Justin Marshall exasperated with Scott Robertson’s selections as All Blacks great demands ‘attitude change’
All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson and former scrum-half Justin Marshall.
Justin Marshall cannot see the All Blacks beating the Springboks in the Rugby Championship clash at Ellis Park unless they make changes.
The former scrum-half is referring to both personnel and game plan, insisting that Scott Robertson is currently on the wrong track.
Marshall believes that New Zealand have kicked away too much possession under Robertson and that if they repeat those tactics, the visitors will be punished by South Africa.
Dangerous Bok backline
The Springboks have two incredibly lively wingers in Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse while surprise selection at full-back Aphelele Fassi will also be a threat off counter-attack.
“I’m a glass half full type of person and I don’t even know how the glass half empty situation even works; that’s how I roll. [But] at the moment, New Zealand is not in the right form to beat South Africa at Ellis Park at the weekend,” Marshall told The Platform.
“We need to make some significant shifts in terms of how we’re going to approach this blitz/umbrella style of defence.
“But equally, our mindset of breaking down that 100 metre field as to where we are prepared to play in it. I’ve just seen too many times where we’ve got frustrated by the defences that are suffocating us in and around areas where we usually retain the ball, and we kick it away.
“If we do that, they’ve got such a really good back three, they’ve got a much more attacking mindset; we’ll basically be playing into exactly what they want us to do, so we’ve got to change our attitude.
“If we don’t do that then we are going to be walking up a big, big hill that I don’t think we’ll ever get over the top of in 80 minutes.”
Marshall also has question marks over team selection and would like to see Robertson switch things around going forward.
That includes trying Ardie Savea at openside flanker – a position observers have been clamouring to see him in – and Will Jordan at full-back.
The ex-playmaker was particularly irritated that Jordan continued on the wing for New Zealand, despite the All Blacks boss predominantly playing him at full-back while head coach of the Crusaders.
‘Very predictable team’
“I’ve got this feeling that we’ve not got the right balance in the back-row. When you look at back-rows they (Springboks) select, they’re big, hard-running, fit men,” he said.
“They will challenge you physically and we’ve got to get that balance right. We’re not going to get that right unless we solve the number eight situation.
“I already know the direction that I feel this team needs to go in but I can already see the direction Scott Robertson is heading towards.
“He’s quite happy that Ardie Savea is a number eight, he looks reasonably happy that Rieko Ioane is a centre and he’s quite comfortable, even though he never, ever selected Will Jordan on the wing, that Will Jordan’s a winger.”
Marshall added: “For whatever reason, some of the areas where I feel we need to show a little bit more to the defence by putting individuals in different jerseys, that doesn’t seem to be the way he’s thinking.
“I suspect it’s going to be a very predictable team. The positions where I would like to see some changes, they’re not going to happen and that’s just been through consistency and what Scott Robertson wants to do.
“The personnel is not going to change and, because of that, we’re going to look the same that we’ve looked in the last five Test matches.”
