The 2024 Rugby Championship commenced last weekend, and the rugby world witnessed a shock defeat for the All Blacks in Wellington. New Zealand’s capital city curse remains with just one win seven matches, as the All Blacks were stunned by Argentina, as Los Pumas recorded a 38-30 win to kick-start the competition.
After suffering his first defeat as head coach, Scott Robertson’s side were the discussion of many former All Blacks, including former back row Josh Kronfield. Whilst from a neutral perspective the high-scoring fixture was a thrilling encounter, the former New Zealand international was hesitant in expressing his enjoyment of the match. Kronfield gave his two cents on where the All Blacks let themselves down, as preparations heat up for the return fixture this weekend. Speaking to TopOffshoreCasinos, Kronfield said;
“As a Kiwi I shouldn’t say it was fabulous, but it was in the rugby sense. I didn’t enjoy us losing and Wellington is a real cursed ground for the All Blacks. It was a good game, and it could have gone in either direction at the end. They played some lovely rugby and scored some absolutely stunning tries.
“They caught us a little bit napping. We were resting on our laurels. I always felt like our boys felt that they could win it and comfortably win it. You need to be able to stop things in their tracks, in this case the Pumas, and apply and impose on them.
“We saw bits of it but we never really had the mindset whereby we said, ‘ We are going to put you Argentinians away. We just allowed them to stay in the game in some respects and gave them countless opportunities to do what they did.
“In a lot of ways they did what All Blacks do to other teams on a regular basis; just do enough and then fire some real big shots at key moments and that’s what happened. We weren’t super aggressive on the contact whereas the Argies were. They were all about making inroads on the point of contact. Gone are the days of actually just defending the point of contact and waiting for them to make a mistake. To be a winning team, you need to dominate the contact.”
An untimely injury sees All Blacks captain Scott Barrett miss the second Test against Argentina, as the lock will sit out the next two Rugby Championship matches on the side-lines. With one of the three Barrett brothers not selected, the honus is on Jordie and Beuaden to lead, as the siblings are amongst the more experienced members of the All Blacks set-up.
Kronfield believes that the All Blacks are missing a ferocious ‘enforcer’, who’s hard-nosed character can ignite the fight in the dog and bring out New Zealand’s killer instincts. Kronfield cast his mind back to the icons of yester-year, and recalled how the likes of Brad Thorn, Sean Fitzpatrick and Robin Brooke would add their brand of ruthlessness to the iconic black jersey.
“Dare I say it, an enforcer is missing.” Kronfield said. “You only need one of those, that sort of character. We’ve definitely got leaders in terms of how to play the game and lead by example and stuff like. But where is our Brad Thorn type figure?
“Everybody knew how hard he was and no one messed with him and he was just uncompromising. I just don’t feel like we’ve got one of those figure heads who just turns around and says, ‘No, that isn’t good enough.’ I’m not saying physically, but by his attitude and how he plays.”
“Sean Fitzpatrick was our real enforcer, he was an evil man! Robin Brooke, Zinzan’s brother was another. They were just utterly uncompromising. They did whatever needed to be done in the time or the moment to get that domination in a physical and mental sense.
“And in those days, it involved lots of different facets of the game. It might have been a punch up or an illegal play but they had an impact on the moment. That’s missing in this setup. Someone who is hard-nosed, no nonsense, doesn’t talk, just does.”
The New Zealand fans would be the first to admit it themselves, in how they are amongst the toughest rugby critics around the world. A nation expects whenever the men in black take centre stage, as the three-time Rugby World Cup winners are the pride and joy of the land known in Maori as ‘Aotearoa’.
For a country where rugby is king of the sports, the All Blacks fans have piled the pressure on to their new head coach Scott Robertson, who will be desperate to get back to winning ways in charge of the team. Kronfield contrinued to discuss how you would have been hard-pressed to find a New Zealander that expected to see their side lose against Argentina last weekend, but assured the Kiwi public not to panic ahead of the second Test with Los Pumas.
“There’s no need to panic for New Zealand. There’s always going to be people that are going to go down that (criticising) track almost automatically and that’s just what tends to happen in New Zealand. But for me personally, no, there’s some great players in the Super Rugby competition and even our local NPC competition.
“All the pressure is really on Scott Robertson in how he manages these next few games. No one was expecting it, that’s the crux of the matter. Internationally no one was expecting, no one in New Zealand was expecting it, but the Argentinians clearly, definitively believed that they could do it. That’s why they snuck the win the way they did.”
Looking beyond ‘the Land of the Long White Cloud’, Kronfield cast his thoughts upon some pressing matters within rugby outside of his New Zealand homeland. The former Leicester Tiegrs man believes that the recent appointment of former All Black Tony Brown as South Africa’s assistant coach is ‘bloody scary’, and is intrigued to see if the Springboks fans give the former centre his due diligence in the coaching set-up.
“Tony Brown is with the South Africans. I think that’s bloody scary. Tony always has had the ability to unhinge all the top teams. He has the ability to look at what’s going on and how teams are playing and come up with a game plan and some moves to unhinge that team.
“Imagine having that potential with that ability and then taking that and applying that to a South African team with its forward power. I’m excited to see if South Africa listens to Tony.”
Whilst New Zealand remain amongst the precipice of rugby’s leading nations, Kronfield admitted that Ireland continue to rule the roost from the mountain top. The Highlanders legend was blown away by the way Andy Farrell’s men defeated the Springboks in the second Summer Series Test, with a last minute drop goal sealing the 25-24 triumph. Kronfield acquitted some of the success to his fellow countrymen, as the great export nation has had a historical influence upon the side from the Emerald Isle.
“Beating South Africa in the way they did was incredible. Some of their improvement has to come down to some of the input that’s happened from New Zealand in terms of coaching and some of their players, which has just changed some of their mindsets.
“The way they approach the game and their beliefs, as soon as you get that wee (little) spark it can turn into a wee fire, and the next thing you’ve got a full bore bonfire going. That’s how it works with teams. They are very close to the very best.”