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Justin Marshall has graded the All Blacks season to date a “C”, stating that the team needs consistency in selection to build as a group and gain confidence in their capacity for winning heading into next years World Cup.
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Marshall spoke to The Platform where Martin Devlin quizzed the 81 cap All Black on his thoughts of the New Zealand side’s season to date.
Marshall was asked to give his thoughts on whether Ian Foster should consider making his selections based on opponent, adopting an interchangeable selection mentality in order to compete with a physical opponent one week and a more dynamic side the next.
“I feel that we need consistency,” Marshall answered.
“You look at our successful teams of the past, they had a really reliable, notable bench, one that was experienced and players knew their role within that team,
“They had a starting 15 that was super consistent, you knew your centre combination was going to be (Ma’a) Nonu and (Conrad) Smith and that was that, you knew your back three was going to be Ben Smith, Corey Jane and Israel Dagg, you knew your back row was (Jerome) Kaino, (Richie) McCaw, (kieran) Read.
“It was very consistent and as many times as I sat in an All Black changing room in a very good side – and we had some very good sides in my time, you know, 96, 97, incomparable I think they called us, – where I sat in changing rooms at Ellis Park or whatever and thought ‘how the hell did we win that test match?’ and then I looked around the room and thought ‘you know what, that’s why, because of the faces that I’m looking around in this changing room at’.
“Because they’ve been to the coal face, they’ve been to World Cup’s, they’ve been in pressure situations and they’ve learnt about each other, they’ve learnt to know even on a bad day we can still get the job done and that’s what this team needs to learn.
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Selection is a never ending discussion point with this All Blacks team.
Given the historic losses that have occurred this season, there have been calls for huge changes throughout the squad.
Anyone not named Ardie Savea would have heard their name involved in selection debates.
However, Ian Foster has made it clear his priority is to pick as many of the same 23 players each week as injuries would allow.
“They were having a bad day out in Christchurch, but they still should have found a way,” Marshall continued.
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“If they were more experienced, if there was a combination that had been to the coal face a lot more, had seen consistency in selection, I felt they still would have found a way to get the job done.
“As it turned out, Fozzie was throwing Stephen Perofeta on with 50 seconds to go and I’m thinking ‘what?… what is that going to do?’ we were looking for answers that weren’t there.
“So no, I don’t like us changing our personnel dramatically, I would say one or two tweaks maximum for the opposition we come up against.
give them time