All Blacks squad for Springboks series suggests Foster is about to make the same mistakes all over again

The 1976 Led Zeppelin movie, The Song Remains The Same, is a music classic.

Expertise, innovation, and protagonists who could claim to be the best in the world in their own roles are all showcased, but most of all, we see a group of men who understood that being tight together was the basis on which individuals could then showcase their unique personal talent.

Could hardly be further from a description of the Ian Foster All Blacks could it? Perhaps the only real link between the two is the inclusion of the timeless song, ‘Dazed and Confused’.

After a very public mauling from the CEO and a week of radio silence, Foster was wheeled out before the press to announce that nothing has changed bar the inclusion of two guys who should have been there from the very start and to confirm their continued blindness around South Canterbury hard man Cullen Grace.

So, the NZR CEO clearly states the Ireland series is unacceptable and the coaching team rolls out effectively the same squad as before, seriously limiting the game plan options available to them.

Something smells odd here to me.

Joe Schmidt, who joins the payroll as analyst and selector post the Ireland series, will not be travelling with the side when his ice cold, emotionless observations are needed the most, and rumours of agreed, and not yet announced coaching changes began to circulate almost before the press room had cleared.

There has been a clear narrative in the press this week that Schmidt does not want to travel, yet there he was in the box away to the Brumbies, and if it is a matter of length of travel, have we really picked a selector and analyst who won’t be going to France, won’t see matches live nor observe the players’ performances on the training paddock?

One doesn’t need to be a member of the Sceptics Society to have doubts about this.

On Sunday, it was announced that assistants John Plumtree and Brad Mooar would be the casualties in the aftermath of the Ireland defeat.

Foster has declared that his All Black side will produce a display and game plan that the New Zealand public can be proud of in the coming two games in the Republic, and that statement should produce more fear than comfort for All Black fans as what this coaching group considers to be an appropriate game plan could hardly be further from mark of what is required in the current international game.

(Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

After the third Test against Ireland, I sat down to bang out an opinion piece, only to find 1000 words of repetition of the last couple of seasons. So, it got binned.

But after some rumination, the more re-addressing the content of those recent opinion pieces in one place made sense, because I would love an explanation of what the New Zealand coaching team is seeing that we, the general public, are not, and they are the paid experts after all, and we are purely the people that pay for the whole thing.

Circling back to the Foster statement that we are about to see a performance to be proud of, at the end of last season, I took out the long handle and wrote this.

Seemingly overly-aggressive at the time perhaps, but the best part of 45,000 reads on The Roar later it appeared to have struck a chord and nothing seen from the game plan in Ireland Tests 2 and 3 challenges me to change my opinion.

In short, this coaching team still believes it can outrun and out score any side they come up against and that the core rules handed down by the rugby Gods do not apply to them. Well, one whole series and a bunch of unwanted records later, it looks truer than ever, as breakdown, ruck defence and gain-line dominance remain huge issues.

New Zealand Rugby writer Hamish Bidwell hit far harder than I and using one of his quotes here will save me a few hundred words of explanation.

“New Zealand possesses any number of players who are outstanding on their best day. Who are dominant against bad teams and when they’re on the front foot and the pitch is dry and there’s not a lot of pressure or intensity,” he wrote.

Bang on the money. Too many guys who have to wait to play off the backs of others and not enough who set the platform for this side to play off, and this is not a one-off, this is a theme and that falls firmly on the head coach.

Do we see anything in the squad selection to go to South Africa that changes that? The inclusion of Ethan de Groot is good to see, although loosehead is hardly the issue, but the inclusion of Highlander workhorse Shannon Frizell is the only step in the right direction.

High work rate, outstanding line out option, will do all the donkey carrying in the tight and off their own try line, and will defend the A and B channels but most importantly, he will be right up Sam Cane’s clacker ruck after ruck, with one of the few loose forward combinations of recent years that demonstrably works well together.

After competing on even terms at the breakdown in the first Test, the injury to Scott Barrett saw the All Black ruck presence go into free fall in the last two contests; they cannot leave the still in place captain to compete here on his own as we did in the two defeats.

While Akira Ioane probably had his best individual 40 minutes in a black jersey in the second half of the third Test, and if his excellent try doesn’t convince him to constantly stay narrow nothing will, he will never be the ruck presence needed to balance this loose trio as evidenced for the fourth Test in a row when selected together with Ardie Savea.

(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

A further selection opportunity missed was the required recall of Owen Franks. When your props miss 30 per cent of the team tackles across a series and biggest issues are at tighthead, does that not demand attention?

Franks showed against international props Angus Bell and James Slipper during the Super season that he can still take opposition looseheads into low and difficult places at scrum time, and I would have thought a tackle count of 25-0 to his name for the year was at least worthy of consideration.

