{"id":482944,"date":"2026-02-16T04:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/482944\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T04:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:18:12","slug":"former-all-black-shocked-by-kicking-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/482944\/","title":{"rendered":"Former All Black shocked by kicking numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former All Black Jeff Wilson<\/a> has come out and criticised the amount of kicking that was in the opening round of Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> in 2o26, especially from the game between the Highlanders<\/a> and the Crusaders.<\/p>\n

Jamie Joseph and the Highlanders were victorious in the South Island derby on Friday evening in Dunedin, where first-five Cameron Millar<\/a> iced the game with a penalty in the dying stages.<\/p>\n

The All Black heavy Crusaders<\/a> bench added impact in the second half, but it was the home side that managed to get the job done in front of a strong home crowd.<\/p>\n

Joseph made a late switch before the game to move his experienced props in Angus Ta\u2019avao<\/a> and Ethan de Groot, to the bench to combat the Crusaders\u2019 bench impact.<\/p>\n

Rob Penney had decided to bench a full All Black front row, including George Bower<\/a>, Codie Taylor<\/a>, and Fletcher Newell<\/a>, who all entered the game in the second half.<\/p>\n

In the game on Friday evening, there were 83 in-play kicks, the highest of the opening Super Rugby Pacific weekend.<\/p>\n

The Highlanders made 45 of them, while the away side contributed with 38 of their own.<\/p>\n

Wilson, who played 60-Tests for the All Blacks<\/a>, said on\u00a0The Breakdown\u00a0that 83 kicks in a game is just \u201cnot New Zealand<\/a> Rugby\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finished a whole season last year, at the end of the year, talking about kicking the ball away and turning possesion over,\u201d Wilson said on The Breakdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then in the very first game, we saw 80 kicks. That\u2019s not New Zealand Rugby. I\u2019m sorry, keeping the ball in hand\u00a0 you know, you can\u2019t play with fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause for me, the number of times the moment it broke down, teams were going to a box kick in the attacking half, not even in the defensive half, the exit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an attacking strategy. I just I don\u2019t accept that that\u2019s in the best interest of our game, and given the skill sets of our players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former All Black winning first-five Stephen Donald<\/a> believes that the game between the Blues<\/a> and Chiefs<\/a> was much of the same, despite fewer kicks in general at Eden Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at last night at Eden Park, the line speed and the focus, it was all about defence from both those teams,\u201d Donald said on The Breakdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as mentality, you look at mentality. You look at the Highlanders, how they came out, that was defence focused, and even the Crusaders how they\u2019re kicking it a lot, box kicking and then trying to get defensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like the coaches knew that it was gonna be rusty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Black Jeff Wilson has come out and criticised the amount of kicking that was in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-482944","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\/482944","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=482944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}