Speaker 1: Kyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. The All
Speaker 2: Blacks have taken a giant step backwards in a forty
Speaker 2: three to ten crushing at the hands of South Africa
Speaker 2: in Wellington. It's their worst ever defeat, shipping six tries
Speaker 2: to one after leading ten to seven at halftime. The
Speaker 2: performance has prompted questions about the team's ability to recover
Speaker 2: and deliver consistent, high quality showings. So what does this
Speaker 2: record breaking display mean for the future of the All Blacks.
Speaker 2: Today on the Front Page, former All Black turned commentator
Speaker 2: and Strawn is with us to discuss the weekend, the
Speaker 2: consequences and the future of our team. First off, Strawnie,
Speaker 2: tell me about this record loss in Wellington, what do
Speaker 2: you make of it?
Speaker 3: Well, it was disappointing, I guess as a New Zealander overall.
Speaker 3: But I think one of the key things, and I
Speaker 3: haven't heard it too much in the last forty eight hours,
Speaker 3: is that there are now six nations in the top
Speaker 3: tier in world rugby who are actually really close now
Speaker 3: and historically the All Blacks have been cut above the rest.
Speaker 1: So our percentages. Winning percentages are very high.
Speaker 3: But now you'll see in the last two or three
Speaker 3: years that if a team is a bit off in
Speaker 3: one or two or a number of areas of the game,
Speaker 3: they can be beaten by any team. And of course
Speaker 3: the home and away advantage is consistent too, So that's
Speaker 3: probably the biggest thing. I mean, we need to acknowledge that,
Speaker 3: not accept it, because we have very high standards for
Speaker 3: our all Black team. But you know, I think it's
Speaker 3: important that we do talk and acknowledge that fact. You know,
Speaker 3: the world rugby particular, those big nations have caught.
Speaker 1: Up with us.
Speaker 2: And so because those other nations have gotten better and
Speaker 2: we started up here, right, why haven't we gotten better
Speaker 2: as the years go on.
Speaker 3: Well, you know people will say, well, have we stagnated?
Speaker 3: And I don't think so. I mean, we've got some
Speaker 3: wonderful domestic competitions in New Zealand now Super Rugby competition
Speaker 3: is right up there in terms of you know, weekly
Speaker 3: opportunity for our players to develop. And then of course
Speaker 3: that last stepping stones into international there's probably two or
Speaker 3: three areas where we probably haven't kept pace with those
Speaker 3: top teams, and it's the physical nature, not only the
Speaker 3: physiological piece, but just the size of these men we
Speaker 3: are playing against. And you know, New Zealanders aren't small,
Speaker 3: and obviously it's a multi racial society. We have you know,
Speaker 3: players them all around the world that live in now reside.
Speaker 1: In New Zealand.
Speaker 3: But we just manned for man Now, we just don't
Speaker 3: seem to match up physically. So that's something that I
Speaker 3: guess can be addressed in a gymnasium. It might be
Speaker 3: to do with nutrition, and it could be a whole
Speaker 3: raft of factors. But they are big men. When you
Speaker 3: look at a French team, a South African team, an
Speaker 3: English team, now.
Speaker 1: You know we are no longer towering over them. We
Speaker 1: are in fact often smaller.
Speaker 3: So over an eighty minute period, that physical confrontation will
Speaker 3: take its toll, particularly if your players are slightly smaller,
Speaker 3: you know. So I'd say that's the biggest thing. And
Speaker 3: also now the analytical part of the game. It's so
Speaker 3: easy to access how other teams are playing, and I
Speaker 3: know there are teams and screeds of people who take
Speaker 3: a deep dive into their opposition that they're about to
Speaker 3: play in the coming weekend. So that also means that
Speaker 3: teams are way better prepared to potentially expose some of
Speaker 3: your weaknesses or perceived weaknesses, and you know, the All
Speaker 3: Black team are always heavily scrutinized in that space. So
Speaker 3: they're probably the two biggest ones for Mike.
Speaker 2: In terms of weakness. Is what did the All Blacks
Speaker 2: show the weekend? What were our biggest weaknesses?
Speaker 1: It's a good question.
Speaker 3: I sort of joddled down a few things, but I
Speaker 3: think we still have some positional issues. So when you
Speaker 3: look at a squad and this is a developing squad
Speaker 3: as they head towards the twenty twenty seven World Cup,
Speaker 3: across the board, you know we are still trying and
Speaker 3: developing our style that fits a certain profile of athlete,
Speaker 3: and I think on the weekend we all saw that
Speaker 3: at set piece, So at scrum time we really started
Speaker 3: to struggle, particularly in the second half.
