October 11, 2015
All Blacks on target?
All Blacks on target?
WILLIE JACKSON
Tonga have proved to be the perfect test for an All Blacks side who have been struggling at the Rugby World Cup. It was great to see the Tongans playing so well and all their supporters in South Auckland would have been proud of their teams performance despite the final 47-9 final score line.
It was a disappointing tournament from Tonga they let themselves down badly with their shock loss to Georgia and their supporters particularly the South Auckland ones deserved at least one top showing.
In many ways they got that against the All Blacks, the Tongans were fabulous in the first half and actually only wilted in the last 20 minutes, they leave the Cup with their mana intact and were the ideal opponent for an All Black team looking for form.
Our team now will be feeling more confident and it was good to see Daniel Carter showing some form. Carter’s had been poor before this game and if he hadn't of improved I would not have liked our chances. Finally he is running again and if he can maintain his game then I am confident that we can again win the World Cup. He really is a key component although if his forwards don’t deliver then we can forget it. And there still seems to be some worries there, we have yet to have seen a complete performance from our forward pack.
Kieran Read is not playing well and doesn't seem to be the same player since his concussion also Jerome Kaino has been struggling and the front five have been lackluster.
It may have been forgotten but six of the front eight were starters in the last World Cup final and while that might sound good in terms of experience four years can take its toll. The 2015 All Black forward pack does not look as good as the 2011 one, they look slower and not as formidable however if they can continue with the improvement that was shown against Tonga then things will become much easier.
Of course it could be all over this weekend if we lose our quarterfinal, and at the time of writing this I'm not sure if we are playing the Irish or the French but neither of them should bother this All Black outfit.
The Irish have never beaten the All Blacks and although they have been the form European team they still haven't beaten us although we only just got past them the last time we played. That shouldn't change if we end up playing them, but I would prefer for us to play the French.
They have been our bogy team dumping us out of the 99 and the 07 World cups and we only just beat them in the last World Cup final. We are due a top performance against them, and really if we can't get past them or the Irish then we don't deserve to be World Champions again. So I’m picking the All Blacks to click and if we play the French we will hopefully exorcise the demons of previous World Cups.
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