He noted the return of Will Skelton and Rob Valetini to the Wallabies pack. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s gonna be a physical battle \u2013 they\u2019ve got a few big boys that are coming back. <\/p>\n
ZB rugby commentator Elliott Smith interviews Codie Taylor. Photo \/ Brad Roberts<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re really good at holding, retaining the ball. At the breakdown, they\u2019re pretty effective at cleaning out bodies and making sure they put people on the deck to create that quick ball \u2013 that\u2019s a Joe Schmidt thing for sure.<\/p>\n
Taylor acknowledged the All Blacks\u2019 inconsistent run of results in the Rugby Championship this season. Scott Robertson\u2019s men have slumped to defeat against Argentina and the Springboks after competently beating both sides the week before. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe way we\u2019ve played the second test this year hasn\u2019t been great. So for us, it\u2019s a chance to right those wrongs.\u201c<\/p>\n
He said small margins made the difference at the top of international rugby.<\/p>\n
\u201cTest footy is different. If you win the first week and then say you\u2019re mentally not there \u2013 maybe even if it\u2019s only between 2% and 5%, that\u2019s a big difference in test footy. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if the other team is up that 5%, then, you know, you\u2019ve got a disparity straight away \u2013 and that\u2019s all it takes for a couple of opportunities when you\u2019re out there. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to make sure we front up mentally, knowing that it\u2019s going to be a physical game.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he was proud of the way the All Blacks finished in the opening match against the Wallabies. The hosts had been 20-3 ahead after half an hour before Joe Schmidt\u2019s men fought back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way we\u2019ve been going, we haven\u2019t finished that strong, but we managed to score a try and put it out of contention.\u201d <\/p>\n
Elliott Smith<\/a> is a Rugby Commentator and Deputy Sports News Editor for Newstalk ZB. He is the host of the Rugby Direct podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He noted the return of Will Skelton and Rob Valetini to the Wallabies pack. \u201cThere\u2019s gonna be a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[3265,64,63,9658,119670,119668,119669,3403,580,23690,4717,54954,22795,12534,46,760,100618,4215,85,12975,231,10593,2500,1050],"class_list":["post-188187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-all","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blacks","tag-breakdown","tag-codie","tag-combating","tag-defence","tag-for","tag-hooker","tag-in","tag-lift","tag-match","tag-must","tag-perth","tag-rugby","tag-saturdays","tag-says","tag-sports","tag-taylor","tag-test","tag-victory","tag-wallabies","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188187","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=188187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}