Speaker 1: And the greatest irony here is.
Speaker 3: That we have a tight head prop to Mighty Williams,
Speaker 3: who's tall one hundred and forty kilos, but he almost
Speaker 3: sits behind now the two or three South African props
Speaker 3: that they roll off their bench because he's no longer
Speaker 3: the biggest guy and he's got maybe some technical and
Speaker 3: tactical deficiencies in his game too. So at scrum time
Speaker 3: we struggle and as you probably know, set piece is
Speaker 3: where you start a lot of your back from so
Speaker 3: and also line out time they started to pick us
Speaker 3: off as well, so you're almost cutting off a source
Speaker 3: of ball and the ability to attack at scrum and
Speaker 3: line out.
Speaker 1: They really did hit us hard there.
Speaker 3: Then you could go through the team in terms of players,
Speaker 3: I mean, without being too critical, I think Scott Barrett
Speaker 3: still is deserving of an All Black jersey, but I
Speaker 3: just wonder whether if you take the captaincy away from him,
Speaker 3: whether he'll actually.
Speaker 1: Be able to just focus on his positional role do
Speaker 1: his job.
Speaker 3: He's a big boy, he's good arealy, he's good at
Speaker 3: moving bodies both sides of the ball, attack, defense, but
Speaker 3: he seems to be way down with the captaincy. And
Speaker 3: we all know how good Ardie Savi. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: a wonderful player anyway, world class, but he grows another
Speaker 3: leg when they give him the captaincy. So maybe a
Speaker 3: shift back to that particular scenario, and then you know,
Speaker 3: you have a number of players that are still pretty
Speaker 3: young in terms of their test match experience as Simon
Speaker 3: has been really good, but he's only played three or
Speaker 3: full Test matches while a Cetidi's coming back off an
Speaker 3: injury and are very dominant twenty twenty four. Now he's
Speaker 3: starting to be dominated in some respects because again he's
Speaker 3: not the biggest number eight running around and he's just
Speaker 3: coming to his game again after getting more pressure put
Speaker 3: on him. Our halves nine and ten always under conjecture,
Speaker 3: and no, I hope it didn't last too long on
Speaker 3: the weekend, hadn't played a game for six weeks without
Speaker 3: a smart decision to put him out there.
Speaker 1: Finley, Christie did his best.
Speaker 3: The viewers and listeners won't like this comment, but Boden
Speaker 3: Barrett's paid over one hundred and twenty five hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty Test matches, such a wonderful servant and admirable the
Speaker 3: way he's played and conducted himself this year. But I
Speaker 3: just wonder if we looked at twenty twenty seven, you know,
Speaker 3: is he the triple threat offense defense and his ability
Speaker 3: to run the game like he used to be And
Speaker 3: where's he going to be in six to twelve to
Speaker 3: eighteen months time to now start sort of rolling the
Speaker 3: dice a bit and bringing a younger player into that
Speaker 3: critical ten, the pivotal spot.
Speaker 1: They're talking about bringing Richie Muhanga back.
Speaker 3: We know how good he is, but again, you know,
Speaker 3: he hasn't always been at his very best at the
Speaker 3: highest international level, and that's what we're talking about now
Speaker 3: playing South Africa, playing France, England, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So the midfield potentially still not set.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: My preference was to sort of give Quintupire and Billy
Speaker 3: Procter a shot in the midfield, put Jordi Barrett back
Speaker 3: to full back where he's more comfortable, and probably the
Speaker 3: other area of the game on the weekend other than
Speaker 3: a lot of these sort of positional challenges we have
Speaker 3: was our back three. Defensively, the South African team just
Speaker 3: cut us up in that second half, so I know
Speaker 3: they'll have some work to do defensively, and also aerially
Speaker 3: that's been well documented now that we're still kind of
Speaker 3: losing that aerial battle and at the highest level used
Speaker 3: a lot as an offensive weapon, So you know, in summary,
Speaker 3: a lot of things there to sort of stew over.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's probably the key things for mine.
Speaker 2: I've seen some commentary and you suggested it as well,
Speaker 2: that the All Blacks have been way too inconsistent and
Speaker 2: that the Abs just don't fall over like that in
Speaker 2: the second half. I mean, it was incredible to watch
Speaker 2: that second half. Should we be questioning what's happening behind
Speaker 2: the scenes.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean it's a good question.
Speaker 3: And you know, as every New Zealander will be doing
Speaker 3: over the next sort of forty eight hours, you know,
Speaker 3: you take a deep dive into some of these things,
Speaker 3: some of these areas of the game. My philosophy always
Speaker 3: is more sort of solution focused rather than firing shots.
