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Don't blame Super Rugby for All Blacks' woes
By Ben Smith
After the All Blacks‘ losses to South Africa, in addition to the one conceded to Argentina, the fingers are now being pointed at Super Rugby for the results.
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Argentina, who used to field the Jaguares made up of their national team, and South Africa, left the flagship southern hemisphere competition in 2020.
Yet for all the noise about the demise of Super Rugby as an adequate pathway, the All Blacks ended up within a converted try of the Springboks twice.
Overlooked is the team that Scott Robertson and his coaching staff used in South Africa.
Ardie Savea, Sam Cane and Beauden Barrett all completed sabbaticals in Japan this season, with Cane playing not much rugby at all for Suntory Sungoliath.
Those three started in Johannesburg, while Barrett came off the bench in Cape Town.
Codie Taylor had a non-playing sabbatical this season and returned to play four times for the Crusaders.
Starting loosehead prop Tamaiti Williams was injured in round one and returned to play three games at the back end of the season.
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Will Jordan did not play a single minute of Super Rugby after rehabbing his shoulder following elective surgery at the start of the year.
Ethan Blackadder, who started the first test, managed just five games of Super Rugby. Half of this All Black team played no, or very little minutes, in Super Rugby Pacific.
The results of this Rugby Championship so far are better explained by the selections, picking undercooked and out-of-form players, not to mention snubbing the championship-winning side.
The Blues won the competition with a unique game plan unlike any other team.
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Vern Cotter in his first year as head coach leaned on the likes of Hoskins Sotutu, Akira Ioane, Patrick Tuipulotu and his big pack to bully teams up front. A young Crusaders’ pack were given a towelling at Eden Park and taught a lesson in big boy rugby.
The Blues played forward-dominant 9-man rugby and ended up demolishing the Chiefs in the final. How many Blues’ forwards started for the All Blacks in South Africa? Zero.
If the All Blacks aren’t using the backbone of the championship-winning Super Rugby side, why is the competition being blamed?
The other standout pack from this year’s competition was the Hurricanes. They finished the regular season on top of the ladder with a 12-2 record.
They had the most dominant scrum anchored by the world’s best tighthead prop in Tyrel Lomax, along with Asafo Aumua and Xavier Numia. They had a dynamic back row including openside Peter Lakai and No 8 Braydon Iose, two of the most damaging ball carriers in the competition. The Hurricanes were surprisingly better this year without their talisman Ardie Savea.
They had the best fullback in competition in Ruben Love who is better than Will Jordan in a number of areas, namely distribution and putting away his wingers under pressure. Love has the best hands in the country out wide.
Billy Proctor is one of the best defensive midfielders in the country and showed what he can do against Fiji on debut.
Yes, these are a number of inexperienced names.
But they are in form, like 21-year-old Wallace Sititi who was the best forward in Cape Town. If Sititi can play like that, could Lakai, Love, Proctor and Numia? What about Sotutu?
Based on his track record incoming head coach Scott Robertson earnt the benefit of the doubt and the blind trust of the public. Seven championships in seven years. There is no better candidate.
But now questions can be asked. Why have we got a third of the Crusaders team starting after they failed to make the Mickey Mouse playoffs? Why do we have a bunch of guys playing Test rugby with no minutes under their belts?
You could blame Super Rugby if the team was made up of the form Super Rugby players.
It isn’t, so Robertson and company must cop that.
The decline of Super Rugby is only now being reflected in the strength of all black rugby. It’s probably going to get worse as new players come into the squad. Super Rugby is little more than a glorified npc. Look at it how you like but Argentina and South Africa look better since they were excluded from Super Rugby. New Zealand rugby is the biggest loser from not having them there. And let’s not forget who wanted to get rid of them… New Zealand
More manure from Ben Smith. Not surprisingly showing his complete lack of knowledge in rugby regurgitating his click bait paid for trash
Super rugby is shite - has been for 15 years But so is all of SH rugby too.
The only way they win is through ref incompetence.
Alas they're supporters (who are all too cheap to buy tickets, but spew ignorant 💩 at a world class level) are too thick to acknowledge that fact.
Sad, but true.
Easier to blame Super Rugby, or whatever, than the coach - unless that coach is Ian Foster!
One way to make a point, typically all over the show as normal par for the course that is Ben Smith.
The Crusaders beat the Blues in what you describe is the game that matter (when those names you've listed played). Hoskins is different from all those players, he is a ball playing contributor, topped the charts for the seasons try involvements. Would be good in games were the All Blacks score lots of tries?
And Ben, what about the toweling the Crusaders pack gave the Blues just prior to the finals? Completely destroyed them. Akira and Sotutu have already shown they are not test players. Tuipolotu, Ofa and Papali'i were selected and Darry was brought in to be with the squad immediately. Please tell us the Blues forwards who were unfairly omitted.
Blues would have obviously monstered South Africa.
Absolutely agree, the non-selection of top-performing players has been a travesty. Why are we not blooding new players now instead of fielding players who have little match conditioning, or who are heading off overseas at the end of the season?
