Springboks<\/a> at set-piece time, despite his impressive performances in South Africa last year.<\/p>\n\u201cVaa\u2019i is playing so well and he\u2019s so hungry, it\u2019s just that he\u2019s not much taller than me. You can\u2019t put a 1.96m guy (editor\u2019s note: 1.98m) against a 2.06m guy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe might win most of his own ball, he will probably lose one, maybe two, but he\u2019s not going to win any opposition ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s about how much possession you have and if you don\u2019t have more than 50 per cent against the Springboks, you\u2019re not going to beat them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mexted would not drop Vaa\u2019i altogether, however, and can envisage him moving to blindside to allow one of Lord or Holland to come in.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo let\u2019s put him in the team at blindside flanker. I know we tried him there once and he looked a bit lost, but you can\u2019t blame a guy when he\u2019s been moved from lock,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe needs to be playing week in, week out at blindside flanker and then we\u2019ve got a blindside that\u2019s big enough to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Final two spots<\/p>\n
That leaves two spaces to fill, with one of those obviously being taken by former World Rugby Player of the Year Ardie Savea.<\/p>\n
It just depends on whether that is at openside or number eight. Many observers want to see him back at flanker, which would then potentially allow Sititi to feature in his favoured position at the base of the scrum.<\/p>\n
Mexted does not agree, though, and he effectively wants Robertson to play with two opensides so that they can go hard at the breakdown, on both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want players that can win the ball and I want openside flankers whose game is attacking the ball. Number seven and number eight are very similar positions these days because they need to put pressure on the ball, they need to recover ball,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would play the two best guys that we\u2019ve got in the country at openside flanker. Who are the best openside flankers in the country?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Hurricanes have got one, [Du\u2019Plessis] Kirifi\u2019s been playing very well, but the Crusaders have got one too \u2013 his name\u2019s [Ethan] Blackadder.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, I would be playing Ardie Savea at number eight. He\u2019s our best player, he\u2019s been playing number eight for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlackadder\u2019s got a bit more height and he\u2019s got a hell of a work rate, and I would play him with Ardie at eight because Ardie\u2019s the man.\u201d<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Israel Dagg thought Rieko Ioane deal was an \u2018April Fool\u2019 after X-rated outburst from Leinster\u2019s \u2018favourite son\u2019<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Blacks great Murray Mexted believes that Scott Robertson may have to sacrifice the talents of Wallace Sititi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[18129,225,522,18130,704,12,4151,18131,18132,2196,79,18133,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-30403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-ardie-savea","9":"tag-home-page","10":"tag-international","11":"tag-murray-mexted","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-rugby","15":"tag-scott-barrett","16":"tag-scott-robertson","17":"tag-south-africa","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-tupou-vaa","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114359383174782942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30403","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=30403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}