this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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This is what Razor & the coaches have gone with:
1. Tamaiti Williams (17)
2. Codie Taylor (93) 3. Tyrel Lomax (42)
4. Scott Barrett (78) (Captain)
5. Tupou Vaa’i (36)
6. Samipeni Finau (7)
7. Ardie Savea (92) (Vice-Captain) 8. Wallace Sititi (8) 9. Cam Roigard (8) 10. Beauden Barrett (132) 11. Caleb Clarke (27)
12. Jordie Barrett (67) (Vice-Captain) 13. Rieko Ioane (79)
14. Sevu Reece (31) 15. Will Jordan (39)
16. Asafo Aumua (18) 17. Ofa Tu’ungafasi (66) 18. Pasilio Tosi (6)
19. Patrick Tuipulotu (49)
20. Peter Lakai (1)
21. Cortez Ratima (10)
22. Anton Lienert-Brown (82)
23. Damian McKenzie (60)
With Ardie moving to 7 this could well be a sign of the future - particularly as the most balanced loose forward trio would see him at 7 for Moana Pasifika next year as well to ensure Inisi gets plenty of game time at 8. I feel like Ratima is a bit unlucky, he didn't get much from the forwards against Ireland, and while Roigard definitely got the ball out of the ruck cleaner & faster, the passes were often going quite high so by the time it was in McKenzie's hands it wasn't a great deal better than Ratima's service. Still, Roigard is the future starting 9 - he's just too good to leave out now he's fully recovered from injury.
The only things I would have done differently was to play McKenzie at 10 so Beauden could play 15 and give us a good kicking option. As it stands, if i'm France i'm just kicking into Sevu Reece's side of the back field all game, piling territorial pressure on. Jordan's kicking game has been very weak from Fullback in the internationals since he returned from injury so that puts the whole responsibility on BB to track back and deal with it.
With that positional switch, i'd have liked to see Jordan at 14, and then Love or Perofeta on the bench. But Razor's kinda one-track minded on Jordan is our best 15, even though a lot of us kiwis would see that as more of a situational/depending on the opposition type thing and it ignores how incredibly successful he has been at 14 over his time in the jersey.