All Blacks coach identifies the key area his side must improve in against ‘dominant’ Springboks
All Blacks senior assistant coach Neil Barnes wants his team to improve in their set-piece work against the Springboks.
All Blacks senior assistant coach Neil Barnes has urged his players to “be better” and called for improvement in a key area when they face the Springboks in Saturday’s Test in Baltimore.
South Africa have their tails up after taking a 2-1 lead in the four-Test Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series courtesy of a 29-24 triumph over New Zealand in Soweto last Saturday.
The All Blacks will be determined to bounce back as they bid to salvage a series draw but will do so without their talismanic captain Ardie Savea as well as two other first-choice players in Quinn Tupaea (centre) and Luke Jacobson (back-row).
The aforementioned trio have been ruled out of the final Test due to injury. Savea (shoulder), Tupaea (knee) and Jacobson (elbow) returned to New Zealand along with six other players while head coach Dave Rennie, his backroom staff and a 36-man squad flew out to Baltimore.
Barnes believes the gap is small between the All Blacks and the world champion Boks but admitted that his players will have to improve if they want to leave Baltimore with a victory.
‘We’re going to have to eat humble pie’
“Well, it is close, I think if you look at all the stats,” he said. “But at the end of the day we’re on the wrong side of the scoreboard, so we’re going to have to eat humble pie and be honest in our reviews and be solution-based, because we’ve got to be better and be on the other side of that scoreboard, but to be fair, there’s not a lot in it.”
Barnes highlighted the Springboks’ excellent set-piece work as the area which the All Blacks have to improve in if they want to return to winning ways in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.
He feels that due to the Boks’ dominance in the scrums, lineouts and mauling, calls often go their way, and the All Blacks must find a way to stop that trend.
“Well, you can’t hide from it; their set-piece is pretty damn dominant and they get a gravy train of penalties from it. I’m not going to say they’re all legit, but at the end of the day we’ve got to change the perception for the officials as well so that we get a fair rub of the green,” explained Barnes.
“But we’ve got to be solution-based here; they’re good at what they do and we’ve got to counter it.”
Barnes revealed that the All Blacks are hurting following their latest defeat in Soweto, but insisted that they will keep on fighting.
‘We’ve tried bloody hard to get the right result’
“We’re not going to beat ourselves up too much, but at the moment it stinks, we’ve come in second to this crew and we’ve tried bloody hard to get the right result for our country and it hurts,” he said.
“If you look at our ball, there’s hardly a penalty; the ball comes out and plays and that’s the mindset over here. Set-pieces are there to create penalties to get yourself down the other end of the field,” he said.
“As I said, we’ve got to get solutions-based on how to stop their set-piece. I don’t think we did a too bad a job; we got a maul try against us at the end which hurt pretty bad, but the scrum penalties we’ve got to find a way to stop it as well, so for both Jason (forwards coach Jason Ryan) and myself, we’ve got work to do.”
He insisted, though, that there is no need for the All Blacks to change their game plan, as he believes they have a winning strategy if they can improve on their execution.
“The last thing you want to do is reinvent the wheel,” added Barnes.
“Obviously you make alterations to your game plan all the time to try and stay ahead of your opposition, but at the end of the day we turned over too much ball, made mistakes at the wrong time and you pay for it against the best teams in the world.”
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