Speaker 3: I was blessed to wear the jersey myself, so I'm
Speaker 3: not here to fire shots at specific people. But you've
Speaker 3: got to look, you know, and you got to be honest.
Speaker 3: And I think defensively, you know, we get up one
Speaker 3: week to eat and part test defending the fortress was phenomenal,
Speaker 3: you know, and defense is a lot about integrity. It's
Speaker 3: understanding a system and defending for each other and just
Speaker 3: keep on going even though you might be losing a
Speaker 3: physical battle, but you just don't take a backward step.
Speaker 3: You work hard to get you try and slow the
Speaker 3: ball down. You try and the gate and blunt any
Speaker 3: attack that you see, and also try and diffuse.
Speaker 1: The kicking game as well.
Speaker 3: But when our team starts getting on a roll, and
Speaker 3: in that second half, the South African team went bang bang.
Speaker 3: They then led by fourteen points, and our defensive integrity
Speaker 3: across the paddock just seemed to drop off. It's hard
Speaker 3: to reset and recalibrate to go, hey, boys, we are
Speaker 3: losing this battle. What are we going to do individually
Speaker 3: collectively to kind of turn the tables of it and
Speaker 3: get back into this game? And I just felt that
Speaker 3: we were not able to do that. And it could
Speaker 3: be a whole raft of different reasons there, but you know,
Speaker 3: we really struggled, and of course we let in some
Speaker 3: very soft tries at the back end, which is completely
Speaker 3: uncharacteristic for all black teams, you know, forever. That could
Speaker 3: well be the biggest challenge for them in these next
Speaker 3: two weeks is just to get their defense of mojo back,
Speaker 3: acknowledging that they're not going to dominate a game for
Speaker 3: eighty minutes defensively, because at some point in time, the
Speaker 3: offense is going to get you and you're just going
Speaker 3: to have to absorb that try and find a solution
Speaker 3: and come back again. So now that was a big
Speaker 3: thing for mine defensively because you know you would have
Speaker 3: heard this sole cliche, but you know, defense wins chairmianships
Speaker 3: basically nowadays, and we went at our defensive best.
Speaker 2: On the weekend, I saw of peace from the heralds
Speaker 2: Gregor Paul and he said the All Blacks showed their
Speaker 2: true selves and we need to get used to it.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with that?
Speaker 3: Well, it's a pretty ambiguous statement. You know, what is
Speaker 3: your true self?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: For me, the true self of being an All Black
Speaker 3: is you respect the jersey on and off the field,
Speaker 3: and when you run onto the field, you know exactly
Speaker 3: what your job is because you've been selected to do
Speaker 3: it job. And then how well you work with your
Speaker 3: brothers and connect and die for the jersey?
Speaker 1: You know? And I mean you have eighty minutes.
Speaker 3: You are blessed to have eighty minutes to prove to yourself,
Speaker 3: your family, your teammates and everyone that you deserve to
Speaker 3: be there and be legit.
Speaker 2: Do you reckon have lost a bit of that manner?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I mean, if you look at
Speaker 3: every player, man for man, they would have been hurting
Speaker 3: after the weekend, and I probably just hope that when
Speaker 3: they review this game, and let's say hypothetically, you're walking
Speaker 3: into a changing room after a pretty heavy defeat and
Speaker 3: the hurt was there, you could see and raise a
Speaker 3: Robinson really tough for him to front the media after
Speaker 3: suffering a loss like that as the leading coach, that
Speaker 3: they have a good look in the mirror because you've
Speaker 3: got to look at yourself first, and I'm sure every
Speaker 3: one of the players that were on the field on
Speaker 3: the weekend will be looking in the mirror going, hey,
Speaker 3: I got a things wrong and that's not who I am,
Speaker 3: and that's not how I train, and that's not how
Speaker 3: I want to perform. So I know that sounds a
Speaker 3: bit idealistic, but at the end of the day, if
Speaker 3: players are doing that, then you can get back on
Speaker 3: your horse in time because everyone acknowledges that you know,
Speaker 3: they can perform a lot better. And of course the
Speaker 3: coaches have got to do the same and to be blunted,
Speaker 3: you know, the news in a public at time, and
Speaker 3: I look in the mirror too and go, hey, do
Speaker 3: you understand where rugby landscape is in the world nowadays?
Speaker 3: And again, not conceding but acknowledging that every single Test
Speaker 3: match we play against those top tier nations, it's not
Speaker 3: going to be a walkover anymore. It's going to be
Speaker 3: a excuse my friends. It's going to be a shit fight.
