Will The All Blacks Fall Short Up North Again? | Rugby Roundtable

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Martin (0:59)

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It's roundtable time with me, John Day with me. The man in the glasses, he looks as though he's just walked off a cricket pitch. His name is Mark Watson, resplendent and red and black. What?

Mark Watson (1:44)

I just sort of felt there's a little bit of a Canterbury influence starting to creep back into the All Blacks. We went from the Chiefs to Canterbury, so I thought I'd just be sort of symbolic of the change.

Martin (1:52)

The yes no game to start with, gentlemen. You know how this works. One word answers if you please. Are you overall satisfied with the All Blacks squad name to play the Nations Championship, John?

John (2:01)

Yes.

Martin (2:02)

Mark?

Mark Watson (2:03)

No.

Martin (2:04)

Is there a player or players in the squad who you don't think should be there?

John (2:07)

No.

Mark Watson (2:08)

Yes.

Martin (2:10)

Is there a player or players who you would add if you had a chance?

John (2:13)

No.

Martin (2:14)

Mark?

Mark Watson (2:15)

Yes.

Martin (2:17)

Is this squad good enough to win all four matches?

John (2:20)

Yes.

Mark Watson (2:20)

Yes.

Martin (2:22)

Is this tour right now more important than the Rugby's Greatest Rivalry Tour?

John (2:27)

No.

Mark Watson (2:28)

No.

Martin (2:29)

If we were to win all four matches, would you be happy enough to say we've learnt the lessons from that tour?

John (2:37)

No.

Mark Watson (2:38)

No.

Martin (2:42)

Once again, he has been selected to play, but do you honestly think that Fehi will start in one of the major matches, Scotland, England or the playoff match?

John (2:53)

No.

Mark Watson (2:55)

No.

Martin (2:56)

Same. Would you have selected Narawa, Taimoa Fulao, Ratumai Tavuki-Nepkins, those three players?

John (3:04)

No.

Mark Watson (3:05)

Two out of the three. Yes.

Martin (3:08)

Do you believe in the concept of hybrid players?

John (3:11)

Yes.

Mark Watson (3:12)

Yes.

Martin (3:13)

Would you have selected Anton Lienert-Brown in the squad?

John (3:16)

Yes.

Mark Watson (3:17)

In a perfect world, no but no choice.

Martin (3:20)

Let us start then, Mark. You're overall satisfied with the squad to go. We have now, I think, 56 or 57, I've lost count, amount of players that we've selected this year. There's nine on the injured list, so we're looking at about 64 or 65 All Blacks this year, which does say depth. So encompass all of that in your answer.

Mark Watson (3:39)

Look, I think it was a fairly sort of predictable squad, a few sort of changes. I actually picked Sam Darry missing out. He's clearly not in favour at the moment. There's clearly something he's not quite doing right, whether it be his ability to push and scrum or a technical thing. I mean, he comes across such a nice guy. I can't imagine it's an attitude issue with him. Every time we've seen him play, we thought he's played well, but that's the difference between us and the coaches in terms of the subtleties of it. What I do find funny is that the coaches have always come out and talked about our loose forward trio as just being numbers on the back. Yet they've gone and picked a specific eight in Christian Leo Willey, who can't actually play any other position than eight. So they clearly do see eight as quite specific. At the moment, it's obviously been Wallace Atiti, who's playing at eight. They obviously see Lakai as a seven. I think Segnor and Blackhatta are purely either six or seven. So I think we're starting to see a little bit of a shift away from that initial rationale that Reni provided regarding the loose and the just numbers on the back. And I think that was probably just a means of justifying some of the selections. When they were experimenting a little bit earlier in the year, I still struggle. I'll be honest, I still struggle with Rico, Lenert, Anton Lienert-Brown and Beauden Barrett being picked. I think there was an opportunity here for the likes of the Chiron, Taimo O'Fallows, Nikens, a few of these other players to be possibly given an opportunity being introduced. When is the right time? I would have thought this is the right time for it.