Ex-All Blacks boss has ‘no doubts’ over Scott Robertson after ‘sublime’ Bledisloe Cup showing
Laurie Mains has put a positive spin on the All Blacks’ victory over the Wallabies, despite almost letting a dominant lead slip.
Even though New Zealand retained the Bledisloe Cup for yet another year, there was frustration from coaches, players and supporters over their continuing second-half struggles.
However, Mains insists that they are merely small issues for the All Blacks at the moment, claiming that their performance in the opening period showed what this team could do.
The 78-year-old understands that there are problems which have yet to be rectified but is confident that Robertson and his backroom team are the right people to correct them.
‘Fantastic rugby in our arsenal’
“It was sublime the first half-hour with the rugby that the All Blacks played and it shows us that they are capable of playing that sort of rugby,” he told The Platform.
“I would sooner win the way they did at the weekend than to lose, but also to know that we’ve got this fantastic rugby in our arsenal. We just need to tidy up the areas of the game that we’re letting slip away.
“I’ve got no doubts whatsoever that this coaching team will achieve that.”
All Blacks centurion blames Australia for New Zealand’s lack of ‘world-class’ players
Mains also believes that the All Blacks have not been helped by the decline of Australian rugby, backing up claims from the likes of Mils Muliaina who worry that Super Rugby is not currently strong enough.
“The All Blacks need Australia to be strong and one of the reasons I think we’ve been a bit inconsistent over the last few years is that Australia are not as strong as they were going back,” he said.
Equally, the former All Blacks head coach says that they are in a transition period having lost some of the greats of the game following the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
“The other way to look at this is that it’s an All Blacks team that lost five of its best players at the end of last year, plus they had injuries in some of those areas like at lock,” Mains added.
“It’s taking a while for the new players to step up but, even more importantly, it’s taking a while for the combinations in the team to hold up under extreme pressure, which you get at this level. That’s what happened at the weekend.”
The global game
Many observers also believe that a number of countries have simply caught up to the All Blacks, a theory Mains buys into.
There doesn’t appear to be much difference in quality between the top four sides in the world, while England, and potentially Argentina, are not far behind.
Even the Wallabies have shown glimpses under Joe Schmidt and Mains used Fraser McReight’s try as an example of the small margins at the elite level, and how that has affected the All Blacks’ global standing.
“I just thought of one try Australia got off the back of a lineout where that player ran through. Where was our blindside winger? He would normally pick those up, but he was up in the line and so we didn’t have that second line of cover. That is something you can’t afford to do,” the ex-All Blacks boss said.
“These are the little things that let the opposition back into a game. We did the same thing against South Africa. If you open the door, these teams are good enough to walk through it.
“We don’t want to have two teams leading world rugby easily. The more teams like Argentina and England get back up to the strength that they’re capable of, world rugby is going to be better for it.”
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