'There was no real pressure on those combinations': Questions remain over All Blacks attack

A winning start to the All Blacks‘ Rugby Championship campaign has been met with mixed acclaim as fans and pundits attempt to discern how much credit New Zealand’s performance deserves and equally, how poor Los Pumas’ performance was.

A Man of the Match performance from Jordie Barrett was one of many strong outings from the Kiwi side, but one former All Black is opting to reserve judgement until there’s a bigger sample size due to the one-sided nature of the first Test of the season.

Josh Kronfeld has 54 Test appearances to his name and while the former flanker is satisfied with how the All Blacks have developed their identity over the past year, he’s adamant about not jumping to conclusions without seeing the team dominate against a more heavy-weight opposition.

The upcoming Test against the Springboks will no doubt offer further context to the state of the team ahead of the World Cup, and offer the new midfield partnership perhaps their greatest challenge yet.

“Although our midfield was sensational and Jordie (Barrett) was second to none today, there was no real pressure on that combination,” Kronfeld told SENZ.

“All of the tries we scored and the moves we ran seemed to be from our structural set piece and stuff, and we didn’t really get phase after phase play up the field, we either ran a couple of phases or we broke the line.

“So there’s still questions there and I’m curious and excited to see how that develops over the next few games.”

Those next few games come against more established rivals in the Springboks and Wallabies, the latter of which poses a somewhat unpredictable threat under the leadership of Eddie Jones and a poor first outing in Pretoria only adds to the mystery of the team’s trajectory.

The combination of Damian De Allende and Lukhanyo Am awaits whoever Ian Foster selects for Saturday’s match, the Springbok duo have formed a destructive partnership and have only grown since their World Cup-winning effort four years ago.

It will be a distinct step up from round one’s challenge against a struggling Los Pumas outfit. Former All Black Israel Dagg was scathing of the Argentinian performance, telling SENZ:

“Argentina in that first 40 were just non-existent, they were very very poor. But, they were made to look poor from a clinical All Blacks side.”