Well, as I was saying in another thread, I think this is the best chance we have had in years (was about to write decades..). We are locals, peaked in SR and we have the euro based players adition. On the other hand, they are fielding a B team with non crusaders players (or some of them to be fair) and this is the first match of them together in many time. Even Hansen said that their priority is the RWC (everybody's priority to be honest) but then the Bledisloe. I hope Ledesma do the opossite and play AUS or SA with subs and NZ "with all the meat in the grill".
That said we are still underdogs but I think the gap have never been reduced like this match: Pumas by +4....
It seems like a lot of nations are sandbagging, I don't think the teams that really want to win the RWC care about winning the (incredibly poorly-named) Rugby Championship... Steve Hanson has already kinda hinted that losing a game might not be the worst thing in the world for his team, so I expect some less-than-full-powered sides ... at the same time, I think this will give us all a great chance to see some top-level competition between the people who will be the stars of tomorrow...will be very interesting to see if the winner of the Rugby Championship/Tri-Nations can actually go on to also win the Rugby World Cup...
Unfortunately a symptom of being in a World Cup year, it's just a fact of rugby that everyone uses the RC as a stepping stone for the World Cup, even the comp itself is halved in terms of games played.It seems like a lot of nations are sandbagging, I don't think the teams that really want to win the RWC care about winning the (incredibly poorly-named) Rugby Championship... Steve Hanson has already kinda hinted that losing a game might not be the worst thing in the world for his team, so I expect some less-than-full-powered sides ... at the same time, I think this will give us all a great chance to see some top-level competition between the people who will be the stars of tomorrow...
Now THAT is an impressive stat!Just to clarify this point - in the past 7 years the only Rugby championship/Tri-nations that NZ have lost have been 2011 and 2015 (the last two World Cup years, which NZ went on to win).
It's not about size, it's about strength. Ardie was successful at 8 last year. Better than read for instance. You need to take a cold shower re Ardie .kinda amazing to see 5 players make test debuts in a WC year, which is good because I think we need to get the influence from some young form players this year but at the same time it is a function of crusaders players being rested.
I would have gone further and started Jacobson at 8. I wish they would drop the idea that Savea is a capable test 8, sure he's fine there in tests like this but IMO not once we hit WC finals time, like how is the smallest loose forward in the squad a #8? Fine most of the time but in the wrong situations its a weakness to exploit.
Also to me Jordie Barrett and Sevu are in a straight shootout for a starting wing spot on the right. Sevu is more imposing on attack but Jordie is tall, awesome under the high ball a brilliant kicker and no mug attacking either, to me there is no substitute to having high ball specialists at the back, I'd say having 3 world class ball takers at the back was a foundation for the WC win in '11
It seems like a lot of nations are sandbagging, I don't think the teams that really want to win the RWC care about winning the (incredibly poorly-named) Rugby Championship... Steve Hanson has already kinda hinted that losing a game might not be the worst thing in the world for his team, so I expect some less-than-full-powered sides ... at the same time, I think this will give us all a great chance to see some top-level competition between the people who will be the stars of tomorrow...