All Black duo promise improved team performance

The All Black duo of Dalton Papali’i and Brad Weber have sent out a clear message that their team will deliver a much-improved performance in the return match against Australia this coming Saturday. 

The All blacks were visibly rusty in the first Bledisloe Cup match of the year and, while they eventually managed to build up a decent lead, they uncharacteristically allowed their opponents to sneak back into the game which was left with a final score of 33-25.  

“To be honest, that’s not All Black rugby that we played out there in those last 20 minutes,” Papali’i said. 

 “We pride ourselves on playing the whole 80-plus, and that last 20 minutes might have got in our minds that we thought we’ve won the game, but then they came back and we started giving away stupid penalties. 

“The game hasn’t changed. We’ve just got to be hard on ourselves and be more disciplined, and that’s a thing we’re really touching on this week.” 

Weber came onto the field as a substitute for Aaron Smith and admitted that Head Coach Ian Foster had let the team have it at halftime.  

“After a couple weeks off, the boys were bloody keen to throw the ball around a little bit, whereas we probably needed to roll our sleeves up a bit first before trying to take on those opportunities that perhaps we saw,” he said. 

“It wasn’t until we had a bit of a rark up that we started seeing a lot of those things. I think that’s the key to the first quarter of the second half. 

“You clearly saw the willingness to throw the ball around and play what we see in front of us, which is the way we want to play,” he said. 

“That disallowed try, I think, probably speaks volumes of that. If we’re seeing those opportunities from inside our own 22, we’re ready to have a crack, so I think our attacking prowess is there, we just need to be a bit more accurate in that space. 

“I think we’re all pretty happy there. It’s probably just defensively, tidy up a few things, and hopefully we’ll see a bit more attack.”