The All Blacks huddle post-game. Wallabies v New Zealand All Blacks, 2024 Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup test match, Accor Stadium, NSW, Australia, Saturday 21st September 2024, Copyright Photo: David Neilson / www.photosport.nz
The All Blacks huddle post-game. Wallabies v New Zealand All Blacks, 2024 Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup test match, Accor Stadium, NSW, Australia, Saturday 21st September 2024, Copyright Photo: David Neilson / www.photosport.nz
There’s a best-case scenario for head coach Scott Robertson, in which his All Blackshead to Japan and Europe, clean-sweep their five tests and finish the year with a 78% win ratio.
In a year in which the All Blacks have had to play South Africa away twice, then take on England, Ireland and France in consecutive weekends, landing 11 wins from 14 tests would universally be considered a silver star first season in charge.
Robertson really needed a victory in South Africa and not to lose to Argentina in Wellington to be on track for a gold star, but five wins on the hoof now and New Zealand’s rugby fraternity will roll into the summer in joyous mood, optimistic about the All Blacks’ future, and satisfied that the new coaching group are learning on the job and heading in the right direction.
But five wins is ambitious given the rising form of England and the sense of missed opportunity they are carrying, having blown two gilt-edged chances to win in New Zealand in July.
Ireland lie in wait after that and their list of grievances with the All Blacks is too long to list in full here but could be summed up in two words – Rieko Ioane.
And then it’s the French in Paris and given they have already declared they won’t be taking their A-list players to New Zealand next year, this will be the game in which they want to make a statement.
Five wins isn’t ambitious – it’s madly ambitious and herein lies the problem for Robertson – those losses in South Africa and Wellington have left him with little to no wriggle room, which is why the 36-man squad that he’s picked predictably contains both Sam Cane and TJ Perenara and is effectively the extended group he’s been working with all year.
Robertson has got no margin to play with – not enough wins banked to have built sufficient credit to put even a hint of a regeneration theme on this coming tour.
Not only does he not have the victories behind him to sprinkle his squad with youthful surprise here and there, but he also doesn’t have the avant garde performances to offer as alternative yet valid currency to invest in a little future proofing.
The rugby public can forgive an unexpected loss or two if it’s an obvious by-product of reimagining the way the All Blacks play, but alas, that’s another account in which whatever credit had been built, was spent when Robertson turned back the clock in the second Bledisloe to play Beauden Barrett at No 10.
Beauden Barrett in action. Photo / Photosport
The veteran looks precisely the right choice now for the All Blacks to trust as their preferred No 10, but it’s going to be a tough marketing job for New Zealand Rugby to sell their vision of Robertson as the great innovator when he’s gone back to picking a 33-year-old playmaker, and retaining Cane and Perenara, who are of similar vintage but don’t come with Barrett’s mitigation of being here beyond this tour.
Thoughts of building for next year were presumably never entertained by Robertson, and partly that would be because he can use the All Blacks XV to give the likes of Peter Lakai, Noah Hotham and Josh Lord game time against quality opposition.
But really, what stopped any thoughts of unexpected call-ups was the knowledge of how easily the All Blacks could return from Japan and Europe with just two and not five victories.
The 78% win ratio Robertson covets will be 71% if the All Blacks drop just one game on tour; it will be 64% if they drop two, and it will be 57% if they lose three.
These are returns that when they have been produced – albeit rarely and never to the lower end of the scale which Robertson is facing - by previous All Blacks coaches, have led to public vehemence, media opprobrium and employer angst.
In 2009, the All Blacks finished with 10 wins from 14 and it was treated as a catastrophe.
In 2022, the All Blacks finished with nine wins and a draw from 14 tests, and two assistant coaches lost their jobs while the head coach only just clung on to his.
And this is all the explanation anyone needs in analysing Robertson’s squad: he believes wholeheartedly in the value of experience and its ability to win tight games, hence he’s loaded his team with it.
He wants Cane’s doggedness in hostile venues. He wants Perenara’s resilience in places where the All Blacks will need it and he wants continuity of personnel to make it easier to keep building game patterns, cohesion and understanding.
It’s a massively low-risk selection from Robertson, designed entirely to give the All Blacks the best chance of winning tests against teams that will play differently to the likes of South Africa, Argentina and Australia.
And it’s, therefore, a squad that makes perfect sense. The future can wait – or the All Blacks XV can take care of that for now.
What the All Blacks need in 2024 is more wins and no one can possibly criticise Robertson for chasing victories or having a needs-must philosophy when the Rugby Championship and Freedom Cup have both already vacated the trophy cabinet and the brand needs to make a statement in what is one of its key commercial markets.
