Ex-All Black hits out at ‘worst performance’ under Scott Robertson as England ‘wave the white flag’
All Blacks fly-half Beauden Barrett and an insert of ex-scrum-half Steve Devine.
Former All Blacks scrum-half Steve Devine has hit out at the performance of Scott Robertson’s side against England.
Despite coming away with a 24-22 victory over England at Twickenham Stadium, Devine believes that it was New Zealand’s “worst performance of the year” while he was highly critical of Steve Borthwick’s charges too.
Mark Tele’a and Will Jordan both crossed for tries in the first half while England stayed within touching distance of the visitors thanks to four first-half penalties from the boot of Marcus Smith.
Smith then got his side in front in the second half after he brilliantly intercepted a Cortez Ratima pass and raced away upfield, setting up a chance that Immanuel Feyi-Waboso made the most of.
After adding the extras on Feyi-Waboso’s try, Smith would convert another penalty shot at goal to extend England’s lead to eight points before he was hooked from proceedings and replaced by George Ford, a move that ultimately proved to be costly for England.
All Blacks ‘get out of jail’
Ford would miss a tackle on Tele’a who grabbed his second try and would also fail to convert his penalty shot at goal and drop kick as the All Blacks clinched the win.
In a withering assessment of the match, Devine said that the All Blacks were lucky to come away with the win having played better and lost in previous Test matches this year, while he took a shot at the English supporters and players too.
“I think we’ve played a lot better than that this year and lost. It wasn’t our best performance. In fact, I’ll put it up there close to being the worst performance of the year. I don’t think we were clinical at all and we were lucky to get out of jail, thank God,” he said on SENZ Radio.
The ex-scrum-half shares the belief of many that Borthwick made a costly error in bringing Ford on at fly-half in the place of Smith, but he feels that it was a sign of the side surrendering rather than looking to beat the All Blacks.
“The English waved the white flag and ran on someone who tried to keep them in front, not win the match, and that’s ultimately what cost them couldn’t have had to a better bunch of people,” he added.
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England didn’t look like scoring
Devine also highlighted areas where he felt that the All Blacks were poor and said that England didn’t offer much on attack with their only try coming against the run of play.
“I don’t think of rugby as win and loss, I think of it as opportunities made and the opportunities taken and not,” he continued.
“The English didn’t make many but did what they do, they kicked their penalties and had their field goals attempt, and they got one against the run of play but other than that, they didn’t really look like scoring a try.
“The All Blacks had a lot of opportunities and dropped the ball cost us. If we had to lose that match, I certainly think we’d be screaming and foul about lineouts and our kick chase which I thought was very poor.
“Also penalties, we gave away a lot of penalties again.”