{"id":100651,"date":"2025-08-27T22:10:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T22:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/100651\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T22:10:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T22:10:26","slug":"the-danger-now-for-the-all-blacks-is-that-ill-discipline-is-endemic-and-there-is-no-easy-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/100651\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The danger now for the All Blacks is that ill-discipline is endemic and there is no easy fix\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There was a sense of the penny finally having dropped, when All Blacks<\/a> forwards coach Jason Ryan addressed the media in London ahead of his side\u2019s World Cup warm-up clash against South Africa<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n

The All Blacks were on a four-match unbeaten streak, having won the Rugby Championship<\/a> with emphatic performances against Argentina, the Springboks and Wallabies.<\/p>\n

A team that had been uncertain for much of 2022 was suddenly looking composed and cohesive, and at the core of their improvement was the fact that they had cleaned up their act.<\/p>\n

Throughout much of 2021 and 2022, the All Blacks couldn\u2019t stop picking up yellow and red cards. They topped the charts among their top-tier peers and there was this undeniable correlation between ill-discipline and defeats.<\/p>\n

\"ArdieA yellow card to Shannon Frizzell (right) proved costly as New Zealand<\/a> lost to Argentina<\/a> in Christchurch in 2022 (Photo Hannah Peters\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In 2021 and 2022 they played 29 Tests and were shown 13 yellows and three reds. They won 21, lost seven and drew one for a 72 per cent win ratio.<\/p>\n

The lack of discipline the All Blacks showed in the defeats to Ireland<\/a> in 2021 and then in the second and third Tests of 2022 was crippling.<\/p>\n

When they lost the second Test to Ireland in 2022, they were shown two yellows and one red in the first 30 minutes, and again, when they suffered a collapse in the last 10 minutes of their match against England<\/a> that year, it was a yellow card to Beauden Barrett<\/a> that was the catalyst.<\/p>\n

The constant lament from head coach Ian Foster was that discipline had to improve and by 2023, he was finally seeing evidence that his players were listening.<\/p>\n

The penny hadn\u2019t dropped at all, and the problem of ill-discipline has only got worse under head coach Scott Robertson.<\/p>\n

The All Blacks didn\u2019t pick up a single yellow card in those first four Tests, a testament to the endless hard work they did to lower their body heights in contact, tidy their technique at the cleanout and resist the urge to indulge in silly, cynical, needless acts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been a lot of cards, but the rules are pretty obvious,\u201d Ryan observed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have just got to stay away from the head. You have got to get your tackle technique right and live under the ball. You have still got to be dominant though.\u201d<\/p>\n

The All Blacks, it seemed, had rid themselves of the ill-discipline bug only to then pick up a yellow and red card against South Africa in a warm-up Test at Twickenham (although Scott Barrett\u2019s red was rescinded after the game), and then at the World Cup they were yellow-carded in their opening night loss to France, picked up a red card against Namibia, two yellows against Ireland in the quarter-final and then, as everyone knows, a yellow and a red in the World Cup final.<\/p>\n

\"SamSam Cane\u2019s yellow card, upgraded to red, saw New Zealand play the last 53 minutes of the RWC23 final with 14 men (Photo Julian Finney \u2013 World Rugby via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The penny hadn\u2019t dropped at all, and the problem of ill-discipline has only got worse under head coach Scott Robertson.<\/p>\n

In his first year in charge, the All Blacks picked up a staggering 11 yellow cards in 14 Tests \u2013 seven came in the Rugby Championship alone \u2013 and now, five games into 2025, they have picked up another five, with three coming in the 29-23 loss to Argentina in Buenos Aries.<\/p>\n

To put this into context, the All Blacks have played around 150 minutes of their last 19 Tests with a numeric disadvantage (some of the cards have overlapped and some have been shown in the closing seconds). But still, that roughly equates to 10 per cent of their game time with only 14 men on the park and this inability to stay onside, to not impulsively lunge to try to intercept passes, pull down mauls, or stray off their running lines to impede an opposition chaser, is damaging their ability to win at historic levels.<\/p>\n

They may have climbed back to number one in the world, but internally, they have barely noticed because they are still battling to produce results that are in line with expectation.<\/p>\n

More than two years since Ryan spoke of discipline being key, the All Blacks are still self-sabotaging their best efforts with endless yellow cards.<\/p>\n

In 19 Tests, Robertson has won 14, lost five \u2013 a 71 per cent return that places him among the least successful All Blacks coaches of the professional age, and there is no denying the relationship between poor discipline and poor results.<\/p>\n

