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All Blacks out in front but chasing pack closing

Roar Guru
19th October, 2014
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The All Blacks keep winning, but are the results papering over cracks? (AAP Image/Paul Miller).
Roar Guru
19th October, 2014
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Another ‘get out of jail free’ card was used by the All Blacks on Saturday night, as once again they somehow managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

It was an escape Harry Houdini himself would have been proud of, and eerily similar to the victory against the Irish in Dublin last year.

One thing is for certain when watching this All Blacks side play, and that is no matter how long is left on the clock, you can never count them out. However Saturday night’s victory risks overshadowing a very ordinary display by the men in black.

That’s not taking anything away from the Wallabies, who fought tooth and nail for the victory, however the All Black display had all the hallmarks of just going through the motions.

The All Blacks looked flat. Their was a tendency to just shovel the ball, which played into Wallaby hands. In rugby, you have to earn the right to go wide and in the first 60 minutes the All Blacks didn’t earn that right. Aggression at the breakdown was lacking, the collisions were weak and there was no directness in their play. Sure, the All Blacks have the arsenal to strike from anywhere, but that doesn’t mean that they have to try from everywhere.

Malakai Fekitoa has been one of the finds of the season but he struggled massively in Brisbane and it’s hard to recall a time when the All Black midfield has looked so listless. Ma’a Nonu has plenty of detractors but Saturday was case in point of how valuable he has been and will continue to be in 2015 for this All Black side.

They say great teams win even when they play poorly, and to some extent this rings true. Over the past few seasons, the All Blacks have mastered the art of winning, pulling out plenty of seemingly unlikely victories even when playing decidedly sub par. The 2014 season has shown however that the gap between the All Blacks and the chasing pack is narrowing.

Sure the All Blacks have only lost once this year but there have been numerous close calls. The first Test versus England, South Africa in Wellington, Australia in Sydney and in Brisbane could all have easily gone the other way. In fact a win to the Wallabies on Saturday would have meant a drawn Bledisloe series, and when you consider the strength of this current Australian side, what does that say about the All Blacks?

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With 12 months to go until the World Cup New Zealand, England, South Africa and Ireland are the front runners. Of course France can never be counted out, nor can Australia or Wales, but the group of death will be too much for the latter two, with the runner-up of that pool then going on to likely face the Springboks in the quarter final, stuff of nightmares.

The spring internationals will be fascinating. Despite the disarray in the Wallaby camp, they should get up and beat the Welsh first up. They will be battle hardened and up against a rusty Welsh side, albeit buoyed on by a fan-base desperate to strike a blow before 2015.

It will get harder from there for the Wallabies and I expect them to lose to the English at home. France and Ireland will be difficult and those games will not just be titanic but revealing also.

The All Blacks have an easier tour than their Rugby Championship rivals, with the USA and Scotland thrown in among England and Wales. The Test against England will be monumental but the All Blacks should get in what will be England’s first Test of the season.

The English will be targeting the Springboks in what is the only scalp they have yet to claim in Stuart Lancaster’s reign. The Springboks, as they showed in Wellington and Johannesburg this year, are breathing down the All Blacks’ necks at the summit of world rugby; they will want to continue on their rise.

Rugby World Cups are growing closer and closer, teams are now equally prepared and margins between winning and losing can be minuscule. As we saw during the course of this season while the All Blacks still lead the way, the gap is closing at the top.

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