Point and shoot
Bledisloe Cup II; Farah Palmer Cup: Round 7; Mitre 10 Cup: Round 6
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Tip-On!
If you want to enjoy the beautiful simplicity of Aaron Smith’s passing technique, you can watch a mesmeric clip from Sunday’s game on repeat — thanks to The42’s Murray Kinsella — here.
All in-game data per ESPNScrum unless otherwise stated.
Business end
After last weekend’s action rounded off the regular-season action for both the North and South Pools of the Farah Palmer Cup, the 2 semi-finals are now set: the Auckland Storm travel to Christchurch to take on defending champions Canterbury this Saturday, and Waikato host the Manawatū Cyclones in Hamilton on Sunday.
Waikato emerged comfortably out of the North as the only unbeaten team and had the best defence in their group, allowing an average of only 12.3 points per game across their 6 fixtures. Going forward, they’ve had a nice balance to their attack: strong forward ball-carriers like Tanya Kalounivale and Kennedy Simon have been supported by new signing Mia Anderson, and complemented by a backline containing both capable ball-handlers and clinical finishers.
Tenika Willison, Chelsea Alley and Renee Holmes have distributed the ball well from the 10, 12 and 15 slots, and their star wingers have benefitted: Stacey Fluhler and Cheyelle Robins-Reti have notched up 10 tries between them so far this year. Fluhler in particular has looked her usual self in 4 starts on the left side and 1 at outside centre:
In contrast, Auckland’s second-place finish in the North was arguably rather fortunate. They finished level on competition points with Counties Manukau and Northland, and progressed thanks to the competition’s tie-breaker rules. However, each of those sides posted considerably a better points differential than the Storm across the pool’s 6 weeks of action:
There’s still a lot to like about this young Auckland team, with a strong attack from set-piece based around the excellent footballers in their backline:
Having started the season at fullback, Patricia Maliepo has moved up to fly-half in recent weeks and displayed flashes of the talent that earned her a Black Ferns contract this season.
One of the interesting selection decisions for Anna Richards and Craig Hall — leading as ‘co-coaches’ in Richie Walker’s absence — this week will be how best to deploy their playmaking talent; Theresa Fitzpatrick has been a fixture at 13, but Maliepo (10 and 15) and Ruahei Demant (10 and 12) have both been shuffled between positions during the season.
Regardless of how they line out, they will have to try and stop a well-oiled Canterbury machine that won their 5 South Pool games by an average margin of 56.8 points:
While the competition isn’t as even as the North Pool — which had more sides from the 2019 Premiership competing — the red-and-black attack has undoubtedly been in devastating form.
With their forwards — in particular captain and blindside Alana Bremner — happy to hold width, Blair Baxter’s side have been able to fill the field and stretch opponents by moving the ball to the outside. Kendra Cocksedge’s pinpoint passing from scrum-half is crucial in this:
They have also shown off some clever shapes in phase play, like this blindside slide for Martha Lolohea to score against Hawke’s Bay:
The awareness and accuracy displayed by second row Cindy Nelles in the clip above is an indication of the skill levels you can expect from Canterbury’s forwards.
In the backline, alongside the more familiar names — Cocksedge, Grace Brooker and Olivia McGoverne — look out for the multi-talented Grace Steinmetz: she has great acceleration, and has shown good instincts roaming from her position on the wing or in the backfield as a support runner throughout the season.
The opponent that pushed Canterbury the closest in the regular season was Manawatū, and they’ve done superbly to bounce back from a disappointing Premiership season in 2019 to make the competition’s final 4.
While Waikato will likely prove too strong for them on Sunday, the Cyclones have the talent to put up a good fight in Hamilton. In addition to the perennially excellent Selica Winiata, Carys Dallinger has had a strong season at first five-eighth, and in teenage loose forward Kaipo Olsen-Baker they have unearthed “a strong ball carrier and defender”:
Fronting up
New Zealand’s forwards were much more productive with ball in hand in the second Bledisloe Cup test at Eden Park as the All Blacks righted the ship with a comfortable 27-7 victory.
In addition to making metres at a better rate (3.3m per carry) than a week earlier (2.5m), beating defenders more regularly (once every 4.8 carries vs. once every 5.1) and making a clean break on 1 in 7 carries (compared to only 2 on 51 in Bledisloe I), the pack also showed signs of trying to move the ball more frequently.
After recording only 2 offloads in their first test of the year, John Plumtree’s unit successfully completed 6 on their 63 carries in Auckland. They also passed the ball once every 1.6 carries — up from a rate of once every 2.2 last week.
The biggest shift of emphasis was in the back row: Shannon Frizell, Sam Cane, Ardie Savea and Hoskins Sotutu had 23 passes and 28 carries in Bledisloe II, compared to 13 and 25 at Sky Stadium.
Spreading the word
Once the FPC playoffs conclude, the Black Ferns will quickly be into their November schedule — and NZR’s decision to take their 3 domestic games to new locations around the country is one that will likely have a positive impact on national levels of interest in the women’s game a year out from the World Cup.
