Former All Blacks react to scrappy win against England

As the All Blacks travel to Dublin this week to take on world's top-ranked side, Scott Robertson and his team are seeking major improvement in key areas to achieve a result against Ireland.  

The All Blacks struggled to gain any proper hold of the game against England at Allianz Stadium last weekend, with the number of penalties conceded and errors made a real issue for head coach Scott Robertson.

Discipline has become a recurring week-to-week subject for the Kiwis, conceding 11 penalties and one yellow card in the second half against England to reserve back Anton Lienert Brown.

The opportunities are there for Robertson's men, but they have struggled to convert opportunities into points, handing the opposition the ball too often.

Talking on the Sky Sports show The Breakdown, Jeff Wilson isn’t convinced with the England performance.

“We got by, we survived, it feels like we are in survival mode right now”, said former All Black Jeff Wilson on The Breakdown.

“There was a palatable sigh of relief, you could feel the energy and the joy in those guys, they know they've got work to do but what a great little win for this team,” said Sir John Kirwan.

The All Blacks coaching staff will be pleased with two wins from two games to start the end of year tour, but with bigger challenges ahead, the All Blacks are in need of a full 80-minute convincing performance.

23-Test match former All Black Stephen Donald believes the win against England will build confidence within the group to push on and compete against Ireland, France and Italy.

“I think this sets us up, goldie said this is survival mode, but for me those are games that the All Blacks do win, and that's what the legacy is built on winning games that you know, maybe with 10 or 15 left to go many of us thought that England were gonna chalk up a famous day at Twickenham (Allianz Stadium).

When asked about whether the All Blacks are better than they were in July when they last played against England, the panel had differing opinions.

“It’s a tough question because I think it gives you a good reflection of almost where test rugby is, you want games like that constantly because you want people on the edge of their seats and you want the entertainment factor, but there’s a little bit missing, whether it was there in July I’m not sure,” said recent NPC Champion and former England international Brad Shields on The Breakdown.

“To do something that we haven’t done all season which is win the last 20 minutes, we gave them an opportunity to win the game, they weren't good enough to take it, but that would suggest that we are learning but at the moment these are very small steps,” said Wilson.

“I don’t think we can underestimate the confidence that the boys are gonna take from winning a game that we probably coughed up against South Africa earlier on in the year. Now they have the belief and confidence that they can win the tight ones,” said Donald.

In 2024, the All Blacks ultimately struggled to finish games and put away teams in the last quarter. But with the likes of Patrick Tuipulotu, Asafo Aumua and Damian McKenzie being on the bench for the All Blacks, Shield’s feels like he has seen significant improvement from the bench impact in the last quarter of games.

“I think Patrick Tuipulotu changed the game in terms of go forward, just getting his head through those contacts, our set piece, our scrum changed a little bit so the guys off the bench need to have that impact, they don’t need to do anything special.”