Welcome to this week’s edition of The Tip-On!
If you want to hear from Chay Fihaki — Canterbury’s 19-year-old winger who has been impressive throughout the Mitre 10 Cup — after his match-winning penalty kick against Auckland, you can listen to him having a nice post-game chat with teammate Isaiah Punivai here.
All in-game data per ESPNScrum unless otherwise stated.
Panic stations?
After Saturday's loss to Argentina in Parramatta — a historic first victory for Mario Ledesma's Pumas — the All Blacks have now lost or drawn 3 of their 5 games in 2020, and 4 of their last 6 going back to the knockout stages of last year's World Cup.
It's a subpar stretch for a team which maintained such high standards during the 2010s, and it's certainly worth trying to look into why Ian Foster and his new side have failed to put together a consistent set of performances this year.
But the way to do that is by looking in detail at the fundamentals of what has happened on the field across the 400 minutes New Zealand have played this year — not by taking hypotheses about the emotional and psychological states of 15 different individuals and tying them together into a single narrative thread.
While there is no question that emotional states and mental attributes play their part in elite athletes' performances, as an outside observer you can only every speculate as to why Jordie Barrett dropped a pass or Codie Taylor missed a lineout throw. This is analysis from the top down; by starting with an essentially unfalsifiable theory and going and looking for evidence in support of it, you are incredibly prone to confirmation bias.
This is equally applicable to all stages of the All Blacks' recent past. Their success in the early part of the last decade — while regularly framed as a triumph of their ruthlessness and calmness under pressure — was likely much more attributable to the high skill level of some of the greatest players to don the jersey, the cohesion they developed together through their "shared history" and a bit of luck than to their mental superiority.
Conversely, their relative struggles over the last couple of years — going back to their loss to South Africa in Wellington in 2018, they've won just 12 of their last 20 Tier 1 tests — are much more likely to be attributable to the ever-increasing difficulty of relying on a pure ball-in-hand game to win test matches, the aging of a number of key forwards out of their physical prime and a lower level of cohesion between players on the field. (This relative lack of cohesion was a result of chopping and changing in key positions in the backline throughout last year, and of a new coach and a new squad of players bedding in this year.)
It’s therefore best to leave pop psychology to one side and try and establish what's actually been going on on the field over this period.
Starting at the most basic level, in the All Blacks' 2 draws and 6 losses across 2018, 2019 and 2020 they have scored 18.1 points per game on average and conceded 24.9. The bottom line doesn't look particularly interesting — but, if you dig deeper and look at the specific ways in which they have scored and conceded points, a pattern begins to emerge:
In those 8 games which they didn't win, quite remarkably New Zealand have only been outscored in tries twice: their loss to Ireland in Dublin in 2018 (a 0-1 try deficit) and their loss to Australia in Perth last year (a 4-6 try deficit). Over the last two weekends, they've outscored the Wallabies and Pumas by a combined 5 tries to 3 — but still ended up behind by a combined 12-point deficit.
Nicolás Sánchez punished the All Blacks' indiscipline in the first half at Bankwest Stadium on Saturday, and one of the benefits of building up an early lead became clear in the second period. Argentina were able to infringe with relative impunity — they actually conceded more penalties in total across the match (16 to New Zealand's 13) — knowing that, with a multiple-score deficit, the All Blacks likely wouldn't opt to kick them for points.
A 10-point deficit with Scott Barrett off the field was the story last week, and 20 points from the boot of the Pumas fly-half was the story this week — discipline, above all else, continues to be the main issue for the All Blacks during the early days of Ian Foster’s tenure.
Blue wave
While they were indeed outscored by 2 tries to 1, Argentina’s defence did an incredible job of shutting down New Zealand's ability to progress the ball upfield on Saturday.
In only 1 test since 2016 — the second Lions test in 2017, when they had to play 50 minutes with 14 men in the teeming Wellington rain — have the All Blacks been held to a lower rate of clean breaks:
This is an incredibly interesting outcome in its context: Argentina have never previously come close to containing the All Blacks so well, but New Zealand have not had an issue generating breaks in their previous 4 matches this year.
