Laurie Mains believes a lack of “cohesion” among the All Blacks coaches and the team’s inability to change their game-plan cost them Saturday’s match against England.
The All Blacks came into that encounter at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham in a confident mood after making a bright start to their Grand Slam campaign following back-to-back victories over Ireland in Chicago and Scotland at Murrayfield.
Scott Robertson’s troops made a positive opening to their clash against the Red Rose as they raced into a 12-0 lead thanks to tries from Leicester Fainga’anuku and Codie Taylor but the home side did not panic and reduced the deficit to just one point by half-time courtesy of a try from Ollie Lawrence and two drop goals from George Ford.
England took control of proceedings after the interval as further tries from Sam Underhill, Fraser Dingwall and Tom Roebuck, as well as accurate goal-kicking from Ford, secured their victory with Will Jordan crossing for a converted try for the men in black during that period.
Loss to England ruins Grand Slam dream
The All Blacks‘ defeat means their Grand Slam dream is ruined and they will be hoping to finish their end-of-year tour on a high when they face Wales at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Saturday.
Mains was recently interviewed by Sean Plunkett on The Platform NZ podcast and the show’s host put it to him that the current All Blacks side were a very different version of previous ones and asked whether New Zealanders still cared about their national team, to which Mains replied: “Yes, of course we do.
“They’re going through a bit of an unsettled time at the moment, and I don’t know whether they can find a game-plan they want to use, or what.
“I don’t know. It looks to me like there may not be 100% unity among the coaches, or cohesion might be a better word, among the coaches, as to the game-plan they’re going to play.”
Prior to their fine start against England, the All Blacks also held a 17-0 lead against Scotland before their opponents drew level at 17-17 but the men in black fought back and eventually clinched a 25-17 victory in that clash.
Mains believes the All Blacks’ inability to adapt when losing key players to injury, is a major reason for their current woes.
“In the last two matches, we’ve started the game so well. And it looked to me like the game-plan was solid. But the opposition have been able to knock us off that game-plan,” he said.
“And we don’t seem to have a plan B to bring it back. And, we have to say this, and I know every team has injury problems, but losing Fabian Holland and then just after half-time losing Cam Roigard were huge events for the All Blacks.
“And then that’s on top of losing Jordie Barrett a couple of weeks ago.
“Now, these all are players that were forming an integral part in the game-plan of the All Blacks. And when you’re playing tough opposition, England are a good team. They played to a good plan.
“But we could have still had the beating of them.
“I think if we had been able to continue to enforce our game-plan on them, and losing Roigard looked to me to be the final nail in the coffin in terms of the All Blacks getting the field position they needed, and keeping that threat up against England, because he is a threat to an opposition.
‘It seemed to loosen England up a bit’
“And when that was gone, it seemed to loosen England up a bit.”
Plunkett then pointed out that previous All Blacks teams also lost players to injuries but they managed to bounce back from such setbacks before winning matches.
Mains agreed but believes a change in the coaching set-up, from the time when he was the All Blacks coach, might be complicating matters for the players.
“I certainly do agree with you,” he said. “But what I’m saying is, it looks like to me, things have changed in the coaching of rugby teams from when I did it.
“I was the coach. Earle (Kirton) was my assistant coach. And we didn’t have defence coaches, and we didn’t have attack coaches.
“So the players, and Earle and I were exactly on the same page. And that then took any confusion or uncertainty away from the players.
“They knew what they were meant to be doing, whether they could play the game-plan as intended is another matter, whether the opposition let us do it. And it looks to me like with this All Black team, they’re not all 100% sure on what the players around them are going to do.
“Do the forwards know where the backs are going to have the next breakdown? Or the line that’s going to be on? Or what they’re going to do? It looks to me at times like that is missing from the play of the All Blacks.”
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