Scott Robertson offers injury update amid scrum-half crisis as All Blacks boss issues ‘own it’ message ahead of Springboks showdown
All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson and Cortez Ratima in action against Argentina.
All Blacks boss Scott Robertson admits that Cortez Ratima is “pretty sore” after the scrum-half was forced off in the first half of their Argentina defeat.
The half-back was seen clutching his chest following a heavy collision, suggesting some sort of rib issue, as he was replaced.
Finlay Christie came on and played the rest of the game, but he was unable to inspire a victory as the Argentinians claimed a stunning 29-23 triumph in Buenos Aires.
Ratima update
“He’s (Ratima) getting checked out at the moment. He’s a tough little fella, so for him to come off, he’s pretty sore,” Robertson told reporters.
Depending on the severity of the injury, it could leave the All Blacks without their three main scrum-halves for the Springboks encounter.
Cam Roigard and Noah Hotham were ruled out of the first two Rugby Championship matches, with the latter likely to miss the games against South Africa.
New Zealand have kept their cards close to their chest regarding Roigard’s availability as his exact return date remains unknown, but it is a concerning situation for Robertson.
The Boks are next up, and the head coach was inevitably asked about that encounter following their Argentina defeat.
He preferred to focus on Saturday’s loss but did admit that a vast improvement is needed if they are to keep their unbeaten record intact at Eden Park, which has stood since 1994.
“We have to [be better]. We just need to acknowledge what we need to get better at and just own it, and move forward quickly,” Robertson said.
The All Blacks defeated Argentina 41-24 last weekend, but it did not lead to complacency from the visitors, who, according to the head coach, worked hard to improve their flaws from the previous clash
“We put a lot into this week to make sure we tidied up areas from last week that we could be better at, but we just didn’t execute well enough when we had those opportunities – they did,” he said.
“They were hungry, won a lot of those scraps and fed off the crowd.”
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Where the All Blacks need to improve
Two things which are non-negotiable when it comes to the Boks is improving their discipline and the aerial game, which were big factors in the defeat to Los Pumas.
“Test footy is tough when you get three yellow cards and in the aerial game they dominated, we didn’t get a lot of little things go our way, which is earned off efforts, etc,” Robertson.
“It’s just simple, there are a lot of little areas I could talk about, but fundamentally it’s how they dominated the game.
“They won a lot of areas of the game that really mattered. The aerial game was a big part of it. We made too many execution errors, especially when we got down that end.
“They just kept the pressure on; we couldn’t put enough pressure on them, that was probably the story of the game.”