Speaker 1: Every week. And you know that's that's going to be
Speaker 1: an ongoing challenge for us.
Speaker 2: I felt like the second half you couldn't buy when
Speaker 2: I started going, yeah, fully droppers, et cetera. Can you
Speaker 2: put your finger on how it unrippled?
Speaker 1: Not right at the moment. Something we didn't be able
Speaker 1: to look at it. And obviously you'll find it pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: little big Pislow coming in, do you reckon?
Speaker 2: People are right to question whether Razors should be there
Speaker 2: or not after just this one defeat.
Speaker 3: Well, we have a habit in New Zealand of you know,
Speaker 3: things aren't going too well. Fire the coach Fozzy, you know,
Speaker 3: he suffered immensely in that space, you know, and there
Speaker 3: was some really objective discussions around potentially shifting from Fozzy
Speaker 3: to the next group. Razor had already been sitting in
Speaker 3: the wings with his highly successful Cannaby Crusaders Rain.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: But there's a step to the international standard and the
Speaker 3: News and Rugby Union made the decision to do that
Speaker 3: based on a whole raft of factors, and we don't
Speaker 3: often see those, but we see the end product, which
Speaker 3: is what runs out the tunnel and delivers it on
Speaker 3: a weekly basis. And also as importantly, how well these
Speaker 3: men conduct themselves in the community. And you know, Raises
Speaker 3: a cultural person who's innovative and keeps trying to find
Speaker 3: ways for players and teams to connect, and he respects
Speaker 3: that All Black Jersey people will argue, maybe we're giving
Speaker 3: him longer time because of his super rugby success than
Speaker 3: we did to Ian Foster.
Speaker 1: Well, to me, it's probably too soon.
Speaker 3: But you know, if a team continues to show weaknesses
Speaker 3: and poor performances, you know over a calendar year, I
Speaker 3: think you're better to always ascertain at the back end,
Speaker 3: have a strong you do it in the right way,
Speaker 3: and then say well, hey, look, you know, is this
Speaker 3: group is this leader the one to take us through
Speaker 3: to twenty twenty seven because we've still got some time here.
Speaker 3: You know, Quis are like, we're pretty hard when it
Speaker 3: comes to pointing the finger. I mean, look at Nolan
Speaker 3: told her, and I don't for one minute understand what
Speaker 3: happened there. But you know, she went from being you know,
Speaker 3: Dame Nolean to being someone who's been moved out the side.
Speaker 1: So they'll have their reasons.
Speaker 2: It's tough, classic tall poppy syndrome. Hey, do you reckon
Speaker 2: that all blacks have enough depth to take us into
Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven or is that somewhere where we really
Speaker 2: need to work on.
Speaker 1: Oh, you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 3: You know, that's one of the biggest concerns for me
Speaker 3: because you often hear RASI Erasmus, and I thought they
Speaker 3: actually conducted themselves pretty well on the weekend with the victory,
Speaker 3: because that had a bit of stuff shoved at them
Speaker 3: over the last seven days prior to Wellington, and they
Speaker 3: are very good at this.
Speaker 1: That's mart with how they respond.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that flowed through for me
Speaker 3: really extensively was he talked about the squad of forty five,
Speaker 3: and when he's talking about the squad of forty five,
Speaker 3: he's not being pc that they have forty five players
Speaker 3: who are humming to wear the Springbok jersey, and so
Speaker 3: he's creating depth in every single position. And I'm not
Speaker 3: convinced that we're in the same boat. I don't think
Speaker 3: we have forty five. I'm not quite sure executly the
Speaker 3: number of players who are in this awkabat all back camp.
Speaker 3: I think it's about thirty two or thirty four, you know,
Speaker 3: but forty five is three teams. So you're saying in
Speaker 3: every position you're building and grooming and developing three players.
Speaker 3: You know, we can look at some of the players
Speaker 3: in our current team.
Speaker 1: We look at our.
Speaker 3: Nines, we get our tens, look at our midfielders, fullbacks.
Speaker 3: You know, if we overlaid that forty five player process,
Speaker 3: have we got three lined up in every spot and
Speaker 3: obviously in the front road a few more because you've
Speaker 3: got to even elucian and a tidy head prop.
Speaker 1: So that's a challenge for us.
Speaker 3: And look, there is a big gap between super rugby
Speaker 3: and international rugby and that's where our players come from.
Speaker 1: So how much of a layer are we going.
Speaker 3: To pull through from super rugby to have our squad
Speaker 3: at forty five doesn't have to be forty five, but
Speaker 3: the context is around having more rather than less.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Strawnie.
Speaker 1: No worries, take care.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page
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Speaker 2: in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.