Weather may inhibit All Black evolution

It seems to be common cause within the Springbok camp that the All Blacks have been evolving their attacking game in recent times - but the anticipated weather conditions for Saturday night’s game in Yokohama will test any Kiwi improvements and also pose interesting questions for their selection.

It was raining fairly steadily in Tokyo when Bok coach Rassie Erasmus named the same team that won comfortably in a Kumagaya sweat bath in their final dress rehearsal for the eagerly anticipated opening game between two of the tournament’s most heavily favoured teams. And it doesn’t look like there will be much change before match day, with the forecast for Kumagaya set at an 80 per cent chance of rain.

The All Blacks are obviously expecting rain because their coach Steve Hansen has been inserting rugby balls into buckets of water during training sessions to maximise his team’s chances of getting used to a slippery ball. Whether though the All Blacks will be able to unleash any attacking plan to stretch the bigger Boks in a wet weather game is debatable, maybe even doubtful.

“There is rain predicted and that will make this game a massive challenge in many respects and even if it doesn’t rain everyone is talking about the slippery ball that comes about because of the humidity,” said Erasmus on Wednesday.

“Both teams know they cannot just win through penalties and drop goals, or they can’t expect that, so a big part of this game is going to be living off bad kicks. The team that best pounces on bad kicks and makes the most of it is going to be the one that has the best chance of winning this game.

“We know we are up against world class opposition and they have world class outside backs. But we feel our guys are pretty close to them. Given the weather conditions, you’d expect that the All Blacks will be thinking hard about certain positions and what might be expected in a wet weather game.

“At this point we are not sure who they are going to select but I know if I was in their shoes and given the weather conditions that are being anticipated I would find it very hard to ignore the experience of Ben Smith when it comes to selection for the back three. It’s going to be a game where kicking and the fielding of kicks is going to be critically important.”

Both Erasmus and defence coach Jacques Nienaber echoed what forwards coach Matt Proudfoot said a day earlier - the All Blacks are busy evolving their attacking game and there have been noticeable changes in recent times that could make it an interesting challenge for the Boks if they’ve furthered their evolution through their last two big wins over Australia and Tonga.

“There has definitely something new been developing in their attacking shape and as a defence coach that is something that is exciting for me as it presents a big challenge for us,” said Neinaber.

“It feels like they’ve been working on it for a while but just recently they’ve started to get better at it. It was something I first noticed last year when the All Blacks were in the United Kingdom, and particularly in the game against Ireland which they lost at the end of that tour.

“We saw things in that game that prompted Rassie and myself to have a long discussion about it. We asked ourselves ‘Is it chance or is it something they are trying to do on purpose?’ We’ve seen it again since then though so it is definitely something they are moving to, and in Wellington when we played each other they got a lot better at it. They may be getting to really understand what can of worms they might be opening, and that makes it interesting.”

But while the All Blacks are expected to select a lighter, more mobile and potentially faster pack than the Boks for the Yokohama game, the anticipated weather conditions may not suit the strengths they are selecting the team around. Or the team everyone is expecting them to select, that is.

Erasmus clarified what Proudfoot meant when he said on Tuesday that the Boks were expecting Brodie Retallick, the influential All Black lock, to face the South Africans in Yokohama.

“We heard them say that all 31 players were training and that the whole squad was fit so Matt was just trying to find out what was true,” grinned the Bok coach, who is looking calm and relaxed three days out from what will be hitherto his biggest test match of his career.