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Brodie Retallick airs All Blacks' frustrations ahead of decisive Ireland test
By Alex McLeod
All Blacks star Brodie Retallick has aired some of the frustrations that have stuck with him and his teammates in the wake of last weekend’s historic defeat to Ireland in Dunedin.
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For the first time in 117 years, the All Blacks lost to Ireland on Kiwi soil as the tourists overturned a series-opening defeat at Eden Park in Auckland to outclass the hosts in a 23-12 victory at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
The loss – New Zealand’s third in their last four tests – was the heaviest home defeat suffered by the All Blacks in 28 years, which has resulted in Ian Foster’s side slumping to a lowest-ever World Rugby ranking of fourth.
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A flurry of yellow and red cards significantly impacted the result, but Foster was unequivocally clear in his post-match summation of events when he described his team’s level of skill execution as “unacceptable”.
As such, the All Blacks have it all to play for in this week’s third and final test against Ireland in Wellington as they look to redeem themselves and avoid their first home series defeat since France’s two-test clean sweep of the Kiwis in 1994.
Retallick has since echoed Foster’s sentiments, pinpointing Ireland’s blistering start to both halves, as well as his side’s basic handling errors, as particular sticking points from the weekend’s loss.
Both of Ireland’s tries were scored by prop Andrew Porter within the first 10 minutes of each half, and Retallick told The Breakdown on Sunday that the All Blacks made it too easy for the away side to gain ascendency from the get-go.
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“I think the first 10 minutes, 15 minutes, of each half. Even though we had the cards in the first half, we went into the sheds at 10-7, but we let them in very easily early on and gave them an easy start, a bit like Eden Park,” the 31-year-old said.
“When we had our opportunities to build some pressure, we just didn’t hold onto the ball, we made simple mistakes, knocking on, and it’s always hard to do that when you’re a man down and giving possession away.”
Retallick added that he had met with Foster and the squad’s leaders to dissect the match after the team’s arrival in Wellington on Sunday.
While there was a widespread acknowledgement at that meeting that improvements must be made before this week’s crunch match at Sky Stadium, Retallick revealed some positives had been identified amid all his side’s issues.
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One of those was New Zealand’s desperate goal line defence, which largely kept Ireland at bay despite their numerical advantage following Angus Ta’avao’s red card, and yellow cards to Leicester Fainga’anuku and Ofa Tu’ungafasi.
“I think there were definitely parts there where, especially when we were numbers down and some of the defence, you couldn’t question the will and the want from the boys there,” Retallick told The Breakdown.
“It was pretty outstanding, but, at the same time, we’ve got to be able to do it both sides of the ball and, like I touched on, cut a few of those mistakes and errors out so we can get a chance to play our game.”
There was also a level of satisfaction about the way in which the All Blacks fared at the lineout, which was pleasing for Retallick given he was thrust into the role of chief lineout operator due to Sam Whitelock’s concussion-enforced absence.
“I think those first couple were a little bit rusty and they pinched one there, but I thought, especially going into half-time, we went to our five-man lineout and we just mauled it and we managed to win a couple of penalties and piggyback ourselves down the field, which was a highlight,” Retallick said.
“I think the set piece in game one was good, and we know if we can pressure their lineout and steal their ball, it’s the set piece that they look to start their game with, so, again, it’ll be another massive focus, our lineout D and attack moving forward to Saturday.”
A member of the All Blacks squad that settled for a drawn series against the British & Irish Lions in 2017, Retallick likened this week’s decisive clash to the third test of that series five years ago.
Prior to last weekend’s loss to Ireland, the Lions series was the only time in Retallick’s career that the All Blacks hadn’t whitewashed an opponent in a home test series.
Drawing on that experience, the 93-test veteran said there were plenty of parallels between the two series, of which he believed the All Blacks could learn from in their bid to salvage a victory this weekend.
“We talked about the Lions series. We were in a similar situation, had a red card in Wellington and went to game three at Eden Park, but it’s also a great challenge for the squad,” Retallick told The Breakdown.
“Obviously we didn’t want to lose on the weekend and we would have liked to have sewn it up, but to go into the series one-all with a big decider in Wellington is going to be a great learning experience for the squad and the boys who haven’t been there, so that’s a positive.
“I think, like I said, we start to talk about it tonight here in Wellington with the leaders, and once we hit the ground Monday, it’s all about looking forward to Saturday and building our run so we can come out of the blocks on Saturday night and not be slow like we did on the weekend.”
The recent All Blacks have focused too much on ball skills and speed at the expense of building up upper body strengths both forwards and backs to consistently win the important breakdown battles. Not easy to win these battles week in week out if the other side has greater upper body strength; especially at World Cup level. Possession, position and speed yes but also in today's game stamina in area of upper body strength is a must.
The curious part is how few tackles the AB’s made. The average per international match is around 135 yet according to the stats counters they made only 115 or so. When you compare the tight five tackle counts the numbers are disturbingly one sided. Are they just not used to being tackled by tight forwards and tackling them. When the props all got sent off the defensive patterns and effort turned to cactus.
The amount of carries per player is also low. The Irish have cottoned onto the fact that offloads result in turnovers every 1.3 carries and if you do not attempt the offload the number is every three carries so they hold, run, support the tackled player, hold, run, support the tackled player rinse repeat.
The AB’s need to disrupt that pattern, turnover more often than every third carry and then turn the possession into carry metres in the tight five and loosies and make metres together through the middle and the Irish will fold.
We thrashed them on test1.
After Red card and 2 yellow cards they could only beat us by 11 points.
We can still beat them in Wellington. Les go ABs!!!
Foster was never my best first coach choice.
AB coaching team made 2 critical errors which cost us the game.
What was unacceptable was fosters coaching
You may well think its like the third test of 2018 but it's not. These guys are better than you. The Lions werent.