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The 'ridiculous' stat Sam Cane says the All Blacks must fix for final Ireland test
By Alex McLeod
All Blacks captain Sam Cane says his side’s “ridiculous” error count must be reduced if they are to walk away from this weekend’s series finale against Ireland with a victory.
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The All Blacks and Ireland have it all to play for on Saturday when they meet at Sky Stadium in Wellington with the series for the taking after both teams notched wins in the first two tests over the past fortnight.
A week after the All Blacks trounced the Irish 42-19 at Eden Park in Auckland, the visitors responded by picking up their first-ever win on New Zealand soil, outclassing the Kiwis in a 23-12 victory at Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin last Saturday.
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The latest result between the two rivals was the third defeat the All Blacks have suffered in their last four matches, plunging Ian Foster’s side to their lowest-ever World Rugby ranking of fourth place.
As such, pressure is mounting on the All Blacks to deliver a bounce back win to claim the series in the nation’s capital, and Cane said improved skill execution and discipline will be vital for their chances of success in the coming days.
“We had 27 unforced errors. You think about how many minutes we had the ball, that’s just ridiculous, and our discipline let us down massively,” Cane told media after a rain-sodden training in Lower Hutt on Tuesday.
“A lot can change in rugby in seven days, and we have to make sure we fix that, but the belief is strong. The group’s tight, we’re together, I don’t feel like there’s any chinks inside the camp.”
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Cane’s comments mirror those made by head coach Foster in the immediate aftermath of the loss in Dunedin.
“There were an unacceptable amount of errors in terms of handling,” Foster, who now holds the worst winning record (69.6 percent) of any All Blacks coach in the professional era, said post-match.
“A lot of that was due to pressure and trying to force things and create space against what Ireland were doing.
“It will be a bit of an eye-opener, particularly for a few newer players, to feel that sort of tension and pressure, and trying to force things when you’re one man down ain’t easy when you’re against a quality team.
“We were our own worst enemy in the second half; we’ve got to be better than that. We can still win with 14. We’ve got to trust ourselves, trust what we’re doing.”
Eager to reverse their form woes, Cane outlined New Zealand’s ambition to return to the summit of the World Rugby rankings, which he said will only come with better performances on a regular basis.
“We’re hugely disappointed with what we dished out on Saturday. Credit to Ireland, they played really well, but we need to be much better,” he said.
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“Our drive is the fact that we have pride in the jersey and we’re not happy with what we’ve put out, so we’ll be working really hard to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“It’s certainly a goal of ours to make sure we get back to being world number one, but we realise the process in doing that is performing consistently every week. At the moment, we’re not doing that well enough.”
Errors are going to happen when you're down to 13 mate. Focus on not breaking WR 'protocols' that end the contest.
Not an expert, but that sounds like a confused cause effect statement. I hope there's a plan to address the causes.
We just need to fix the errors and score more points than the opposition, and we’ll win… I presume the analysis behind the scenes goes deeper than this, but sheesh rugby interviews are superficial drivel