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Anything Aaron Smith can do, TJ Perenara can do too – including change the ref's mind

Oh yeah, fair point

Convincing a referee to change his mind was long thought to be impossible, but on Saturday TJ Perenara became the second lippy New Zealand halfback to talk Australian ref Angus Gardner around in the space of a year.

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These days it seems that anything Aaron Smith can do, TJ Perenara can do just as well. Passing, running and decision making are all pretty even for the two halfbacks, and now TJ can add the rare feat of convincing referee Angus Gardner to change his mind to match Smith’s effort last year.

That’s right, the same ref has now successfully been talked around by two separate All Blacks halfbacks.

In 2016, Smith achieved what was previously thought to have been impossible when he presented the flawless logic to Gardner that an exceptionally tight game between the Highlanders and Brumbies had hit full time.

Saturday night’s match between the Hurricanes and Reds at Suncorp Stadium saw Perenara inform the Australian whistleblower that a penalty that been awarded before a disallowed try still stood, prompting Gardner to reverse his original decision. The ‘try’ in question deserves mention too, given that Perenara deceived everyone by taking a cheeky quick tap without actually tapping the ball.

This is both a huge development for loudmouth halfbacks and a setback for coaches and parents who try to teach kids to accept bad officiating with grace and humility. Perenara’s frustration was quite evident and arguably justified, as at that point the TMO had almost earned himself a bonus point for disallowing tries – all against the Hurricanes (not that it mattered as they eventually won comfortably, 34-15).

Angus Gardner has carved himself out a pretty good reputation this year, most notably following the game he controlled between Perenara’s Hurricanes and Smith’s Highlanders. He is getting a bit of grief over the fact that he actually awarded three tries and had them overruled by the TMO in the Reds vs Canes game, but to put a positive angle on it, at least that proves that the system works. Plus, one wasn’t even his fault – one of his assistants decided to check out Mark Abbott’s rear-end rather than his foot landing on the touchline.

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Meanwhile, although the All Blacks have depth at halfback that’s comparable to the Mariana Trench, the battle for the starting jersey this season looks likely to come down to Smith and Perenara specifically.

While all the talk after this game has been about Perenara’s verbal jousting with Gardner, the Wellingtonian is clearly taking no chances when it comes to providing the All Blacks coaching staff evidence that he demands inclusion. Due to the injury Ardie Savea picked up with 10 minutes to go, he jumped at the chance to pack down at flanker.

Let’s just say it went better than the last time a back attempted to get involved in a scrum.

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Flankly 1 minute ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 10 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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Nickers 39 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

43 Go to comments
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