Former All Black predicts a few changes

Former All Black hooker James Parsons believes that some changes might be on the cards for this weekend’s return Test match in the Bledisloe Cup. 

The All Blacks stumbled to a 33-25 victory over their rivals last weekend, putting on a performance which suggested some rustiness after not enjoying any tough competition in the lead-up to the match. 

Speaking on the Aotearoa Rugby Pod, Parsons said: 

“I think it’ll be fairly similar. For the most part, I think they were reasonably happy with the first 60. They’ve just got some discipline stuff to clean-up. 

“A couple of changes, potentially depending on where Colesy is at, it might be easier to start him, get him to go all out, and then bring Codie [Taylor] off the bench, or he [Coles] might be out altogether and it’s just Codie and Asafo Aumua. 

“He [Aumua] was really effective for Wellington on the weekend, so after a pretty strong season, and I know Samisoni [Taukei’aho] has gone really well, but unleashing Asafo at some stage could be an exciting opportunity for them before heading away. 

“The loose forward trio I thought worked really well. It’s a good mix, but Luke was well-documented that he came off the bench and he made a hell of a lot of tackles, good running metres, so his impact might have been acknowledged. 

“Luke Jacobson comes back into it, potentially maybe at No 8 or how they see him if he can potentially go at 6, but the thing is we didn’t touch on those other tries where there were picks through the middle. 

“I thought Akira did really well. He picked through the middle before David Havili scored in the corner, and then, before [Damian] McKenzie’s last one, they took the same philosophy. 

“So, in and around those forwards, in and around that pick and go area, picking based on that, they might go for a bigger trio rather than the faster trio.”