England laugh off suggestion Owen Farrell has picked up an injury

When the All Blacks become just another team, then you can just pick on simple principles like ‘hes here and available’. New Zealand is a rep team, sure, it recognizes the best players from it’s catchment and rewards them with a cap, but it also does so much, means so much, is so much more than that.

All teams are going in and destroying the defence with the ‘clean out’ and all teams are hitting the ruck and then sealing the ball off by going off their feet.

Perhaps we see the laws change so players can no longer come in late and at speed to blast the defensive players off the ball and instead must bind to the opposition and their own players.

Secondly players must not leave their feet, like the scrum it shouldn't matter why they've gone to ground, the first team to do so is penalized.

Again, all teams are blasting the opposition off the ball and leaving their feet, it's risky stuff with necks being exposed.

Well played Lions and Wallabies, the final test hopefully more of the same.

The biggest stat though is that we kept the Chiefs scoreless for the whole 2nd half & basically put them on life support in the final 10 mins. That’s what “real” is bud. Hardly a “fluke”, right.

I looked at the replay because I saw two kids arguing and he also clearly does connect with the back of the head first, so maybe it was delayed reaction and was more luck that he wasn’t injured more.

I wouldn’t say this was a Mo’unga or Frizell situation where there talent only was unlocked after they signed abroad, when Schmidt and Ryan came in respectively. LF was on a good trajectory, and he just decided he has the perfect window of opportunity to go abroad while he’s not first choice, learn and live in France to come back better and have a good shot at the perfect age. I think he recongised that.

Agreed that our rotation has been off the the last decade, players have not been moved on when they should, but I wouldn’t include Rieko in that discussion, though I would accept he is more of a marketing than performance signing.

Also agree it is a strange condunrum that results from the misalligned seasons, where Lester is straight into NPC in the same season almost. When really the ‘start’ of his contract is next year. Is he even going to be on the payroll at the moment? Could it be used as a double dip to encourage players back, a ‘bonus international season’ of match fees.

But they also don’t want them to become anymore common. So perhaps everything is fine? Like I was alluding to with Toko, they would need multiple markers of their own in Top 14 for them to be able to gauge off. As I’ve said in previous articles I’d be comfortable to expand sabbaticals to 2 in every position (yes a huge change), so that the was a core group of 30 of the top players all aligned with the ABs and overseas at any one time. This would ensure there are good markers to correlate levels of performance amongst everyone. This is a very similar setup/size to South Africa. It is like the AB modem in a wider organism, the vets are shipped off much earlier, and the core of next cycle is brought through. No missing out on the JGPs or Aki’s, no the Antonio’s or young Patrick Tuifua’s to france, keeping the Chandler Cunningham-South’s or Roots brothers, evan this Dubious guy from the French team was playing rugby here in NZ and could have stayed with a more ground up focus on bringing players through, not paying them much etc lol

That’s what I like abuot the tour setup next year. I think there are too many games assigned to the ABs for it to happen though, but only haven’t a jersey awarded to the best available player again would be epic imo.

It was (on air here) last year, but not this year. I haven’t seen why, my guess was that it’s because no English version comes out from the “closed off billionaires league” and they couldn’t get an english one. I think they have to get it from the UK broadcasters and maybe that market changed this year?

The quality of it wasn’t my point, purely correlation of those performances to ones at home. He is the only one over there, there was no marker for ABs to valuate from. He wasn’t a solid choice, in that you knew what you were getting, he was still more of a sensation in the All Blacks, and he was playing a different position.

Those are just direct points to counter JBs thoughts. I’m not saying they were used in any way (I think theyd have to be part of why NZR have the current eligibility rules though), this situation was simply a matter of starting at the back of the class if you’re not here. Only vets can earn sabbaticals (which is essentially what people are asking for in this case). There’s no argument this isn’t the right call.

As with the topic in the above paragraph, we could go on and on about it, but I will say I did see after the fact the final was broadcast FTA (no that I’d watch live, still have yet to watch the replay) straight off mondos website (im guessing it was a laggy pos tho), which is/was good. I also wanted to watch Brad Weber and Lester last year (start of the season) so went on line for a few (and tried to catch Max Hicks), that Brad was fabulous, Lester less so. Lester was also less that good in this international window. So I did see enough to know they are very different games, and I can tell it’s going to take him a while to get on his feet here again.

Ps and if your gonna say “well so you were able to watch Top 14”, first, this is not about me and it wouldn’t have mattered if I thought he played better than Jordie, second, I just couldn’t be assed, too easy using a proper product. I gave up on JRLO too because they blocked the Youtube dude (and TVNZ/Spark didn’t have it), and RP was slow in signing a deal.

But Rivez and Havili were crap in the next game, you just got lucky it wasn’t in that game.

Better than dishing out AB Cs, with Ethan Blackadder in the team, against France.