All Black coach Ian Foster says that his team’s clash with the Springboks in Johannesburg was always going to be the biggest match of the year but he looked like a man feeling the pressure as he faced up to the media at Thursday’s team announcement press conference.
Foster has continually frustrated the New Zealand media by refusing to discuss how he is feeling about his future as All Black coach, and he continued to do so two days before the Emirates Airlines Park clash. When asked about the personal pressure that has been built up due to his team’s run off poor form, Foster refused to discuss his own situation individually.
“We are just focused on this week. I am part of the team and that is our team mindset,” said Foster and curtly dismissed any attempts to draw him further on the topic.
There is a feeling in some sections of the New Zealand media that this will be Foster’s last match regardless of the result, but a win at the stadium the Kiwis consider the citadel of South African rugby could just sway thinking. The All Blacks have had a tough start to the international year in terms of their schedule, coming up against the current No1 team Ireland and then the deposed No1 team in succession, and it should get easier for them after Saturday.
STILL CONVINCED MBOMBELA WAS A STEP FORWARD
Foster spoke at the press conference about how the previous week’s 26-10 defeat to South Africa at Mbombela Stadium was actually a step forward for his team, something that was also his line straight after the game. And he backed that up by making just four changes to his side, with a rotation of props that is becoming fairly common place when there are back to back big international games, as well as one change to the looseforward and one to the halfbacks.
The most noteworthy of the changes was Richie Mo’unga’s selection ahead of Beauden Barrett at flyhalf. Barrett looked in a bad way when he was upended in the incident involving Bok wing Kurt-Lee Arendse towards he end of last week’s game, but he was available for selection and will play off the bench at Emirates Airlines Park on Saturday.
The All Blacks lost the territory battle hands down in Nelspruit but Foster denied that was the only reason behind the selection.
“Richie is there not just for his kicking game. He has been massive behind the scenes for us, along with Beauden, and he deserves an opportunity to start,” said Foster.
“Of course, on Saturday it will be a matter of getting the balance right between kicking, passing and running. We had no field position last week and this week we do need to get that early against a team that kicks well out of that space.”
Asked if he had considered making more changes than the four, he said “of course we did”. However, he said that in following the usual process the selectors do in selection time, they had decided to settle on four and that throwing new players into “the cauldron” that will be the Ellis Park atmosphere at the weekend might have been the wrong timing.
“The two new props we have brought in are both in a strong position currently and were on the bench before, Shannon Fizzell (flanker) has experience we thought would come in useful and Richie has trained well and contributed massively behind the scenes”.
NOT LOOKING AT LOSING RECORD
While the All Blacks are under pressure because they have lost five of their last six games, Foster said that the team wasn’t looking at it like that.
“I know everyone keeps putting those stats up but we are not in that space really. The way we see it we lost our first Championship game and there will be other opportunities, starting on Saturday. Obviously it is not ideal, but then it was only in 2017 last that a team went through a full Championship season unbeaten.
“We must just make the most of the development opportunities we have, and Saturday will be a very important part of the development this team is going through. Our goal is to improve and improve, and we felt we did that last Saturday. To do that at Ellis Park and win would be cool, this test was always going to be a massive one on our calendar.”
Foster added that the All Blacks love playing at Ellis Park, partly because they know that the Boks enjoy the stadium so much and that knowledge brings out the best in the black jerseys.
“South Africa like to move you around early when they play at Ellis Park, and put a lot of effort into putting multi-phases together early in the game to put you under pressure. That challenges your fitness. These are always massive games.” Foster said his team had had a good week building up to the Johannesburg clash despite the noise from back home in the wake of last week’s defeat.
“We’ve been working on the growth side of our game and it has been a good week. At the end of the day we need to look at the facts. We dropped the first game, but the last time someone won six out of six was 2017. We have been excited about preparation and about our game. There was enough growth in our game last week to show we are going in the right direction.”