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'Really suits New Zealand': Ex-Wallaby assistant tips All Blacks as RWC dark horse

Sam Cane of the All Blacks leads the team out ahead of The Rugby Championship & Bledisloe Cup match between the Australia Wallabies and the New Zealand All Blacks at Marvel Stadium on September 15, 2022 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

Former Wallabies assistant and Leicester Tigers head coach Dan McKellar has warned rival international teams that this World Cup ‘suits’ New Zealand more than any other time in history.

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The All Blacks have generally entered most tournaments as heavy favourites but that often hasn’t resulted in them winning the tournament.

Upset defeats to France in 1999 and 2007 stunned the world while in 2019 their quest for three consecutive World Cup wins was stopped by England.

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The former Wallabies assistant under Dave Rennie told The Roar Sports podcast that the low expectations after last year’s home defeat to Ireland has placed the side in an unfamiliar position.

“I think this World Cup really suits New Zealand I think for the first time ever, they’ll just fly under the radar,”McKellar told The Roar Sports pod.

“They’ll turn up with no expectation. If they get knocked out in quarters they’ll probably be disappointed.

“Semi-finals, it will be whatever, that’s what everyone expected so I think that works in their favour.

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“Clearly the French and the Irish are the teams to beat and as people were saying on the Spring Tour last year you don’t want to play Australia at the back end in tournament rugby.”

The All Blacks open the tournament with a blockbuster clash against the home favourites France, who beat them 40-25 when they last played in late 2021.

New Zealand have undergone a number of personnel changes since that defeat which leaves France in the dark as to where they stand against them currently.

There is also optimism that Australia will do well having been drawn on the opposite side to the top four ranked sides, allowing for a smoother ride into the semi-finals.

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The Wallabies could meet England in a semi-final which would pit Eddie Jones against his old team.

McKellar was frank about his former team’s prospects saying that if they lose too many key players to injury they will struggle.

“If we can get our best players on the park and keep our best players healthy,” he said.

“If you take out Kerevi, Cooper, that sort of player this year then we’re going to struggle to win.

“But if we can keep our best players on the park, nice and healthy, then the expectation is for us to perform well and get to a semi-final and once you get to a semi-final then it’s anyone’s game.”

Cooper recently returned to the field in Japan for the first time since his Achilles injury, although it was just for one minute as part of a tactical substitution.

Eddie Jones confirmed that his star flyhalf is on track to make this year’s World Cup while inside centre Samu Kerevi is due to return in May from an ACL rupture suffered last year at the Commonwealth Games.

 

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2 Comments
J
Jmann 567 days ago

I rather think that 'dark horse' status goes to eng and Oz given their side of the draw.

E
Euan 567 days ago

Their black jersey ensures that.

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JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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