Justin Marshall claims All Blacks are no longer ‘world leaders’ as he spots Six Nations innovation that will interest Scott Robertson

Colin Newboult
All Blacks boss Scott Robertson speaking with Ireland head coach Andy Farrell, and former scrum-half Justin Marshall (inset).

All Blacks boss Scott Robertson speaking with Ireland head coach Andy Farrell, and former scrum-half Justin Marshall.

Former All Black Justin Marshall believes that Scott Robertson will be taking tips from the Six Nations after seeing a theme during the opening round of matches.

Title favourites Ireland and France particularly impressed at the weekend, earning victories over England and Wales respectively.

Scotland also claimed a triumph, overcoming Italy at Murrayfield, and Marshall reckoned he noticed a particular trend on Friday and Saturday.

The ex-scrum-half felt that the cross-field kick was consistently utilised to great effect throughout the three games and that Robertson would have taken note.

Adapting against the blitz defence

“I know Scott Robertson would have been sitting down watching the Six Nations,” he told DSPN with Martin Devlin.

“I was really interested to see tactically – and keep an eye on it – how much cross-kicking there was to get outside of this blitz-style defence.

“There was a real mindset of going, ‘if we can’t get it there by hand, we’re going to kick it.’ If you look at the French game, even [Antoine] Dupont did a cross-kick for a try.

“Because of the umbrella defence and narrowing the field, there’s a real mindset from every single team – and I didn’t see anyone not doing it – to cross-kick into space.

“A very, very interesting tactic from the Six Nations sides and one where Scott Robertson will go, ‘this is something we have to think about as well.’”

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It is something the All Blacks have tried on occasion in an attempt to get around the rush defence, as Devlin noted.

“We did see Damian [McKenzie] do that against the Poms in Dunedin didn’t we?” he asked.

Marshall agreed but insisted that it was possibly something Robertson could look at using more regularly when the All Blacks’ Test season begins in July.

The New Zealand great also claimed that while they were once rugby’s great innovators, that is now not the case and they should be bringing in ideas from outside the country to build their game plan and performances.

All Blacks not able to ‘tactically outclass everybody’

“Let’s not go, ‘that’s them, we can do it another way.’ We are now not world leaders in being able to tactically outclass everybody,” he said.

“We’ve got to think, ‘okay, if they’re doing that, we’ve got to think about how we can do that.’ Who can we bring into the game to make that a real weapon for us?

“It was very evident watching all of those games at the weekend that it was a mindset to get outside of a defence that a lot of teams have been struggling with recently.”

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