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Dane Coles reveals 'ruthless banter' in All Blacks camp after Beauden Barrett's Blues announcement

Dane Coles (left) and Beauden Barrett. (Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

NZ Herald

Dane Coles says he’s “back on speaking terms” with Beauden Barrett, after the star All Black playmaker quit the Hurricanes for the Blues.

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Speaking after the All Blacks arrived in Buenos Aires, All Blacks hooker Coles said he was “pretty gutted” at Barrett’s decision.

Coles jokingly said all was not forgotten after the All Blacks assembled prior to Sunday morning’s test against the Pumas.

“We had some activity and we were telling him to go off with the Blues boys,” Coles told Radio Sport.

“The banter early on would have been ruthless, but as long as we remain friends and mates.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz-KZD1AZGh/

“The first couple of days I didn’t want to see his face. I was pretty gutted. But you’ve got to push that aside.

“We’re on speaking terms now and it’s part of rugby. He’s got to look out for his family.”

All Black veterans Coles and Barrett have been Hurricanes teammates since 2011.

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Coles said Barrett had let him in on the Blues news just before the official announcement, although there hadn’t been much discussion before that.

“At the end of the day it is up to the individual,” Coles said.

“We might have had a yarn on Sunday after the (Super Rugby) semifinal loss – but it was a few beers deep and probably didn’t make much sense.”

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Flankly 1 hour 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?

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