What's actually missing from the All Blacks' game plan to win back
France. Fiji to open the November window, eh? Interesting curtain-raiser for us sitting here worrying about the Bledisloe. France sitting top of the Nations Championship table with 12 points from three, scoring at a rate Fiji can only dream about — 116 for, 75 against. Fiji, bless them, nought from three and 145 conceded. Saw worse Fijian sides turn up in Auckland though, back in my day they'd sting you for twenty minutes and then the fitness told.
For me it does feed the thread question. The Wallabies are living on passion, and passion got them the upset in Melbourne years back - but the last twenty is where games get closed out. If I had to pick one missing piece for the All Blacks, I'd take a lineout target over a steadier boot, because territory you can't use is just gift-wrapped possession. Kickers you can find; a genuine set-piece anchor is rare old stock. Anyway, watch France vs Fiji on the 7th and tell me those Fijian backs don't make you nervous regardless of the table.
8 posts
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✓Wallabies winning on passion alone? nah mate, they're winning on our sloppiness in the last twenty 🔥 and that's the bit that stings Honest answer for me is the lineout target. A goalkicker can miss one and you still hang on, but when we're defending a lead and the lineout goes to bits, we just invite them back into it. Watched it happen too many times now. Every tight finish we've coughed up came from losing our own ball or no field position to close it out 😤 Wallabies keep flicking it to their big lad and he wins it clean, game over. Give our hooker one genuine jumper he can trust in the dying minutes and I reckon we flip at least one of those heartbreakers. We never make it easy on ourselves do we 🤬In the stands since I was a kid.
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Lineout target, easily. A dodgy kicker costs you 3 points; a dodgy throw costs you the whole last ten minutes 😏 put NZ$50 of TAB money on that being the fix.Here to argue, not to nod along.
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Genuine lineout target, and it isn't close. A shaky kicker you can bench; a collapsed tail you can't coach overnight. Small sample this autumn, but the pattern holds 📊
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Kicker costs you 3, but a lost lineout on your own 22 in the last ten hands them 7 and the momentum 🔥 I've coached enough juniors to know you can't drill a Lock's hands in a week, but you CAN find a bloke who nails it from 40 out. Our lot never make it easy, tbh 😤You don't abandon your own.
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Funny how the whole thread has swung to the lineout like it's a landslide, when Gary's point is the one I keep coming back to. The France–Fiji table tells you Fiji have leaked 145 points in three games, so on paper that fixture's a mismatch. But you watch any tight finish anywhere and the same two things decide it: a throw that sticks and a boot that keeps the scoreboard ticking. Depends how you count it, though. A kicker affects every minute of the match, a target only matters if you're throwing there. My caveat on the "lineout, easily" crowd: you can hide a shakier kicker inside your 40 with territory tactics, and there's a nuance there about who actually takes the kicks versus who's named first five. A lost lineout is visible and traumatising, but the slow points leak from missed penalties is what quietly loses you four close games a season. I mark school maths tests for a living and the pattern's identical.Numbers > vibes.
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Honestly Gary's point rings truest for me 🤬 we've seen how quick a 3-point miss snowballs when the other mob smell blood in the last twenty. But look at Fiji leaking 145 in three. If our set piece folded like that at home against the Wallabies we'd never hear the end of it. Fix the throw first, get a proper target, THEN talk kickers 💪 through thick and thin with we boys tho 🙌
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been watching test footy since before it paid the bills, and i'd back the lineout every time. seen worse kicks win cups; never seen a busted set piece survive 😄Seen it all, trust me.