I would say that right now Australia is looking pretty well balanced CSM.

They are missing a bit of on ball presence in the forward pack because Hooper, while not terrible over the ball, is not a primary ball winner though both BPA and Uelese have some skill in that area.

There’s still a bit of work to do in the backline but a midfield of Paisami and Kerevi could be nicely balanced, if a little on the direct side, while the backline is looks much more nicely balanced with Kellaway on the wing.

Oh I flat out think it’s a misguided approach and there needs to be a top to bottom rethink!

Thanks SB.

I think it’s actually that they have decided to almost completely cut away from what made the 2015 team strong in order to deal with the rising challenge of the rush defence. The jump in impact of hard fast defensive lines since that world-cup (particular as evidenced by the lions tour in 2017 where the All Blacks really struggled to get their attack going, frightened the All Black’s coaches into trying to create a new system for breaking it down. That system required, in their mind, a different shape to their team and they have been selecting to that end ever since.

Even before Sonny Bill and Ryan Crotty left the selectors were starting to prefer ALB and Goodhue, players they saw as having better feet at the line (one the of the areas people don’t give Goodhue credit for). Even when Reado was still kicking around there was a desire to play with more mobile backrowers with a Cane, Read, Savea combo preferred often leading into 2019. The All Blacks are selecting for pace and footwork over power for a good while now.

Given it is certain that if the game goes ahead it will be at a neutral venue, and both teams have had decent build ups (with SA obviously having a stiffer challenge in the BIL series) It’s fair to say that the result of this test will show who is currently the best team in the world.

I suspect the Boks will win though I think the stats you put up Harry (Though I will note that the Boks have games against Italy and Georgia included in those stats which should probably be excluded if you are excluding Fiji given Fiji are higher on the rankings than both those teams.) show the all blacks, despite being a less defensive side have only conceded between one penalty and one unconverted try more points than the more defensively minded Springboks. People often focus on how New Zealand is an attacking side with amazing backs while forgetting they also have a very competitive, if not dominant, pack and a pretty solid defensive record.

The greatest thing in the Boks favour is consistency and cohesion. They know how they want to play and have a team with depth that can play that game very very well. The All Blacks on the other hand are less settled, their gameplan is less concrete and they are prone to high error rugby.

Cheers Riccardo!

Jordan and Reiko are straight-line players and that helps, but without more punch in midfield the laterality of attack makes it too easy to defend on the scramble. This is the real problem with sideways movement, it affects your own team as much as it affects the opponent, as they have to check their run and support lines, and react to the footwork of their team mate, slowing them down and allowing defenders to get into defence blocking lines. (this sort of discussion makes me wish I had access to good video to describe what I mean!)

I think if ALB puts some focus on playing a bit more direct or on running some crisp lines off Havilli the combo can work, and in fairness it’s very early days for them as a partnership. I wonder if ALB wants to go back home to Christchurch for a couple of years…..

Clark is pretty good under the high ball, though I would say both Bridge and Will Jordan are better. Clark’s problem is he is a big boy and his turning and acceleration aren’t amazing, so he can get caught out if the ball does something weird in the air or it’s windy.

There have definitely been a couple of nice movements with Mounga, Havilli and McKenzie using numbers and quick hands, but the major source of tries this year has been: Aaron Smith lifts and draws the defence or does a small run, flows a flat bullet across the defence to a guy who uses footwork to unbalance his defender and then pins their ears back for the line.

Rennie seems to have a better feel for balance HL, something I don’t think Wallabies fans are accounting for yet.

There has definitely been a trend in New Zealand since after the 2015 world-cup to select players because and I quote “We want to play a certain way”. There’s a logic here, especially in New Zealand where the conveyor belt tends to pump out enough players of differing attributes to support some pretty crazy gameplans, and it’s all about beating modern defensive systems which are growing more suffocating by the year.

The problem is I think that gameplan has been shown to be flawed AND it’s relying on unbalanced teams to try and work, with those issues compounding over the years.

Yeah to my mind thats the countervailing view to trying to balance your team, just picking the best player you have for each position.

