By Liam Napier in Toulouse
Welcome to the hurt locker holding pattern of the World Cup for the All Blacks.
Every test presents an occasion. For Namibia, facing the All Blacks for a third time on the pinnacle stage is among the pinnacle of their careers.
For individual All Blacks such as halfback Cam Roigard in his maiden start, Sam Whitelock as he equals Richie McCaw’s 148 test record and other fringe prospects eager to impress, personal motivations are prevalent.
As a team the All Blacks must respond with a dominant performance after successive, record defeats to the Springboks and France – the latter their first World Cup pool defeat in history – revived major doubts about their credentials.
“We’ve taken some painful lessons but we’re still strong believers in what we do,” All Blacks coach Ian Foster said. “We’ve got to make sure that shows up this week.”
The reality, though, is the All Blacks are unlikely to absorb little of meaningful relevance this week.
Sixteen years ago in their last match in Toulouse, the All Blacks humbled Romania 85-8. The following week, they lost their first World Cup quarter-final to underline the issue of extracting genuine purpose from such lopsided mismatches.
The All Blacks would never say as much publicly but they face significantly stronger opposition in internal training contests than they will from Namibia. Previous World Cup victories over the African minnows (58-14 in 2015 and 71-9 four years ago in Japan) suggest as much.
This is why performance is far more important than the result – and why the All Blacks coaches are shining the spotlight on specific flaws again exposed in the World Cup opener against France.
Last time the All Blacks made widespread changes in comparison with the nine ushered into the starting side for this match they delivered a clunky, error-riddled display in the comeback win over the Wallabies in Dunedin.
For a team that desperately needs to regain confidence, avoiding a repeat of that frustrating performance is paramount.
As they seek specific improvements the red pen is circled around the creaking scrum, breakdown cleanouts, kicking strategy, increasing ball in play time and attempting to impose fatigue on the game.
“There’s elements of your game you have to grow in pool play,” Foster said. “There’s some areas we need to get more of an edge in. This is a chance for us to do that.”
The All Blacks scrum issues in their past two defeats, specifically on Ethan de Groot’s loosehead side, must be swiftly amended.
Whether it’s interpretation or technical difficulties these wobbles threaten to further derail their World Cup campaign if solutions can’t be found.
The scrum is one area Namibia may hold their own which is why the All Blacks have retained the same four props used against France – and left Tamaiti Williams waiting for his World Cup debut.
With experienced Blues props Ofa Tu’ungafasi and Nepo Laulala packing down alongside powerhouse hooker Samisoni Taukei’aho, and veterans Whitelock and Brodie Retallick locking the second-row, there are no excuses for the All Blacks to not get the crucial set-piece platform right.
Joe Schmidt is sure to have zeroed in on the breakdown, too, after France increasingly owned the breakdown, particularly in the wide channels where the All Blacks were often isolated.
To achieve their steadfast desire to play at pace retaining possession and speeding up the source is non-negotiable.
Lifting ball in play time from the lowly 27 minutes on opening night at Stade de France and the All Blacks’ kick-heavy tactics are also intrinsically linked.
While they scored two tries from Beauden Barrett and Ardie Savea’s boots against France, the All Blacks were guilty of aimless kicking at times. Foster, noting the lack of ambition as one failing in the final quarter fade, points to the need for improved decision-making on the counterattack – an area the All Blacks used to be world-leading.
Anton Lienert-Brown, as he teams up with David Havili in the midfield, expressed his desire to revive the All Blacks hopes.
“Our objective at the moment is to get better over these next three games,” Lienert-Brown said. “We just need to get ourselves to a quarter-final and then you’re into knockout rugby. Losing to France makes it hard to finish on top now but anything can happen in a quarter-final.”
For all those ideals, though, Namibia are unlikely to provide enough anywhere near enough consistent pressure to stress the All Blacks. How much Foster and his coaching team learn from the All Blacks second pool match is, therefore, debatable.
Namibia are yet to register a World Cup win after losing their opening 52-8 to Italy. Pre-World Cup they lost to Uruguay 26-18 and defeated Chile 28-26.
The Welwitschias, led by former Springboks coach Allister Coetzee, have seven players attending their third World Cup but they lost two, tighthead prop Herman Agenbag and centre Jay-Cee Nel, to visa issues before arriving in France.
In that context Namibia’s ability to seriously challenge, and provide any major revelations, appears slim which leaves the All Blacks waiting for another chance to prove their worth.
“Losing is not ideal. It’s not what we go out to do,” All Blacks loose forward Luke Jacobson said. “It was an awesome stage last week that we’d been waiting for and unfortunately we didn’t quite get things right. The good thing is it’s a tournament and we’ve got more than one shot and we’ve got a lot of time to look at ourselves and get better as well. I don’t think it adds extra pressure. We know we need to win to win this competition so not a whole lot changes from now.”
Beauden Barrett; Caleb Clarke, Anton Lienert-Brown, David Havili, Leicester Fainga’anuku; Damian McKenzie, Cam Roigard; Ofa Tuungafasi, Samisoni Taukei’aho, Nepo Laulala, Brodie Retallick, Sam Whitelock, Luke Jacobson, Dalton Papali’i, Ardie Savea (c)
Replacements: Dane Coles, Ethan de Groot, Fletcher Newell, Scott Barrett, Tupou Vaa’i, Aaron Smith, Richie Mo’unga, Rieko Ioane
Cliven Loubser; Gerswin Mouton, Johan Deysel (c), Le Roux Malan, Divan Rossouw; Tiaan Swanepoel, Damian Stevens; Jason Benade, Torsten Van Jaarsveld, Johan Coetzee; Johan Retief, Tjiuee Uanivi; Wian Conradie, Prince Gaoseb, Richard Hardwick
Replacements: Louis van der Westhuizen, Desiderius Sethie, Haitembu Shifuka, PJ Van Lill, Adriaan Booysen, Max Katjijeko, Jacques Theron, JC Greyling
All Blacks v Namibia: Kickoff 7am, Saturday
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