Their clean break rate of 12.6% across the 4 Bledisloe Cup tests against Australia isn't far off their average against the same opponent between 2016-19 (13.9%); they also had one of their best performances by this metric over the entire 5-year period (25 clean breaks on 117 carries) at Eden Park.
As a consequence, it's too early to rule out that Argentina have somehow managed to markedly improve their defence this year. After this weekend's match against Australia, we'll have another little bit of evidence with which we can assess that claim.
Same hymn sheet
The aftermath of an unexpected All Blacks result is always interesting for the way in which it exposes a truth about how rugby in New Zealand is covered by media outlets across the world: when things don’t go to plan, domestic and overseas publications often reach for the same themes and talking points — but for completely different purposes.
AFP neatly summarised the response of Kiwi newspapers in copy that was syndicated by The42: “awful”, “shambolic” and pathetic was the overall verdict, with a particular emphasis on their perceived mental and emotional failings. Sam Cane’s side were “rattled” and lacked “passion and intensity”, according to the NZ Herald’s Gregor Paul.
Paul was no more circumspect in a piece for The XV, claiming that the All Blacks are on “a death ride to mediocrity” and — quite laughably — positing that a reason for their defeat to England in last year’s World Cup semi-final was that the team were “simply not interested”.
In short, he and his fellow members of the New Zealand press feel that “[t]he empire is collapsing” — and the rest of the world was quick to jump onboard.
There are doubtless historic wrongs by which other nations justify such Schadenfreude, but the gleeful tone that accompanies coverage of an All Black defeat is rarely anything short of distasteful itself.
At one end of the spectrum are bloviating correspondents whose social media activity has exposed the folly of taking their views too seriously; at the other, however, are a number of excellent outlets whose coverage of the sport in New Zealand can also take on a similar hue, with real consequences for the accuracy and robustness of their work.
The Telegraph has put together an excellent team of rugby reporters, and earlier this week top analyst Charlie Morgan produced a great piece on the technical and tactical aspects of Argentina’s maiden win — but even they are sometimes prone to pander to their audience on the topic of the Kiwi game.
Their presentation of NZR Chief Executive Mark Robinson’s recent comments on the possibility of private equity investment — stating that “[t]he All Blacks brand could be sold to the highest bidder” — was not only unnecessarily incendiary, but also inaccurate: in previous reporting on the subject, a source at NZR explained clearly to the NZ Herald how “any injection of private equity [would] not equate to the selling of the All Blacks, or even NZ Rugby Incorporated”.
During the Lions series in 2017, they also indulged one of rugby’s most common angles of conspiratorial inquiry just days after Sonny Bill Williams was sent off in Wellington (and a few days before Romain Poite softened a critical late decision in the visitors’ favour): that the All Blacks get “preferential treatment from referees”. Recent evidence seems to leave this beyond reasonable doubt — over the last 5 years, the All Blacks have been yellow carded more than twice as often as their Tier 1 Opponents — but it’s an idea that remains relatively pervasive.
A red card like Williams’ a few years ago is one of the prominent occasions on which it tends to rear its head; after Ofa Tu’ungafasi was sent off in Brisbane, even one of the best rugby journalists out there was commenting that it was “just” the All Blacks’ fifth red card in their history.
But that figure can be easily misconstrued without its context: Ireland and Scotland have both had fewer players sent off in men’s test matches than New Zealand; Australia have an equal number; England have had just one more; and France and Italy are the only Tier 1 nations to have reached double figures in red cards.
The point of this exercise is not to throw individual journalists or publications under the bus, or to call out perceived ‘media bias’ against one of the most successful nations in the sport; rather, it’s to show how easy it is for these sorts of theories to percolate without challenge.
While they evidently provide immediate emotional gratification to some, none of these aspects of media coverage — neither the perpetuation of lines of thinking that lack evidence, the pleasure taken in reporting on the failures of others nor melodramatic ‘Decline-and-Fall’ narratives — contribute to a positive conception of sport and its place in our lives in the long run, leaving those of us who want to watch, think about and enjoy a great game all the worse for it.
Deposition
In a previous edition of The Tip-On, we looked at Les Elder’s path back to the Black Ferns after having her first child and the contractual reality that faces women who want to start a family while playing top-level rugby in New Zealand.