I specifically wanted to bring up the springboks because they aim for greater “team” balance so they can play with units that would often feel very unbalanced.

Argentina are interesting, and you would know better than me, but is backrow selection in Argentina a function of the players available? I think we’ve spoken about this before, with most top level Argentinian players playing in France and the top 14 having a preference for bigger forwards that filters back to the players who are ready for the international level.

The boks finding a way to basically remove a core role from their team has stunning impacts Harry. Picking three backrowers who are all selected on impact without losing the on deck production makes for a terrifying proposition for the opposing forward pack.

Captaincy aside, what’s stopping the boks playing a backrow of PTSD, Mostert and Weiss???

Most world cup winning sides are very nicely balanced JD.

The 2015 All Blacks had a very finely tuned balance and variety across the park, though I always thought that back three was short a second high ball diffuser. NMS wasn’t bad in that area but Izzy Dag was better.

The 1999 Wallabies were also just incredibly well balanced side for the time. Plenty of punch from guys like Kefu and Herbert and the playmaking pairing of Horan and Larkham. There was nowhere on the park they couldn’t cause problems.

Thanks Carlos! What do you think is lacking in my balance definition? I agonised over it for a couple of hours and was worried I was being too prescriptive.

Cheers biltong.

I’d love to see Blackadder given a few shots at 6 during the northern tour and have him get a full year in the Crusaders 6 jersey. That really seems to be his position and he brings a bit more impact in the tackle than some of the others.

RA is very keen on making the “spillover” games derbies which makes prefect sense from an Australian point of view but given the relative strength of the sides in question it would give them an unfair leg up into finals.

The “table split” approach seems reasonable to me, if last year’s bottom of the table team trends up well too bad, maybe your top bracketed team will come down the pecking order. Nice swings and roundabouts approach which offers some fun fodder for fans to argue over.

New Zealand and Australian rugby fans specifically treat each other badly and have done for years. To the point where they will denigrate the other on things that would not bother them if it were another union, and they will defend their own unions bad decisions when attacked by fans from the other country.

And from a fan/media side everyone has always hated England, so that’s nothing new.

However from what I can see the respect between players from different countries remains and this has always been what has set rugby apart. Just look at the class of Michael Hooper on the occasion of Aaron Smith’s 100th test cap, or any number of examples of players trading jerseys on the pitch and beers after it even recently. So long as we don’t lose that I think we are okay.

Ardie bring the athleticism I like in an 8. He’s fast, and dynamic and has a grea all round set of skills. When you have an openside like Cane or Papalii smashing people all day the 8 can afford to be a little smaller.

Is anyone in NZ other than Hoskins Sotutu a pure 8th man though?

Cane coming back is good news and an interesting period to look forward to. He and Papalii and VERY similar as far as opensides go. Big, strong, tackle machines with decent but not exceptional on ball skills. I would consider Cane the better version of that player but he is injury prone.

Here’s a brain tickler what if we started Jacobson at 6?

I’m iffy on Havilli and ALB as a combo Riccardo. They aren’t the same player, but they are too similar for my liking and there just isn’t enough directness in the two of them. It’s a real shame because I think they are both awesome players, but not right for each other as a midfield partnership.

On his Bled2, performance it looks like Ioane is firming as the long term 6 option. I’m on record as being down on Ioane, and I worry that while he suits the gameplan the coaches are putting together for their loose forwards, that gameplan is significantly flawed. Within that framework though he has been improving at international level over the last 2 years.

The wing gap is fascinating. It really comes down to selection all over the backline. If they play a lateral midfield like ALB and Havilli, then I want Caleb Clarke providing a bit of punch. If they bring Rieko into centre then maybe it’s Reece, Jordan and a fullback (Jordie, Beauden or Dmac depednign on your preferences) Personally I’d like a Clarke, Bridge, Jordan back three but people have gone off the boil on Bridge.

Thanks for the article as always H, an I think my soon to be finished article on “balance” more generally will act as a bit of a companion piece to this!

