'One of the poorest All Blacks performances I've seen in a long time'

Everyone raises their game playing the ABs. 2nd competitive match of calendar 2024 with new coaching personnel. Whereas the Roses have played 7-8 games (I think before their tour to NZ). That is a lot of minutes played. Anyway, no excuses. Let’s see what happens at the end of the year autumn series. If there is an improvement when they meet. I wonder if playing in the same calendar season when they will have had the same minutes played (+ or -) would make a difference.

for mine the reason for these results…Nika finally clicked onto Englands line speed, rushed defence and sealing off in the second half in Dunedin…and Nic’s refereeing was spot on down to the wire during the entire Eden Park match…resulting in an AB’s 2-0 whitewash..

England lose two matches and are absolutely delighted with their performance. NZ win two matches and are absolutely disgusted with their performance. Says it all, really.

This England team will be a very good team. The All Blacks are better at the moment. I can see England has more potential with their U20’s coming. My team the Boks are probably in for a dip as the old boys retire, but will be top 4 material with the U20’s, same with the AB’s. World rugby looking very healthy where anyone in the top 5 can win. It will come down to big match temperament again RWC time. Something we are good at, because of difficult conditions growing up and our rugby culture growing up. I can see Ireland being very good too, they will overcome their QF hoodoo in Australia.

Short memory. There were poor performances in 2022 and start of 2023 before the change in coaching personnel. The performances in the 2 tests against England were not as good as we expect but it was against a very good England side, who got my respect, not just because of the way they played but the way they conducted themselves.

Let's remember this is a new team and new coaching group without 4 or 5 world class or No1 picks from last year and a new coaching group. England put us under far greater pressure than the Boks did in the World Cup final. The pleasing thing for me, was the way they adapted and the character they showed throughout both games.

The lineout has been criticized when in the 2ndctest we did the same to England in the 2nd half that they did to us in the first. This team has a lot of improvement in them and I am excited about there potential to grow better.

So its the worst ABs team ever but they just beat England twice! How bad are England?

Easy Dan….. how many w’s you get against AB’s? No doubt the wins came with a Kiwi coach. Good on ya mate.

Dream on , should hv beaten ABs , been listening to STORY for a hundred years and nothing changes.

You can win by 1 or 100 its still a win .

Sadly the proof in the pudding is you think you should of won but you DIDNT you as usual were not GOOD ENOUGH.

Be interesting how times Bigar has been in a team that beaten NZ.

Even if Biggar was right, it’s scary to realize that a mediocre or good performance from NZ would destroy any team in the world including Ireland, France and Australia. One shudders to think what a mediocre performance from them would do to the mediocre plonkers like SA.

Poor performances is Wales in Australia. These six nations teams should be good, your coming to the end of the season where we just starting to play our first games. Give us a chance

Both games were there for england to take but on both occasions they lacked the ability to finish phases. The 2nd test they crumbled in the last 20

Yep very Cluncky. Still I wasn't expecting a hell of a lot more.”if Smith got his kicks they would've won”?I might be wrong but didn't DMac miss three kicks as well? Still they did enough to win. I wouldn't expect new systems to come naturally after 10 days when facing fierce opposition like that. You tend to go back to what you know be it out of desperation or not. They didn't panic and managed to get away with it. I'm happy with that.

Yep played shit and still won both tests. Shows England are really… shit.

He isn’t WRONG wrong. But the All Blacks have played much worse than that over the last four years.

I think we should take Biggar's comments as a compliment. What he's attempting to do is compare this ABs side performances with one's of the past ( who he seems to hold in high regard), that he's played against and found them wanting.

Trouble is he's let his personal bitterness from his Welsh/ All Black experiences taint his summation and comes off being a bit negative.

Never mind, he does make some relevant points.

I tend to agree with Biggar it was 2 poor performances from the All Blacks Razor have alot to do but if they play poor and can win it show they have alot of character

Bit different from sitting in Christchurch being adored. This is the Big Boys with plenty of cheapshots that accompany the terrain.

