CSB - Gregor Paul - Rugby news of the week

Gregor looks back at the first test of The Razor era. Also, looks ahead to squad naming today and who he sees wearing the number 9 jersey. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:03):
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Well this time last week I caught up with Gregor
Paul who was on his way to Dunedin to watch
the ol Blacks and England play. So, Gregor, good morning,
what did you make of that test match?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Was my commandos game of rugby? It was a thrilling
game of rugby because it then I don't know the
wire and there was enough in it to make it exciting.
But in terms of quality, cohesia and accuracy, you know,
the All Blacks coming in with or being able to
execute a really identifiable and innovative game plan, we didn't

(00:44):
really see too much of that because what happened in
the end was, you know, it became a real arm
wrestle for the last half hour when we're just digging
in helping to stop an England team that was building
quite a lot of momentum. So from an All Black perspective,
it was good to see plenty of heart, plenty of desire,
plenty of commitment and they found a way to win
a game which, as raised and said many times that

(01:07):
that really could have gone either way in the end.
You're right.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
A very interesting article I think ivernight had for the
New Zealand here where you actually say it the second
test that the All Blacks have shown themselves to be
the most vulnerable.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah. Well, everyone talked about how a flow to start.
If you get them in game one, if you're a
visiting team, that's the time to go at them, because
you know they take a week bit of time to
find themselves and if you if you hit them hard early,
you can you can get lucky there, or you know
you can catch them. But an actual fact, if you
look historically, certainly the last twelve years is this game.

(01:40):
It's game number two where they've been really vulnerable for
whatever reason, you know, whether it's been releases coming to
the system and they haven't prepared as well, made changes,
whatever's happened. They've you know, they've lost twice second tests
and they've been lucky. It's not been a few more
than that because they've had to scramble. So there's a
there's a there's a huge element here of the whole

(02:04):
country comes in an enormous expectation and Test one and
the team look at that, they plan for that, they've
focused on that entirely, and then they win it. And
then you come up on Sunday morning and go here,
here's the bad user. You've got to do that all
over again, because nothing gets any easier. England will be
looking at you. They'll have analyzed you. They will certainly

(02:25):
have found a few areas. I would have thought that
they'll line out. Their defense was very good. They put
a lot of pressure on New Zealand there. So they're
going to be and England and midway through the thirs season,
despite the fact it's the end of you know, it's
the end of the run for them at the moment,
but they've they've got five or six games under the
belt this year, so they'll be they'll be pretty capable

(02:47):
of coming up here and advancing what they did and
need and challenging New Zealand even more than they didn't need.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
The team gets named, I think around midday today, I
imagine there'll be two or three changes, perhaps at full back.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Your thoughts on that, Yeah, maybe, I think probably what's
happened to here is injury at number nine to TJ.
Parnhara means that there's whatever he's got eighty five ninety
test caps count remembers he won't be able to play,
So that takes a really experienced decision maker out of
the mix, and presumingly Christy will come in there. So

(03:21):
you're down on what seventy eighty test caps at that
point in a key position. So I think they've talked
all year about combinations. I would imagine they will keep
dam McKenzie at number ten because I actually thought he
played pretty well. I think you've just got to stick
with him and give him time to grow into the role.
So the only real place that you can inject some

(03:43):
experience into the next of the fullback, and Barrett, obviously
with one hundred and twenty plus test caps, brings that
he looked quite sharp in the half hour he played
off the page, but he also brought a bit of
decision making, a bit of composure, communicated well to those
around him, and I think it would just be a
mistake to not start with him this time. And that's

(04:03):
no disrespect to Stephen Peifesto, who played at for a
ball last week. He played very well, But there's a
different type of game and the team has different types
of needs there because of the injury to Pair and Arra.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
It was interesting hearing you say that you thought Damien
McKenzie played pretty well the New Zealand here. I always
liked looking at the player ratings the next day and
they only gave him a four out of ten, which
I was surprised about. Would you have been surprised at that?

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah? And I called my man's my boss and I
called him I became one of those irate comments people
that said, what are you talking about? That's rubbish. Look,
I thought four was way too low. He defended superably.
He was brilliant under the high ball in the backfield.
Like he didn't goal kick very well, but not in
the England guy either, so that maybe there was an

(04:48):
issue there. And look, in terms of being able to
orchestrate and attack against the rush defense, you can't just
put all the blame on a number ten and say, oh, well,
you know he didn't do the right things. It was
his fault. He's the orchestrator. You know, there's a million
and one things that need to happen to help them.
You know, the forwards need to go forward first. You know,
you need to put the defense peddling backwards. You need

(05:10):
people around them to be in the right places. There's
a lot of things that happen, so I don't think
four would have been a fair reflection. But clearly on
a wider topic, I do think we need to see,
you know, the whole attack game better orchestrated this week.
And that's not just from McKinsey. That's from you know,
the whole team needs to do more to allow the

(05:32):
attack to flourish.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
It's going to be a tempting prospect, that's for sure,
Saturday night at Aiden Pack, and I think we'll see
a different Old Black team. I'm sure we will, look.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
You yeah, look, I think so. It's always better for
teams once they've got a game under the belt, they've
got something to work off, all that kind of stuff,
and a few of them haven't played for quite some time.
But I think it would be a mistake to think
that automatically you become a better team because you've played
one game behind. I think England will list the performance

(06:02):
to another level again and I think there'll be reasonably
confident that they can win this one, having got course
last week. So I look at it all starts again
in my view, and I think, you know, it will
need to be a different all Black team because they'll
be playing a different England team to some extent, so
you know, different doesn't necessarily mean better, but I do

(06:23):
think that New Zealand will have the opportunity to build
on what they did last week and they should be
better prepared to work out. You know, this was not
super rugby anymore's test match, so that's sort of stuff
will be out of the system and it should be
better prepared, but that doesn't mean that it's going to
be any easier for them.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Greg I love chatting with you mate. Enjoy the rugby
on Saturday night out of eaton pac Well Gregor Paul
joining us kick off five pass even live commentary here
on gold Sport