All Blacks great warns Scott Robertson about ‘rolling the dice’ against Argentina side with ‘firepower’
All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson alongside former scrum-half Justin Marshall.
Former scrum-half Justin Marshall believes that the All Blacks could be in for a shock when they face Argentina in the Rugby Championship opener.
Scott Robertson’s men kick off their campaign against Los Pumas on August 10 in Wellington before the two teams once again do battle a week later at Eden Park.
New Zealand will be expected to defeat the Argentinians relatively comfortably but Marshall is predicting a very tough couple of matches for the three-time world champions.
No ‘mental barrier’
“They won’t lie down. Equally, they don’t have that monkey on their back, they don’t have that mental barrier of coming to New Zealand and not being able to beat us here,” he told SENZ Radio.
“They’ve beaten us here and they’ve beaten us away. They are a very experienced side, they’ve got a great loose forward trio, they’ve got really good architects at nine and 10. Their centres are capable, we know they’ve got firepower in their outside backs and traditionally they scrum well.
“You certainly don’t want to be off against them because they’re capable of tipping up any team in the world. For sure, it’s not an experiment time playing Argentina, believe me.”
Robertson so far has a 100 per cent record from his three matches, beating England twice before overcoming Fiji in San Diego.
The All Blacks boss decided to rotate for the clash with the Pacific Islanders but Marshall expects to see them revert to the side which defeated the Red Rose.
“I don’t know whether we will experiment that much if I’m perfectly honest. There will be one or two but I don’t think they will go too far outside of what they selected against England. I think we would be really rolling the dice if we did that,” he said.
Travel
Marshall also believes that Argentina will benefit from the competition’s revamped schedule which makes it fairer for the South Americans.
“They don’t have the travel to deal with,” he added.
“Argentina usually have to deal with pretty s****y travel. They arrive in our country and then they have to play after coming all the way from Argentina. And then they probably have to go to Australia or South Africa, and then they get sent home and play someone at home after doing nearly three weeks of travel.
“With the new format, obviously South Africa play Australia twice and New Zealand play Argentina twice.
“Yes, it’s in New Zealand but Argentina can come here and prepare properly for two Test matches in New Zealand, in our environment and hit the ground running, rather than being ambushed by s****y travel.
“They will be a handful. I’m not convinced they are going to be as easy as what many people think.”
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