In the interests in arresting our furious agreement cycle, I’ll take on the point regarding the Backrow.

I, like you, have had significant doubts about the Ioane, Papalii Savea trio for some time. Most of this has been to do with Ioane’s low workrate and Savea’s on/off approach. If Ioane is not working much and Savea is in an “off” period during the game that leaves a mountain of work for Papalii.

However in reviewing the game, and Nick Bishop’s article in TheXV I’m starting to see the way the coaches are using the players and how that balance is working out. I don’t agree with the gameplan but it is aligning with the players.

In essence the current backrow has the right sort of balance, just in places we don’t really expect as All Black’s fans. Where we expect the number 6 to play tighter, have a role more similar to a lock with a bit less workrate and a bit more enforcer, Ioane is playing closer to our expectations of an 8, wider ranging athleticism, with a touch of the enforcer thrown in. The workrate is being left to the 7 with Papalii doing a mountain of tackling and hitting rucks and only really maintaining the offensive link play of a traditional 7 role. Savea is dong a lot more of the “tight-loose” carrying we expect of the 6 and appears to be the primary jackler and defensive link player, which we normally expect of the 7. Basically all the components are there, just oddly spread.

Can’;t agree more re the back three. Love Dmac, love little men in rugby, but unless they want to play Bridge and Jordan on the wings and play 3 fullbacks I don’t see the value.

One thing I will mention about Havilli is that he looks so much better with a more direct player outside him and Rieko Ioane played easily his best international in the 13 jersey. Rieko was straight and direct and fed some lovely flat passes to his brother swanning on the wing. Also Havilli was more willing to cart it straight up which really helped a few times when play was getting a bit messy.

Not if I get there first!

Thanks for the review on what was a pretty hot topic this week Nick!

There’s been a bit of back and forth on here about wether these passes are in or out of the game plan. Many roarers are convinced that Rennie is encouraging a “heads up play what you see” plan which is leading to these wide passes, and greater skill levels (lower, flatter, faster passes in these cases) would fix the issue.

I disagree and think these passes are case of players struggling to shake off old habits and not looking for the option other than the pass. In each case, a pass shape and grubber through seems to be the better attacking option, which Rennie himself has highlighted, and speaks to me of a game plan looking to make meters when it counts and keep the opposition pinned back and under pressure. Would love to get your position.

All that said, the deep winger, hidden behind the defensive line, racing up such a significant distance for the intercept looks like a genuine ploy from the ABs and not something I think I have ever seen before. Habana was an intercept merchant but he played much flatter.

Actually it looks like they have somehow got the same data in both the “tries” and “carries” sections

I use the 9wide world of sports stats though they are a little tricky to find. I don’t think I can post a link but basically go to the wwos website, go to the rugby section and then click on the game score in the ribbon near the top. then on the game summary scroll down and you can switch between a few different tabs one of which is player stats. A word of warning though they clearly aren’t perfect. for example they have Dalton Papalii down as having 23 meters off zero carries.

Just imagine being the poor Wallabies side who beat NZ twice in a non-Bledisloe year….

Sorry the internationals were <10% of the revenue but they didn't get exclusive rights as it was also on foxtel. That said, without the exclusive rights Foxtel weren;t THAT keen on the internationals either as I recall. So it's very difficult to split them.

I guess we could use 6 nations v some of the national comps as a bench mark. The 6 nations in the past has pulled about 90m Stirling but the applicable national comps are all over the shop. Premiership pulls about 40m Stirling a year while the top 14 pulls about 120m euro or about 100m Stirling. Pro 14 is a big drop down to something like 20m euro tops.

So I would say fairly conservatively based on the evidence that super rugby probably made up around 60% of the value, given the relative strength of the Six Nations as a Product vrs the domestic comps as guide. I do not see any TV company, FTA or payed, paying for more than about $5-10m a year for the 8 or so international games that happen in Australian viewing hours ( a 3 test tour, 2 home games against RSA and ARG and 3 Bledisloe matches. Super rugby, despite its problems, almost certainly makes up the bulk of the revenue.