Dagg solid but unspectacular, says Hansen

Smith often looks to pass as quickly as possible to the nearest receiver. I'm not sure he's always looking for his first five. I did think Cruden and Nonu linked up better than they have in the past.

The lack of combination between those two is weird, cause they've played together a fari bit with Manawatu and with the NZ U-20 side.

Dagg has been disappointing this season from my point of view. He hasn't been anywhere near as dangerous on attack, and defensively he has been run over a couple of times this season. Overall it is a shame Anscombe has been injred, for me the better fullback in NZ at the moment, alongside Ben Smith obviously.

Cooper stopped him... ha ha. Couldn't resist...

Am a huge Ranger fan and know I am hardly alone. A big unit and such a direct, hard runner; bloody tough to stop and great skills. What a fantastic player to have coming off the bench! Such a shame we dont have someone of Rene's quality in the Wallabies centre combination - let alone on the bench.... :(

Aaron Smith had an excellent game, but there is no Smith/Cruden combination as yet. I can understand Hansen persisting with Dagg since Ranger is leaving and Dagg will be required all season.

Nice work boys, good banter! Needed a good chuckle this morning. Go the frogs?????

yeah i'll try and turn the french amor down. i've had quite a few french players in my rugby teams and theyve always told me the only reason that the french get up for the ABs game is because of how much theyre respected in france. u can pretty much implement any game plan you want when you control the contact areas. i think hansen needs a little reminder of that.

Good post mate. Steady on with your Parisienne romance Brother! I think you're right that the All Blacks may be trying too much too soon. This may be evidenced by the incompete performances last year, apart from Ireland and Argentina. I'm a big fan of the pacey game they're trying to implement but I agree with you that we need to own contest-areas first. When they get it right at pace though mania...

riccardo - actually if anyone is gonna give us a lesson then i prefer it to be the french. i'm silly in that i find theres a romance to be being beaten by the french and though theyve given us some the the most painful defeats i kinda dont mind as much because thy're just as passionate as kiwi's about their rugby and probably more passionate fans of the ABs. ABs need to be taught a few lessons i reckon. this gameplan of playing at pace is all fine and dandy but we have to dominate the contact area first and foremost. all good going wide once we've owned the narrow. if gaps appear they'll turn up on the fringes first. we're moving away from the basics imo and lesBlues could be the team to give us a kick in the backside that we deserve. we cant continue playing mediocre and winning. that is setting us up with a false sense of security

Its not Montpelliers fault as Ranger signed the contract. They have effectively got an AB at a bargain price because Im sure his market value has skyrocketed since his recall. With that in mind & Ranger in the form of his life I can understand their reluctance to release him. I agree that he has thrived under excellent coaching at the blues so hopefully the 2 Sirs can stay on as long as possible.

I'm hoping we don't Shung. Some extra intensity, particularly from the back-row is definitely required. Equally though I think they need to be patient in their execution. There was some pretty poor ball handling the result of rushed passes and poor positional play that patience and accuracy will remedy. Crucial, I think is the Smith/Cruden axis. They were average last week, especially in the first half. Expect some better composure there. Hopefully Cruden has been practising his kicking as it appeared to dent his confidence last week.

Riccardo Ranger eliminated mistakes and improved because the Blues changed coaches. Simple as that. Much high quality talent is let down by bad coaches. Blackadder is failing to develop Fruean and Todd and sending Dagg into freefall, while Hammett is performing a similar trick on Taylor. I can guarantee if the listed players moved to the Blues or Chiefs where they had Henry and Smith to develop them by next international season they would be playing for the All Blacks. As for Montpellier, the French clubs are really wrecking world rugby. They pillage every major nation and force PI players not to represent their country. They're a nightmare but it's hard to see what could be done about it short of penalising France. Perhaps all the offended union should refuse to play test rugby against France as long as the clubs pilllage and PI players aren't released when called up.

ranger did come on late and caught the french by surprise but it was an awesome game from ranger. the bonus with benSmith (and to a degree ranger) is he's only world famous in NZ. the french underestimated him and hung off him not realising what he's capable of. i totally agree in regards to daggs boot. i'd pit him against francoisSteyn in a game of forceBack. but daggs boot has become a major weapon for the ABs. Daggs boot stops the Boks from trying to kick and keep us in the corners negating that entire gameplan.

I think the headline doesn't match the story. I do think the AIG's will drop a game this series if there isn't a big step up in intensity. As for Nonu I think every club wishes he'd play for them like he does when he puts that AIG jersey on.

All true mania. But given how much impact the late game trio made, particularly Ranger, it is equally fair to argue that back three starts. KPM must be loving Ranger's involvement and let's be fair, his preference has been borne out. Pity Montpelier are sticking fast to the exit clause. Smith does appear to have the extra bits of his game in working order. He is an exceptional broken play runner and does all the basics well, although he does not possess Dagg's prodigious boot Dagg coming off the bench may not a bad thing. It worked for the Crusaders, where he had an immediate impact.

y'know daggs not doing so bad. ok some of his scintilating attacks are missing but then so are his massive screw ups. dagg last week was pretty much faultless from memory. no stupid kicks or running and getting isolated, no dumb decisions that put his team mates under pressure. this is the baseline / minimum of how dagg should be playing. anything better would be a bonus but this should be the acceptable level of daggs play. ps - dagg wasnt the only one that had an average performance. other than a few hard workers most of the ABs seemed only to be running/contributing at 50-60%. nonu, read, benSmith and retalick worked hard and can be pleased with their performance.