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Stephen Donald outlines how ambitious All Blacks attack had Springboks 'in disarray'
By Ned Lester
The All Blacks' kicking game put South Africa under all sorts of pressure in their round two Rugby Championship win in Auckland.
Whether it was Aaron Smith, Richie Mo'unga, Beauden Barrett or Jordie Barrett, each and every time boot was put to ball, the All Blacks profited.
That's a stark turnaround from previous encounters between the two when South Africa's kicking game pressured the All Blacks into mistakes and territorial submission.
The statistics show that not only did the All Blacks make double the amount of kicks that the Springboks did, their retention rate was an other-worldly 55%, helping the team initiate scoring opportunities and claim 56% possession for the game.
The Springboks were also their own worst enemy, dropping two kicks in the opening 26 minutes and struggling to retain the ball when the high kicks were contested. The duo of Will Jordan and Mark Telea on the other hand each found success under the high ball.
"The Springboks' backfield was in disarray as far as taking anything," Former All Black Stephen Donald said on SENZ The Run Home. "Obviously, Kolbe's a small man so it's always going to be a 50/50 crack there if the kicks are good.
"They also isolated Willemse, who was back there a lot, who was the Springbok 10. Well he couldn't catch a cold and every time they went up on him, Telea wasn't always catching it but what stood out about Telea was every time Telea chased there was a contest, there was usually scraps and invariably we got the scraps."
Donald went on to explain the effect of the kicks on the ensuing plays, how they disrupted the Springboks' defensive structures and contributed to the rapid pace that the All Blacks managed to play with.
"From there, we were just able to keep changing the point of attack. We were able to keep the ball moving and sometimes it looked like touch footy, boys would get to the edge and go 'I don't like this, we'll just go back infield a bit.'
"But it never allowed the Springboks to set, it never allowed them to get that physical dominance which you might have actually seen a bit in the second half where the Springboks were able to set their line and able to fight rucks which brought them back into the game."
Despite the All Blacks' high number of kicks compared to the Springboks, they were in no hurry to exit when under pressure in their 22, instead trusting their execution and chancing their arm at attacking opportunities.
The All Blacks were happy to set 12 rucks in their own 22 and varied their exit strategy between touch-finders, cross-field kicks and contestables. The Springboks on the other hand offered a more traditional exit strategy with clearance kicks looking to find touch each time, making for just two rucks in their own 22.
The different philosophies are also evident in the 22-50 metre zones, where the All Blacks played their way through 26 breakdowns compared to South Africa's seven.
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Latest Comments
Well that sux.
Go to commentsLike I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
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