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The new Blues jerseys have the coordinates for their local prison on the sleeve

The Blues go directly to jail

Where do the coordinates on the New Zealand Super Rugby teams’ sleeves take you? We checked on Google Maps, and it’s not their home grounds.

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New Zealand’s Super Rugby franchises released their special edition Lions tour jerseys last week, with each team’s hottest players modelling them together on a farm and individually in a series of boy band photo shoots.

One innovative feature of the cartology-themed ‘Territory Jersey’ design is a set of map coordinates printed on the sleeve. This inspired a genius Twitter user called Master Grassonist to enter these coordinates in Google Maps, and make this incredible discovery: the Blues jerseys bear the coordinates for the local prison.

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The 996-bed Mount Eden Corrections Facility (36°52′ S, 174°46′ E) is one of New Zealand’s most famous prisons, which has hosted some of the country’s most notorious criminals. It is a little over 2 kilometres as the crow flies from Eden Park, the Blues’ home ground.

The other teams’ coordinates are also a bit off the mark. The Chiefs’ map reference, 37°47′ S, 175°19′ E, takes us to the middle of the University of Waikato’s cricket fields, a little more than 4 kilometres from Waikato Stadium.

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In Wellington, the coordinates on the Hurricanes’ sleeves place us in the middle of the Botanical Gardens (41°17′ S, 174°46′ E), just across from the Children’s Garden and slightly under 2 kilometres from Westpac Stadium.

The Crusaders’ sleeves lead us directly to the middle of three standalone units at 13 Eversleigh Street (43°31′ S, 172°38′ E), just north of the CBD and just under 4 kilometres from AMI Stadium.

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Meanwhile, in Dunedin the Highlanders’ coordinates plonk us in the middle of Bethune’s Gully (45°50′ S, 170°33′ E), an area popular with walkers and mountain bikers to the north of the city. It is 4.5 kilometres from Forsyth Barr Stadium.

The uniform inaccuracy suggests sending the Blues to prison (where they arguably belong after Friday night’s disappointing performance against the Chiefs) was probably not a deliberate troll by an Auckland-hating adidas employee. Instead it would seem more likely to be an unfortunate result of abbreviating the numbers so they were short enough to fit on the cuff of a rugby shirt sleeve.

Still, the coordinates did prove strangely prophetic last weekend. The Blues were criminally bad against the Chiefs, who in turn controlled the game in such a way that it looked academic (please bear with me). The Hurricanes are finding Super Rugby a walk in the park after their second 50+ point win in as many weeks. And the Crusaders made themselves at home inside the opposition 22 in the final quarter of Saturday’s game after the Highlanders stumbled off the beaten track, became disorientated and couldn’t find their way back into the lead.

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Flankly 0 minute ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


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?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 10 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


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.

43 Go to comments
N
Nickers 39 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


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.

43 Go to comments
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