All Blacks great: ‘I think everybody beats England at Twickenham at the moment’
All Blacks celebrating at Twickenham and former back-rower Murray Mexted.
Murray Mexted has taunted England over their recent home record when assessing the All Blacks’ northern hemisphere tour.
The Red Rose went into the Autumn Nations Series with high expectations but have lost three out of three in November so far – to New Zealand, Australia and South Africa – with Japan to come.
Scott Robertson’s side were the first to conquer the ‘home of rugby’ before they went to Dublin and impressively defeated Ireland.
Only defeat
Although the All Blacks have since succumbed to France, Mexted believes that they can be pleased with how they have performed in Europe.
“There are a lot of good things that have come from this series. Razor’s got his team, I think they’re committed to him, they’re hard to beat and they won two very good games,” he said on DSPN.
“With England, I think everybody beats England at Twickenham at the moment, although it’s hard.
“To beat Ireland by 10 points [is a great result], especially after beating them in the Rugby World Cup. They would have wanted to have won that one.
“We’re probably at a stage where we’ve got to think, ‘okay, let’s fine-tune some areas of our games’, and all of a sudden they will start clicking.”
Opinion: France are robbing the public of an all-time great series against the All Blacks
It has been a challenging year for Robertson, who took over from Ian Foster following the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
After the departure of several greats, he has had to rebuild the squad while also maintaining the standards the fans have come to expect from the mighty All Blacks.
It started off well enough with a July clean sweep but the Rugby Championship proved to be a disappointment as New Zealand relinquished the title they had held for previous four years.
Since then, they have headed north and shown a clear development, which suggests that 2025 could well be a positive one for Robertson’s side – providing they get past Italy.
‘The trend looks good’
“Whenever you change the head coach, things do change, and you’ve got to stabilise quickly. Things are up in the air and you’ve got to stabilise,” Mexted added.
“I think he’s doing that. It’s been a hell of a hard year. When you go on tour and you have to play England at Twickenham, Ireland in Dublin and France in two weeks…
“We’ve snivelled our way through it to a degree, without the success I think they probably deserved. You make your own luck, but I reckon they made enough to win that game against France.
“I’m not particularly worried about that. The trend looks good to me, I think Razor’s the man still. One of the great things I love about this style of coaching is how much his players give to him.”
