Preston will start inside Ruben Love and Jordie Barrett, with Dave Rennie naming a strong All Blacks side to take on the Hollwood Bets Sharks at Hollywoodbets Kings Park in Durban this Wednesday morning (NZT).
”We’re confident we’ll do a better job,” said Rennie, referring to the All Blacks’ 38-21 win in the opening match of the tour against the Stormers in Cape Town.
We’ll do a better job staying in front of the maul, and… the scrum stuff we can tidy up. We weren’t clinical enough on the edge, created a lot of opportunities. A couple of them were three-on-ones and five-on-twos type of thing, and we didn’t nail it. So we’ve spent a little bit of time on that.
Part of that is the all-important ruck speed from Preston. It should come as little surprise that the All Blacks’ speed in this area was among the best in the Nations Championship, only slightly behind Ireland and France. However, they shot to first with Cam Roigard on the field.
”I think obviously as a halfback our main focus is the distribution, so getting the ball in and away as quick as we can,” said Preston.
“With Rens’ game style, that’s a big part of it. So no matter what game it is, it’s important.”