Aisle be Back: The second test in Auckland

• By Kevin McCarthy

You could have spent this week and next week reading or watching all the commentariat about Scott Razor Robertson’s debut as All Blacks coach.

So, here’s some more – feel free to agree or more likely disagree. Just remember that tomorrow night there is more evidence, raw data, to feed into the great debate.

Normally one should recycle the old quote about the Chinese leader who was asked about his view on the effects of the French Revolution; he misheard the question and replied: “It’s too early to say”.

But we live in hot-takes time, so let’s keep this fast. As fast as the classically different and hilarious one-on-one with Razor post-match where he had to catch himself and admit to “getting a bit technical there”.

That’s the first evidence point that we’re in for a very different ride from the days of Steve Hansen and Ian Foster.  Whether it would have been as endearing if his team had gone down by one point instead of winning by one point, I’ll let you be the judge.

The second evidence point was the adaptation of the Al Blacks game later in the second half, when trailing – but not by much – the call was made to damp down the attacking game and play pressure and territory.

The curse for All Blacks rugby has been for a long time now that even when it is palpably not working, the commitment to running our way out of trouble has been paramount.

It became some of a mantra that the attack was always not far away, a few tweaks, from clicking, with the backline then cutting through even the best of defences.

Wonderful philosophy, but a burden in the age of hyper refined defensive lines and unrealistic. Nothing worse than watching increasingly desperate attacks by the backs, going backwards, getting trapped in their own half, and conceding turnovers and penalties.

So, it took little more than forty minutes to see that sacrificed on the altar, and the more pragmatic approach taken. Albeit that the English could have snuck a win with a decision going the other way, in the end they were squeezed out of the match in a satisfying fashion.

This is not an argument for 10-man rugby, nor was it what we saw. But a rebalancing, recognising there are different gears to engage, could be a most useful trend in All Black rugby.

Plenty of other things you could pick over in the performance.  But overall, despite the vaunted rush defence, not too many balls went to ground in the All Blacks handling, and the penalty count also was kept reasonable.

We might have said in past years that a one point win over England was tantamount to a loss. But there’s also a recognition now that England are in fact a more that passable imitation of a highly competitive test team.

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I guess we should be immune to it now, but the departure of Salesi Rayasi overseas still seems a bit jarring.

It seems these days that we barely get to see a player hitting their straps before the offers start coming. If the All Blacks are not among the callers, then players aren’t going to die wondering, and instead choose, rightly, to take the opportunities and rewards on offer in a career that can always be cut cruelly short by injury.

In another sign of the times. Rayasi had in fact 50 Hurricanes’ caps. They grow up so fast these days.

Still, it would be nice if they could hang around just a little longer!

Salesi Rayasi recently playing for the Upper Hutt Rams in club rugby. Photo: Stewart Baird.