching staff right now to make any difference. We will continue to be the bridesmaids… fact…
8 Oct 2012, 09:35 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-88:
It’s quite instructive that, at the time Nick Mallett was appointed Western Province’s director of rugby, Koos Basson, then president of WP Rugby Football Union, said Mallett’s strengths were, inter alia, his in-depth knowledge of the game and players throughout the world, excellent communication, and his ability to adapt game plans, selections and styles of play to suit various conditions and types of players…
8 Oct 2012, 09:36 am
@Brigadier Van Zyl-90: Have you taken a look at the system being used for ‘D’?
Do yourself a kindness mate, and go and watch Mallet and Mitchell tearing apart the Boks defensive system in the post match chat. Let them explain it to you…..
Seriously, take a listen.
8 Oct 2012, 09:36 am
@Brigadier Van Zyl-94:
“The kiwi side is very clinical that is their special ability.”
Which why there is this bemusement over the number of penalties awarded against the AB’s in the first 60 minutes versus zip for SA..
8 Oct 2012, 09:37 am
And no Cory fend
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