While injury means that she is not currently in camp with the Black Ferns, Elder successfully returned to Farah Palmer Cup action with the Bay of Plenty Volcanix over the last few months.
This week, she contributed to a series by Suzanne McFadden of LockerRoom on female athletes and maternity — and was conspicuously referred to as “[t]he former Black Ferns captain”, indicating that even if she comes back into the side next year Eloise Blackwell may be likely to keep the armband.
If that frustrating fate does befall her, she will have a colleague in another major sport to commiserate with: as soon as White Ferns batter Amy Satterthwaite returned from maternity leave over the summer, she too was relegated to vice-captain by New Zealand Cricket.
Pass of the week
Langi Veainu’s pair of tries on the left wing were among the highlights of the Black Ferns’ hit-out in Waitakere against the NZ Barbarians, with the former Kiwi Fern having outside centre Grace Brooker to thank for some excellent work in the build-up to her second score.
After a strong carry at first receiver from Aroha Savage off an attacking lineout just outside the Barbarians’ 22, the Black Ferns set up a ruck in the middle third of the field — with options threatening on both sides of the breakdown.
While inside centre Chelsea Alley supports Savage on the initial carry, fly-half Hazel Tubic and fullback Selica Winiata both creep to the blindside; the presence of the two players draws the attention of opposing scrum-half Ariana Bayler, and a number of other Barbarians forwards are also prevented from folding around the corner as a consequence.
When Charmaine McMenamin sweeps across on second phase and takes Kendra Cocksedge’s pass, she has lock Kelsie Wills on her outside shoulder and — with a Barbarians inside back opposite her — a positive picture to attack. However, she shows great awareness of the narrowness of the defence and throws a pass across the face of Wills to Brooker, who has space to attack on the outside of Janna Vaughan (the Barbarians left wing, defending at 13).
Brooker uses her right hand to slap away Vaughan’s tackle attempt, and keeps the Manawatū player at bay for long enough to attract the attention of fullback Patricia Maliepo away from Veainu.
With Barbarians right wing Lyric Faleafaga unable to block the passing lane completely, Brooker has a small window to find her support on the outside:
The one-handed backdoor flip she produces to find Veainu as she falls to the ground is a superb piece of skill. As Rikki Swannell noted on commentary, “it’s almost become a trademark”.
Loose threads
In case you missed it on Twitter this week
A fantastic try assist from second row Cindy Nelles for the NZ Barbarians against the Black Ferns
Quick hits
Following on from All Blacks captain Sam Cane’s reassuringly grounded comments this week — “if I compare my year with a lot of other peoples' it helps put things in perspective that I'm still pretty fortunate to be doing what I love, representing our country and doing the best that we can” — former coach Wayne Smith added some more sanity to the conversation at a time when it’s been sorely lacking. In comments to the NZ Herald, he made clear that he doesn’t feel that it’s time for Kiwi rugby fans to panic — and expressed his own optimism about some of the players Ian Foster has blooded:
A couple of weeks after the list of women’s players for the tournament was revealed, the men who will be competing at this year’s Red Bull Ignite7 were announced on Tuesday. Granted the opportunity to play alongside Clark Laidlaw’s All Blacks Sevens squad members are a number of exciting schoolboys; three to look out for are tall blindside Che Clark (who has one more year at King’s College remaining), nippy Hamilton BHS scrum-half Noah Hotham and outside back Blake Makiri, who was involved in the tournament last year as a Year 12. There also appears to be a focus on giving exposure to mobile, physical loose forwards from the 15-a-side game: Charles Alaimalo, Tom Florence, Shamus Hurley-Langton and Terrell Peita are all back-rowers with Mitre 10 Cup experience this year.
For the final instalment of her Athlete Development series, Ashley Stanley of LockerRoom spoke to Black Ferns Sevens veteran Kelly Brazier. The four-time World Cup winner pointed out how difficult it can be for promising young players to move into a professional environment directly from schools rugby programmes that remain underdeveloped:
The Athletic’s Tom Worville has a good new piece up looking at the increasing prominence of practitioners of rigorous analytics within top-level football teams:
Finally, there was one Kiwi who had a good weekend of test rugby — and Charlie Morgan, Murray Kinsella and Craig Wilson all provided good breakdowns of James Lowe’s first start on the left wing for Ireland.