{"id":169487,"date":"2025-06-09T05:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T05:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/169487\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T05:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T05:48:11","slug":"whose-ship-has-sailed-before-the-first-all-blacks-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/169487\/","title":{"rendered":"Whose ship has sailed before the first All Blacks squad?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Super Rugby Pacific 2025 is down to the semi-final stage, with three New Zealand<\/a> teams in the hunt for the title, alongside the Brumbies, who knocked off the Hurricanes<\/a> last weekend to stop the semi-finals from being an all Kiwi lineup.<\/p>\n

The Crusaders<\/a> will take on the Blues<\/a> on Friday night in Christchurch for a spot in this year\u2019s final, but the Blues will be up against it, as the Crusaders are 30-0 in playoff encounters at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Chiefs, who are this year\u2019s \u201clucky loser\u201d after going down to the Blues last weekend in Hamilton, will host the Brumbies<\/a> in Hamilton on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

But the No.1 seed from the regular season will only host the final next week if the Blues beat the Crusaders, and if they take care of business at FMG Stadium Waikato<\/a> against a strong Brumbies side.<\/p>\n

The Monday following next weekend\u2019s final, Scott Robertson<\/a> will name his first All Blacks<\/a> squad of the year, for the home series against France<\/a> in early July.<\/p>\n

Three former All Blacks have discussed what the makeup of the loose forwards may look like in Robertson\u2019s 35-man squad, and how some players who are on the fringe may be unlucky, as they have been knocked out of this year\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n

Former All Black Mils Muliaina<\/a> believes that it\u2019s a disadvantage that some All Black hopefuls aren\u2019t playing finals football, which tends to be closer to the physicality of a Test match.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a disadvantage because finals football is as close as you what you\u2019re going to get to, Test match, intensity, Test match speed, but also everything around it,\u201d Muliaina told The Breakdown\u00a0on\u00a0Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re missing two games, I mean, you think about a guy like Ethan Blackadder<\/a>, he\u2019s missed the majority of the season, but he comes into finals football and it\u2019s like he\u2019s never missed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going to get his sort of eye time, the All Black selectors are there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muliaina believes that despite the Hurricanes being knocked out, Peter Lakai<\/a> should be in Robertson\u2019s first squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Peter Lakai too, I think he brings something a little bit different as well, I like him off the back, he can also play seven, and I think that\u2019s what he\u2019s got on his plate right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, a lot of these guys can actually play multiple positions, he\u2019s young, he\u2019s a little bit different. You\u2019ve got to remember his second Test was against the French. He came on at seven, he\u2019s capable of bigger things.<\/p>\n

Former 81-Test All Black halfback Justin Marshall<\/a> explains that he still thinks the All Blacks need specialists in every position, and Crusaders No.8 Christian Lio-Willie<\/a> brings that to the table for Robertson.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still need specialists, yes, these guys can play multiple positions, Scott Robertson has said that he likes that. But there\u2019s nothing better than a specialist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a guy like Christian Lio-Willie absolutely has to be as an out-and-out number eight, he doesn\u2019t play anywhere else, doesn\u2019t play six, doesn\u2019t play seven.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe runs hard, he\u2019s good off the back of the scrum, he\u2019s got a huge work rate and he\u2019s the joint Crusaders rugby player of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo where is Robertson going to go? Is he going to go, right, I\u2019m going to have these players that play, three or four positions, and then I can just manipulate them around and find the best answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Team Form <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last 5 Games<\/p>\n

5\/5<\/p>\n

Race To 10 Points<\/p>\n

4\/5<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When asked about the Blues loose forward duo of Hoskins Sotutu<\/a> and Dalton Papali\u2019i<\/a>, Marshall believes the Blues\u2019 style of play in 2025 has hurt their chances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re always in the conversation, particularly Dalton Papali\u2019i, but unfortunately, and this is not a personal opinion, this is just I feel they are a victim of the way the Blues have been playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the ship has sailed for both of them, because the type of game that the Blues are playing, is definitely not the type of game that the All Blacks will want to play. So then you\u2019re not really showing a balance in your game and the lack of the ability to have really consistent rugby.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying a style of game that suits your DNA hasn\u2019t helped either one of them, Hoskins in the weekend, it was a perfect opportunity for him to roll up his sleeves and get stuck in because of the way the game unfolded, and that just played into his wheelhouse, the way the Blues wanted it to.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s no doubt about the fact that he\u2019s not playing poorly, Dalton\u2019s not playing poorly, but I just don\u2019t think they fixed the mix that the All Blacks want to select.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Super Rugby Pacific 2025 is down to the semi-final stage, with three New Zealand teams in the hunt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-169487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114651837551450656","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}