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Highlanders v Blues - The Hard Numbers
By RugbyPass
Ben Smith has dotted down eight times in his last eight outings against The Blues, which includes four in his last three games against them. But what else do the numbers say?
- The Highlanders have won eight of their last 11 games against the Blues, and will be looking for a third consecutive win against them for the first time since 2003.
- The Blues have been defeated in each of their last five away games against the Highlanders; however, they’ve picked up three losing bonus points in that span.
- The last time the Highlanders opened a Super Rugby campaign with a victory was in 2014, when they picked up a 29-21 win at home against the Blues.
- The Blues have now gone 11 games without a win against New Zealand opposition (D1, L10), their longest ever drought against their countrymen.
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Latest Comments
Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".
But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.
The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.
Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?
Go to commentsI think they just need to judge better when it's on and when it's not. If there is a disjointed chase and WJ has a forward in front of him and some space to work with then he should have a crack every time.
If the chase is perfect and the defence is numbered up then it needs to get sent back. From memory they have not really developed a plan for what to do if they take the ball on/in the 22 with a good chase and no counter attacking opportunity.
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