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'Owned the situation': Robertson happy with All Blacks response at Eden Park
By
Ben Smith
All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson is happy his team “owned the situation” and responded in the right way after suffering a loss at the hands of the Pumas last week.
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An early try to Damian McKenzie, who Robertson said praised as having his best game so far at No 10, sparked a first half blitz that had 35 points up by half-time.
Savea scored next from a pick and go try before the All Blacks showed some dazzling skills with tries to outside backs Caleb Clarke, Will Jordan and Beauden Barrett.
“Happy, because we owned the situation we put ourselves in from last week to this week,” Robertson said of the win.
“We talked about having a response, and we did tonight, especially the first 40.
“We created more opportunities and executed them,” Robertson said.
“Our timing was a little bit better. We created a bit more. We played through the front door – we banged that down quite nicely – which created opportunities out the back.”
Robertson was overall pleased but a second half slump once the reserves were sent in early, just 10 minutes into the second half, was something that “just happens”.
The All Blacks were able to experiment with their selections in the final half hour but it didn’t pay any dividends as they failed to score a point in that time.
“We wanted to bury them in the Garden,” Robertson said.
“We wanted to make sure that we finished them off. Sometimes it happens.
“The great thing about that is we got Beauden [Barrett] to 10 and Rieko [Ioane] to left wing and got Anton [Lienert-Brown] on. We played the whole squad – we just lost a little bit of rhythm doing it.
“When we got down there, into the 22, we just didn’t finish a couple (of opportunities) off, which would have probably made it a bit sweeter.
“But the efforts were there that created those opportunities.”
What concerns me with the ABs over the last 3-4 years is the inconsistency. Under both Foster and now Robertson, it seems a loss is necessary to provoke a good performance. Whilst Foster shouldered the blame during his term it seems the problem might be with the players.
As a friend who owned a bakery once said to his baker, "if it takes the same amount of time, effort and ingredients to make either a good or bad pie, why don't you make good pies all the time?".
What a circle jerk, he was no better than normal, actually more ineffectual than against England, and Jordans was the only really good try, and even that was just stuck in the mud defending from a team who love hard grounds like SA.
I dont know what a circle jerk means, but that aside your comment boils down to Robertson saw things to praise and you saw basically nothing to praise, I think I prefer Robertsons way of seeing things.