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Bledisloe II @ Eden Park

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Shag could fix things pretty easily with a few selections. Bring in big Karl, Weber at 9, Bogan back to 10, Nonu in at 12 and the accountant to 15. Akira fucking Ioane?

I think he's pretty fucked regardless of what he does in the second row, though.

Then again, i was banging on about how it was mad they hadn't done 10 Mo'unga -15 BB and that's been pants.


Karl Tu'inukuafe is recovering from meningitis. I have no idea when he's expected back but he certainly isn't available right now. The All Blacks have a big issue at prop in my opinion. I don't think Moody and Franks are world class still and Franks is certainly struggling for form. The All Blacks basically created the standard of ball playing props but now they seem to be lacking options that are strong at set piece and add value around the park on both sides of the ball.

They're struggling in the backrow. They don't have a true 6 who is consistently good enough and are instead trying to pigeon hole their best three backrowers into the side. I think there is reasonable balance between Cane, Savea and Read as Savea is probably the best ball carrier they have and can easily do the job of a big number 8. I'm not sure it will actually improve if they drop one of those three to the bench and play someone else at 6 and move Read back to 8.

They are missing Brodie Retallick massively. Sam Whitelock is still very good but you probably wouldn't say he's in the best couple of locks in the world now.
 

KOB1987

Rod McCall (65)
^^^^ it's the pairing of Whitelock and Retallick that is world class, Retallick can do the job with another top lock but Whitelock struggles without him.
 

Tex

Greg Davis (50)
SMH is reporting a repeat of 2015 and a number of changes, no word on who. Pocock to be picked only when he's capable of a full 80 minutes.
 

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
AB's biggest problem selection-wise is they've not called anyone in even as cover for Goodhue & Barrett so the answers have to come from within a squad that's starting to look a little shallow in some areas. Plus of course if they call someone in & so much as put him in the 23 it invites the obvious question "why was he not there to begin with?" which is clearly not a question Shag & Co. want to have to answer/ deflect.
 

Silverado

Dick Tooth (41)
Yes. Many will disagree but if we win the Bledisloe it will do more to uplift rugby in Australia than if we win the RWC but yet again sacrifice the BC.

Like it or not, Australian sports lovers care more about what they see and repetitively know close to home than that which occurs in far away places every 4 years, no matter how elevated the latter may be.

Both would be the most optimal, of course :).
Absolutely. I'm amazed at how many non rugby friends have been talking about the first game and claiming that they will be watching the second. It's been a long time since I've seen this kind of hype about our game. Apart from that we only have one other game before the WC so building combinations would seem to be a higher priority than tinkering at this point.
 

fatprop

George Gregan (70)
Staff member
Nowhere in any parallel universe would that make any sense. Whatsoever.


I think the plan, prior to the win, would have been that Genia, Foley, TK, Kepu & Pocock to either start or be on the bench for Eden Park

I don't know whether that will change or not
 

Strewthcobber

Mark Ella (57)
I think the plan, prior to the win, would have been that Genia, Foley, TK, Kepu & Pocock to either start or be on the bench for Eden Park

I don't know whether that will change or not
Think they would have been looking at resting one of the locks and getting some game time into Coleman as well
 

BDA

Peter Johnson (47)
Nowhere in any parallel universe would that make any sense. Whatsoever.


I guess if your main priority is to win the world cup then the rotation policy seems to have some merit, particularly given that we went all the way to the WC Final in 2015 using that approach. Plus I'm mindful that, strangely, statistically we're actually much more likely to win the world cup than win at Eden Park. With that said, I agree with everyone here that I'd prefer to see us put our best foot forward on Saturday. To me it depends what the changes are. I think the same spine needs to remain. If Cheika decides to rotate a few guys off the bench, maybe starting Genia and Coleman or something... maybe giving Bank a start in place of Hodge or bring AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) onto the bench. I won't be too upset. If we see sweeping changes I'll be bloody disappointed.
 

Joe Blow

Peter Sullivan (51)
Sadly Cheika is arrogant enough to think that we can win going ahead with the planned rotation.
Time to really have a go at sticking it to the ABs at home. Even if we don’t win push them hard so they have something to think about between now and the RWC.
 

Strewthcobber

Mark Ella (57)
Sadly Cheika is arrogant enough to think that we can win going ahead with the planned rotation.
Time to really have a go at sticking it to the ABs at home. Even if we don’t win push them hard so they have something to think about between now and the RWC.
Cheiks has two other selectors to sort him out now. If they do it, it's on them too
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
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