They were comprehensively outplayed by Argentina in Buenos Aires, that\u2019s true. They were outsmarted by a Pumas<\/a> team that used the individual running power of Pablo Matera<\/a> and Santiago Chocobares<\/a> to dent the All Blacks, and then further pressure them by winning the aerial battle they created with a smart and accurate kicking strategy.<\/p>\n

But it is also undeniable that they benefitted enormously from the New Zealand\u2019s self-implosion which saw Will Jordan<\/a> needlessly impede Mateo Carreras<\/a> after the Pumas wing had kicked ahead; Tupou Vaa\u2019i slap down a pass heading towards Matera, and then Sevu Reece<\/a> impulsively stick his hand out to prevent a pass reaching its intended target.<\/p>\n

\u201cTest footy is tough when you get three yellow cards,\u201d Robertson said afterwards. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of little areas I could talk about but that\u2019s fundamentally how they got the domination of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GonzaloNew Zealand had much to contemplate after being out-played in Buenos Aires (Photo Rodrigo Valle\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

More than two years since Ryan spoke of discipline being key, the All Blacks are still self-sabotaging their best efforts with endless yellow cards. The danger now is that ill-discipline is endemic \u2013 so ingrained in their system that there is no quick or easy way to fix the problem.<\/p>\n

Robertson, like Foster before him, may be distraught at the recidivist offending and having to offer the same story after every defeat, but it\u2019s perhaps true that the nature of the All Blacks\u2019 crimes have changed since the former Crusaders<\/a> supremo took over in 2024.<\/p>\n

Under Foster, the most consistent failing was tackle height. Ofa Tu\u2019ungafasi, Angus Ta\u2019avao, Ethan de Groot and Sam Cane<\/a> were all red-carded for direct contact with an opponents\u2019 head.<\/p>\n

Since Robertson took over, the infringements have been more cynical and impulsive \u2013 with four yellow cards for deliberate knock-ons, and a few for persistent offside or flopping over rucks.<\/p>\n

The way his team so readily resort to ill-advised, impulsive acts when under pressure gives a strong sense that while the players may not be encouraged to infringe, they may be getting a vibe somehow that it is expected of them.<\/p>\n

This distinction is more important than it may appear, as there were often accusations when Robertson was Crusaders coach that his team were needlessly cynical.<\/p>\n

After one game in 2021, then Highlanders<\/a> coach Tony Brown<\/a> was exasperated at the way the Crusaders managed to win a game despite being wildly ill-disciplined. He said: \u201cIf you look at tonight\u2019s game that\u2019s what sad about rugby at the minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had 60 per cent possession, 60 per cent territory\u2026 we only concede eight penalties and they\u2019re conceding 19 penalties and numerous penalty advantages against them and then two yellow cards and they still win.\u201d<\/p>\n

His point was that the Crusaders were willing to shut his team down illegally almost as if they had calculated that it was better to concede penalties and yellow cards than it was tries.<\/p>\n

\"ScottRobertson must now rally his troops for back-to-back Tests against South Africa starting next week (Photo Marcelo Endelli\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Robertson refuted the accusation but the way his All Blacks team so readily resort to ill-advised, impulsive acts when they are under pressure, gives a strong sense that while the players may not be encouraged to infringe, they may be getting a vibe somehow that it is expected of them.<\/p>\n

How else to explain why the All Blacks are so wildly out of whack with every leading team when it comes to discipline?<\/p>\n

Ireland, by comparison, went through 22 Tests, between June 2021 and the end of the 2023 Six Nations, being shown just two yellow cards.<\/p>\n

It seems unlikely the All Blacks can beat the best if they don\u2019t make giant shifts in their discipline.<\/p>\n

France over that same period picked up one red and one yellow and there is every reason to believe the All Blacks are not going to fulfil their potential unless or until they clean up their act.<\/p>\n

They now face an incredibly challenging five-Test stretch in which they will play the Boks and Wallabies twice each and then take on Ireland in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Can they really expect to win any of these if they maintain their current Rugby Championship pace of being shown 2.5 yellow cards per game? That\u2019s 25 minutes per Test with 14 men.<\/p>\n

Given it was two yellow cards against South Africa in the first Test last year, and one in the second, that were the catalysts for the momentum shifting back to the home side, it seems unlikely the All Blacks can beat the best if they don\u2019t make giant shifts in their discipline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a sense of the penny finally having dropped, when All Blacks forwards coach Jason Ryan addressed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-100651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}