Jeff Wilson’s audacious claim about current All Blacks compared to when he started out
Wilson has made a bold claim about the new players coming through compared to his time in the Test set-up.
Former All Blacks winger Jeff Wilson has made a bold claim about the new players coming through compared to his time in the Test set-up.
Wilson played 60 times for New Zealand making his debut in 1993 and featuring for the final time in 2001.
Now a pundit with Sky Sports NZ, the former outside back has bemoaned the quality of coaching in New Zealand from the grassroots up to the highest level.
“We are not doing enough”
He believes that the competitions in New Zealand – the NPC and Super Rugby – are not adequately preparing young players both male and female sufficiently for professional rugby.
His views came after the All Blacks’ back-to-back defeats at the hands of the Springboks while the Black Ferns fell to a 24-12 loss at Twickenham against the Red Roses.
Wilson zoned in on the women’s loss to England and believed that New Zealand Rugby failed to prepare them adequately for the fixture and because of that, they went into the fixture undercooked.
“The Black Ferns hadn’t played a Test or a game since July 14th and that was against Australia, they were back-to-back Tests where we absolutely walloped them and then we were expected in the middle of September to go to Twickenham and take on the Red Roses and beat them,” he said on The Breakdown.
“Seriously, I thought it was a great performance I honestly did given the fact that they’ve had no preparation time.
“The fact that we played Super Rugby Aupiki how far long ago like I just don’t think we’ve given them even the structure of a season the opportunity – we took all of those players out of the FBC and they’ve been training on their own like how do you prepare for a Test match when you’re not in a competitive environment and to me that’s where at the moment the quality of our competitions.”
Extends to the All Blacks too
Wilson’s grip is not just with the women’s structures as he believes that it applies to the men’s too and that not enough is being done to prepare all the teams in New Zealand in order for them to be successful.
“Whether it be the NPC whether it be Super Rugby in terms of preparing our players getting them ready and I’m big on this I don’t think we’re doing enough,” he continued.
“When does high-performance start? Well when a kid starts throwing a ball around and he learns how to catch and pass, he learns how to tackle, to beat a man with the ball, to use the ball not playing in a 1-3-3-1 when he’s 10 years old and coaches are doing that.”
This led him to make the audacious claim that when he and the likes of Mils Muliaina and Justin Marshall rose to the international stage that they were better prepared to thrive at the level than the current crop of New Zealand players.
“Like this education of the game and I hear about structures all the time, that’s not the freedom of what our DNA is for me, I’m not sure our players are as advanced as they were when we started when we got our opportunities we were more ready I believe for the international level,” he said.
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“You need to help the parents out there”
Wilson pins this on the decline in the quality of coaches in New Zealand at the lower levels as well as at Super Rugby with many of the top coaches heading abroad or being lost to the system.
“I start thinking about the level of coaching we had at all levels, remember when we had the likes of Dave Rennie who was coaching at Super Rugby level – he’s an international level coach,” he said.
“You think about the guys and the pathways they’ve come through and they were competing at Super Rugby level so the education for them. I come back to the coaching side of it, the fact that you need to develop coaches.
“You need to help the parents out there, you need to help the teachers out there to help teach the skills not just to make it look good. So when you get a player who then does graduate to the Ne Zealand under 20s he’s closer, he’s developed more skills and when he does get a Super Rugby contract or an NPC contract, the coaches are not spending time teaching him how to catch and pass and how to kick a ball and how to compete in the air and take a high ball you’re actually teaching them his is how we want to play as a team.”
He concluded that the shortcomings are evident at the senior international level where the top players are making too many mistakes.
“We make too many errors for international sides when we’re a team that has to play with the ball because if we have to kick the ball away I can guarantee you it’s going to be a long time before we get consistency because right we are talking about our kicking game not talking about our ball in hand. We’ve got capabilities we’re not using it,” he said.
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