The Black Ferns have only played 2 home test matches since their success at the last World Cup in 2017 — clashes against the Wallaroos in 2018 and 2019 — and both of those have taken place at Eden Park.
However, Mark Robinson announced on Monday that their intrasquad fixtures to round off 2020 would take place at North Harbour Stadium (Steinlager Probables v Possibles), The Trusts Arena in Waitakere (Black Ferns v NZ Barbarians I) and Trafalgar Park in Nelson (Black Ferns v NZ Barbarians II).
The Waitakere venue will be one of the hosts of next year’s global tournament, along with Eden Park and the Northland Events Centre, while Robinson noted that “it’s great to be able to take the team to Nelson for the first time”.
Glenn Moore’s side were set to have more home matches than ever before in 2020 before COVID-19 intervened — including a planned test double-header in Dunedin in June — and taking the game around the country to allow more “fans…to cheer on the Black Ferns in person” would likely have been a priority for the union.
While this will obviously no longer be possible to the extent which NZR had hoped, taking one of their end-of-year fixtures to Tasman should attract some fresh interest in the country’s most dominant international rugby team.
Developing leaders
Alongside the schedule announcement, NZR also revealed who would be leading the Possibles, Probables and NZ Barbarians sides off the field in November.
A number of promising female coaches — Anna Richards, Melissa Ruscoe and Whitney Hansen — have been given opportunities to assist those sides, although all 3 teams have men in charge.
Nevertheless, Head of Women’s Rugby Cate Sexton was bullish about the effect this could have on their coaching stocks:
With a strong showing in November, one of Richards, Ruscoe or Hansen could put themselves in prime position to benefit from a placement with the Black Ferns as part of World Rugby’s Rugby World Cup 2021 Coaching Internship Programme. In a press release announcing the first 6 appointments under the scheme, World Rugby noted that “New Zealand…will confirm [their] participating female [coach] at a later stage this year”.
Pass of the week
Just 24 hours before Caleb Clarke put in a remarkable performance in the 11 jersey in his first international start, one of his All Blacks Sevens teammates was marauding down the left wing in similar fashion for Auckland in their 31-10 win over Tasman.
Salesi Rayasi — an accomplished basketball player with a 1.97m frame — has only 231 Super Rugby minutes to his name so far in his career, but could be in line for a more prominent role with the Hurricanes next year (World Series schedule permitting) if he keeps up his NPC form.
In 320 minutes this year, he’s made 11 clean breaks on 44 carries, beaten 17 defenders and thrown 6 successful offloads — and added a 6th try of the season early in the second half on Saturday when he rose to claim Harry Plummer’s pinpoint crossfield kick and dot down under pressure from Sevu Reece.
Rayasi was also instrumental in the try that took the home side 3 scores clear before half-time.
From a lineout on the Tasman 10m line, hooker Leni Apisai throws long over the top to find scrum-half Jonathan Ruru cycling out from the receiver position. Jack Whetton jumping at the back of the lineout interests Tasman enough to throw up a competing pod, and tail defender Andrew Makalio’s involvement in the lift means that he is out of the game.
Auckland have their overload, and Rayasi — who is shadowing the scrum-half’s inside shoulder — can streak on to a well-timed inside ball and into the hole:
The winger’s long strides take him well beyond the 22m line, and he adjusts his line of running to stick close to his support. After Rayasi releases a one-handed offload to Plummer, the fly-half and AJ Lam combine adeptly to beat the Tasman cover and convert the score in the opposite corner.
Quick hits
The potential conflict of interest arising from Tony Brown’s dual roles with the Japanese men’s national team and the Highlanders was highlighted in last week’s newsletter — and the situation has now become more complicated, after Brown was announced on Tuesday as the Super Rugby franchise’s new head coach.
Melbourne Storm forward Nelson Asofa-Solomona — who was publicly linked with a move to union and his hometown Hurricanes a few years ago — offered his thoughts on the prospect of switching codes ahead of the NRL Grand Final this Saturday:
Meanwhile, the next generation of Kiwi league talent will be assembled by the NZRL over the next couple of weeks, with a number of representative union players present. From the Blues U18 squad, Ali Leiataua, Jeremiah Asi and Tony Tafa made the NZRL Schools 18s squad for 2020 alongside Ethan Faitaua from the Crusaders U18 squad, Maea Tema-Schmidt from the Hurricanes and Austin Anderson from the Chiefs. (Asi and Tafa both also made the 2020 New Zealand Barbarians Schools side that was announced — for ceremonial purposes only — on Monday.) In their Resident 16s squad, there’s another young union talent worth keeping an eye on: King’s College midfield back Francis Manuleleua, who is already part of the Warriors academy system and made the Blues U18 squad as a Year 11 in September.
Colin Trainor was an early star of the online soccer analytics world, but the Northern Irishman has since shifted his focus to Gaelic football. In an interview with The Irish News last weekend, he brilliantly and simply summarised the case for using data analysis and statistics in sport:
Finally, take a look at this detailed piece by Ben Smith for The XV about Bledisloe II — and, in particular, about the benefits for the All Blacks of having Jack Goodhue’s “rounded skillset” operating in the second five-eighth position.