He only has to start the match and safely get the side to halftime without damage, after all. Eddie Jones has shown with England that going back to past players when they are in form can add to overall team performance. A significant miss from the Ministry of the Bleeding Obvious.

This means any changes to game plan have to come from inside the squad.

The omission of Samisoni Taukei’aho from the starting line-up in the third Test is a mystery right up there with D.B. Cooper.

The side’s best scrummaging hooker and a ball runner who has the capacity to alter the tone of any game’s opening exchanges is a must from the opening whistle.

His 16-0 tackle count off the pine leaps off the page in contrast of the contribution of others in the front row. Watching the ‘safer’ option of Codie Taylor play his part in four missed lineouts in the first half of the third Test removes any possible excuse for not making this change.

The non-existent All Black kicking game and match management

Thirty-seven-year-old Irish fly-half Jonathan Sexton handed out lesson after lesson in how to run a football match across the month.

He was ever present the 10 slot (no hiding at fullback for this man), constantly demanding the ball and making excellent choices on when to tactically kick and when to distribute.

Test match rugby game management 101, while New Zealand chose to run with a hit and run approach to the position when the matches were screaming out for territorial control and patience.

The failure of Beauden Barrett to build any pressure on the opposition from first five-eighth, nor create differing attacking pictures for Ireland to deal with was hardly a surprise given the way the Blues played this season, where Barrett’s best moments came when running off Stephen Perofeta.

(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

The two Test matches against South Africa loom ever larger than they did before, and if nothing else, they demand game management, a 10 who is happy to take responsibility for his side, stay on the slot, get multiple consecutive touches and who has the patience to drive the side around without trying to create something every time they get the ball.

Richie Mo’unga has not only the game management and distribution abilities which should have been the go-to for the Ireland series but owns all the kicking requirements for pinning back a South African side that will box kick and bomb/chase every time you allow them half decent field position.

Even in the limited late minutes he got against Ireland, Mo’unga displayed the speed of distribution from hand which got a disjointed backline moving forward and showed why the Crusaders’ wingers and fullback all tied the Super Rugby try scoring statistics with 10 each.

Ceding the kicking game and with it any chance of territorial dominance was the single greatest selection and game plan error of the Ireland series and one which demands immediate remedy and without which we can expect a simple repeat of what we have just seen on our home shores.

Defence must be the priority in any position selection, never more so than at centre.

If there was any doubt that we are wasting a potential World XV left wing by playing him at centre then the Ireland series should have confirmed it for all, even for the ever-crowing Blues-dominated New Zealand rugby media.

Centre has been the link-pin position for New Zealand rugby sides at all levels for as long as anyone can remember and demands not only personal defensive excellence but also the game awareness to be the defensive organiser for all those around him. The All Black current selection simply doesn’t tick the required boxes.

When coaches of the quality of Ronan O’Gara are happy to publicly question the ability of the All Black centre unable to differentiate between when to focus on man or ball, then the warning lights should be flashing inside our own coaching box.

If the selection of Rieko Ioane in this position was to take advantage of his undoubted attacking abilities, which also didn’t happen, then the lack of quality distribution out of the 10 slot merely compounded an already poor centre selection error.

And this is where the squad selection, both for the Ireland series and now the Rugby Championship, is seriously flawed.

They are about to come up against a grown-up South African centre pairing and with yet another injury to Jack Goodhue (other knee this time), so who do they select at centre for the first Test at Mbombela Stadium?

They can’t pick Ioane again because South Africa will simply target him in the same way Ireland did and the remaining options are limited given that the selection of a project player in Roger Tuivasa-Sheck has absorbed a squad slot.

(Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)

Based on the Ireland series, Quinn Tupaea looked the most comfortable in reading what the Green Machine were throwing at him. He slid when required, simply filled space to buy time for his insides when required and did not bite out of the line looking to solve problems on his own.

He did a far better job of being the glue and director for those around him than either of his more experienced teammates playing either side of him.

It’s an awful lot to ask of a young man early in his All Black career but the squad selection leaves no other choice than to dump him in the deep end and ask him to do a job.

If Foster is to produce a game plan and style of which we supporters at home can be proud of as he attests, then he must have the courage to admit the style and selections errors from 2021 and the Ireland Test series, drill back to the basics of combinations, cohesion and sheer bloody mindedness and make choices that gives the side their best chance against what will be another contest against seriously quality opposition.

But I suspect step 1, the “we got it wrong” step, might be an obstacle just too challenging, as evidenced by the Rugby Championship squad selected.

Different outputs are going to require very different inputs.