It was an attempt to utilize cohesion in order to keep win % up I'd suggest. He'll continually introduce more players. Surprised they didn't separate TRC group into a Bledisloe squad to maybe change it up.
Couldn't agree more with you. A pity Hoskins, Peter Lakai, Ruben Love have not been given a crack in the South Africa series. What a shame to blame SupeRugby!
The author makes a fair argument. Super Rugby as far as NZ is concerned is intended as a proving ground for the ABs, so why were so few Blues forwards and to a lesser extent Hurricanes forwards selected for higher honours? Is it Razor's red n black bias? Is it because the Blues didn't follow the NZ expansive blueprint and were overlooked? Early days for Razor's crew, but a glaring blind spot.
There were more Crusaders than from any other franchise in the team in the first SA test, ridiculous
How do you explain the last 5 years where the win rate is at 70%. In the end Ben the team has been in decline for more than just this season. If Super Rugby is so great why has the coach not gone for more Blues or Hurricanes in the forwards? It is because those players are not as good as the guys being selected. So what does that say about Super Rugby? Super Rugby has been in decline for 10 years now at least. Its not getting any better
Admittedly once he actually chose form players from SR it went up to 80% despite all the losses to SA still. He went with players he new from his assistant time till then, can't think of a single new one on the back of form, maybe Vaa'i?
I believe people in New Zealand are overanalyzing this issue. Every team goes through highs and lows. In the past decade, the All Blacks might have had down periods too, but they still came out on top, so it wasn't as noticeable. This time, other teams are simply performing better during this All Black low. Take a step back, trust in your new coach—he’s one of the best in the business—and you’ll bounce back soon enough. I think many of us here in South Africa share this perspective as well.
Tadhg Furlong is the best tighthead in the world.
Ireland isn't the world the last time I checked.
This is actually a good take and something many people were saying after the squad was announced - it was a combination of reputation and potential, not form.
Blues and Hurricanes were consistently the two best sides, yet the team was packed with Chiefs and Crusaders, many of whom barely featured in Super Rugby, if at all.
Will Jordan is a great example - undoubtedly one of the most talented players in NZ, and would hands down have made a World XV at the end of last year. He certainly hasn't been bad for the ABs this year, but clearly completely undercooked after so long out. One or two NPC games under his belt before walking out for the ABs is not enough. Ruben Love on the other was match fit and in outstanding form.
Who were the best loose forwards in SR? Sititi, Sotutu, Lakai, Ioane, and Iose. I'd like to think the ABs selectors are above playing favourites but when so many underdone and underperforming players are preferred to match fit players who are playing great rugby it's hard to say they're not.
Yeah everybody makes that mistake I reckon, Rassie did it just last week. Why did we have to play Jordan and Blackadder? Razor said a player as good as Jordan can fire straight back in "and we need him to", like wtf what sort of bs is that? We need Jordan firing? The All Blacks is the team you're coaching Razor, not bloody Canterbury! Cane at least had been cooping up and training, and I think tried to get involved in Super Rugby. Much like how Taylor came out OK despite only a couple of games.
It is obviously in a sabbatical contract, but I wouldn't have minded easing Ardie back up to speed by these two games too. Probably could have been the matchwinner if he wasn't asked to try and win all the matches up until now as well. Those sorts of policies would have allowed a much great visibility on some of these other 'form' players too.
Depends what you mean by "good", Sotutu topped some stats stupendously, others he was atrociously low in if considered a starting AB. Certainly picking Sititi on half the amount games in his first year over a blazer'd AB qualifies as one of the biggest 'shock' calls in selection history? I'm glad, and think it was the right call though.
So smithy, ask yourself this: just why exactly were/are mssrs Savea, Cane, Barrett and Mounga in Japan?
Ans; MONEY. And way more of it than they could get in SRP.
Go figure and enjoy that medicine on its way down, it’s going to last for quite some time! SRP issues are structural and seismic, the tectonic plates of world rugby have shifted. And NZ have been well and truly screwed. Suck it up dude and focus your energies on solutions because they aren’t going to be quick or easy!!! Even more so WHEN the Boks move north…
As for injuries and selection, it is what it is and applies equally, in the broadest sense, to every test team. Get over it and stop being petty, it disguises the real problems.
ps Nick, this might, just might be the start of your prophetic call on razor…
Haha that's a lame attempt Ed! You realise theres a flood of Premiership players leaving for JRLO as well, don't you? Why do you think they are going?
What has shifted in rugby pre tell?
We all know it's for the money, I think the question is more why are they straight back into the All Blacks?
Wow, just when you think you have heard all of the excuse, now its Japan's fault🤣😂
You guys might not notice it much what with playing in the URC now instead of Super Rugby, but there is definitely a job in standards of players coming back(not that the author was making that point). You can see it clearly in how poor PSdT was in these big games compared to how good he was when he had a large buildup of international rugby to last years Rugby World Cup.