Legendary New Zealand back-row Murray Mexted has bemoaned the lack of size amongst the All Blacks’ loose forwards for their upcoming Grand Slam campaign.
New Zealand will get their Grand Slam campaign underway when they take on Ireland at Soldier Field in Chicago on November 1.
They will then head to the United Kingdom to take on Scotland at Murrayfield on November 8, England at Twickenham on November 15, and Wales at the Principality Stadium on November 22.
All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson has named a 36-man squad for those fixtures which includes 20 forwards and 16 backs, but Mexted is unhappy with the make-up of the forwards in the group, especially the seven loose forwards, who he believes are too small to secure adequate possession in the lineouts with only Simon Parker and Samipeni Finau the adequate size, according to the former number eight.
“There’s an interesting thing, though. The loose forwards, they’ve picked seven, only four locks, but seven loose forwards,” he told the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin.
‘Only two of them are big enough’
“And when I look at those loose forwards, only two of them are big enough to win ball on opposition throws, aerial possession. Let’s talk about that. It’s everything.
“In the series against Australia and South Africa, we have been weak in possession. We’ve been under 50% against both countries. So we need players who can win the ball in the air.
“So four out of those seven, in fact, five out of the seven in reality, aren’t going to win any opposition ball in the line out. And that’s a problem, I see. That’s the only weakness I can see.
“They’ve tried a lot of players and I think they’ve got it pretty well right, the selectors. I think they’ve done really well. I’m happy with the team.
“The only thing I’m not happy with is they’re still experimenting in the loose forwards.”
The issue of a lack of size amongst the All Blacks forwards, particularly in the back-row, is something which Mexted has constantly addressed over the past year.
‘You’ve got to have the ball’
Devlin mentioned to him that the show’s viewers have asked why he ‘always harps on’ about the topic, to which Mexted replied: “You’ve got to have the ball. You can’t tell me that if you don’t have the ball, you’re going to win a game. You’re not going to.
“In fact, 50 years before I played, they were winning games on kicks at goal. That’s no longer.
“Look at the scores that we’ve got these days in today’s game. And it’s all about scoring tries, you know, and you’ve got to have the ball. So I harp on because if we can’t get 50% of the ball, we’re pushing it.
“We’re pushing it uphill. So that’s why I harp on. The other reason is because we’ve got a shortage of loose forwards who can win the ball in the air.
“And that’s a shame at the moment. We’ve tried (Tupou) Vaa’i. That’s an example.
“We’ve moved them to the blindside. I thought he went well. So I thought the selectors would have left him there, but they moved him back to lock.
“So I don’t know. They’re still experimenting. But the reason they’ve got four or five openside flankers on this tour is because they’re still trying to work out who they want to keep.
“When you look at the size of them, they’re rather similar. Lakai, Sititi, Kirifi, Savea, and even Jacobson’s a little bit bigger. But when I look at that bunch, they’ve got to sort out two, maybe three, but not four or five.”