Highlanders playoff exit spells end of an era – Season Review

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?

If the chase is perfect and the defence is numbered up then it needs to get sent back. From memory they have not really developed a plan for what to do if they take the ball on/in the 22 with a good chase and no counter attacking opportunity.

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.

NZ tried to resist making replacements in the second test against the Boks this year, and fatigued players just ended up making uncharacteristic errors at the end of the match.

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.

However, in historical terms there is sometimes an exaggeration about how competitive the field is now compared to past eras. The decline of Australia has curiously coincided with the rise of Ireland with Ireland's structured attack being notably reminiscent to that of the great Wallaby teams of 25 years ago or so. England were also strong back then too, lest we forget.

France are currently as good as the French team in the 1980s, same with Argentina really, and South Africa merely holding the tradition of some great Springboks teams of the past.

Where does NZ fit in to all of this? Currently at No.3 in the world, but still ambitious...

Yes, the field is closing up.

As someone who has followed both Rugby League and Union for donkeys years, I concur both about Bellamy and All Blacks at 70%.

Of course, back in the day (and until recently) there were only a few international Rugby teams of true class.

The All Blacks and Springboks were top shelf with England, France and occasionally Wales and Australia as contenders.

Even though the All Blacks didn't play them much, Argentina, Italy and Fiji weren't anything, though Ireland and Scotland were regular NZ bunnies.

Occasionaly Romania, USA and Canada were ok, but again, NZ still tended to play only home nations teams + SA, France and Australia. They still got high win percentages. Their own comp was easily the best in the world.

Professionalism created Super Rugby with SA and Oz. A very high standard, until two too many Australian sides dragged the standard down, then the withdrawal of SA teams completed the rout.

All along, and unrelated, France and (especially) Ireland got better and Argentina and Italy got good-ish. Australia moved the other way.

I think 70% for NZ is top shelf now, and that's realistic.

I'm Australian, but I have no doubt that our poor performance on and off the Rugby Union field has hurt NZ a lot. So too has the attraction of Rugby League via Australia been damaging to the All Blacks.

Not their fault, our fault!

As I say, hopefully the urc leave well alone, for now at least!