If Foster's ABs had played like that there would be have been a meltdown, again.

I love how first he is a neutral then uses “we”. I'd that is the worst ever ABs performance but still won, personally I will take it ( while still expecting improvements moving forwards of course). To play badly and yet walk away with a “W” is actually encouraging

Personally, I think Bigga’s criticism of the ABs is fair. I wouldnt say the weakest aB team, but clearly there are a lot of work ons - but let’s face it after 4 years of Fozzie, the transformation will require patience. The team has to de-learn and rebuild.

I can understand Razor giving some of the poor performers the benefit of the doubt, but he cant fall into the trap of playing players who are NOT “in form” e.g., Reiko Ioane and Codie Taylor

Say what you want about Dan B., he can’t be accused of lacking in strong opinion. 🤣

Extreme hyperbole from Biggar.

NZ have played far, far worse than that. The 20/21 team was by far the worst of the professional era. Losses to Argentina, shambolic game against Japan and hapless NH tour of 2021. But even that dreadful team were able to put 50 points on Wales and beat them by 38. Much easier to “tear them to pieces” from the commentary box apparently.

Ignored by virtually everyone is how good the ABs defence was. That is why England didn’t win, they simply could not score enough points against that defence. The ABs attack was very average, but their defence was world class and that’s what won them the game. Any Wales team that Biggar has ever played for would have found themselves in the same situation and would definitely not have scored tries from those cross kicks. That ABs team beats Biggar’s best Wales team 31 - 13.

England’s attack was as good as it was allowed to be by a superior defence. Hats off to Hansen, he has picked up where MacLeod finally got the ABs to last year and not missed a step.

England’s attack will be a big worry for Borthwick. They have not established a reliable, repeatable way to break teams down and score points. They were held to some very low scores by average teams in the 6N, and again here didn’t cross 20 points on either occasion. If I was an England fan I would be crying out for a new attack coach. Borthwick would do well to cast his net now, a poor home winter with a faltering attack will start the calls for his job.

Wow, a centurion. Nice effort.

I think England got grumpy and declined to tour NZ after refusing to share gate revenue, and being boycotted by the All Blacks as a result.

They certainly wasted their best chance of beating New Zealand at home, but it wasn’t these last two weeks.

England should indeed be kicking themselves. A new coaching setup with very limited time to prep, and a whole host of greats ‘retired’ overseas since the world cup, and they still lost to the weakest ABs lineup since the one that lost to France in Dunedin in 2009.

Razor has been left with a rather average group of players with experience to choose from, most of whom are surviving on reputation and that experience factor. As he hopefully gives the next generation more chances, I doubt there will be many of the team that played England left as first choice starters a year or two from now.

Wow that’s a lot of smack talk from Biggar calling it “one of the poorest”. Did he miss the two losses against Argentina? Or the unconvincing wins over Australia and Japan recently?

“…we would have been tearing them to pieces” oh is that right…how come we didn’t see that in the Six Nations? How many losses have Wales had in a row now? England weren’t great before the World Cup last year especially the last couple of years in Eddie Jones’ tenure as coach.

While he might be talking some truth in regards to New Zealand’s handling and lineouts, their scrum, defence and discipline were quite simply outstanding in both games compared to previous years. Their discipline in particular has been shocking for a long time as they regularly got players yellow carded nearly every single game. NZ won the penalty count in the 2nd match. They didn’t give England many repeat opportunities in their own 22 zone.

Meanwhile their scrum dominated England in both games which is very unlike NZ who have struggled against the bigger packs found in South Africa, Ireland, France, and England.

And NZ’s depth in the bench changed the momentum in both games thanks to having multiple experienced players who were vastly superior to England’s bench players.

A very confused man this Biggar fullah. High praise for England, for what could’ve been, & critical of NZ, who actually won both tests. A very weird take, indeed.