networkn:

 

One of the articles I read over the weekend, can't find it to post, was criticising the AB's from last year relying on the forwards too much, but I found that quite strange as the times we looked compelling were the times where we did periods of pick and go, and built fast recycled ball but kept the ball in tight. I felt we were going wide far too often and far too quickly. There was a period I think around the 60-minute mark against the French where I thought we were going to turn the result around, because we started going super direct and hard with our forwards and didn't just fling the ball to our wingers and hoped for a miracle. 

 

I'd really like to see Foster show he can identify, present and have the AB's execute a gameplan that exposes a teams weaknesses specifically, ala Scott Robertson against the Blues in the SR Final. I can't recall a more visceral demonstration of that in recent times. Obviously, it's not good enough to just have a plan, but you need the players to execute it, whilst putting the opposition under enough pressure they can't recover. 

 

 

 

Astonished that Foster was appointed in the first place - NZRU had a great opportunity to get rid of him after those two shockers against France & Ireland at the end of last year.

Our forwards need to take the ball up through a lot more phases, also get more numbers there to clean out really physically, so our backs can attack from good front foot ball... then it's on our 9 & 10 to make the right decisions, execute well, also have the ability to know during a match when to adjust their tactics when needed.