Elliott Smith: ZB Rugby Correspondent ahead of the second All Blacks v England test

After a nail bitingly close match last week, the All Blacks are facing England in their second test of the season. 

Both squads have been named with almost no changes except Finlay Christie replacing TJ Perenara following his injury. 

England’s Joe Marler is also out of commission, being replaced with Fin Baxter. 

They’ll be facing off at a packed out Eden Park on Saturday. 

ZB Rugby Commentator Elliott Smith told Ryan Bridge that for the All Blacks, last week was more about setting some systems in place and this week is about fine tuning that. 

He said they got the win last week, and with that up on the board, it’s time to improve. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The rugby New Zealand faced their second match against England
this weekend after a nail biting finished last week. Both
squads have been named with almost no changes. We're just
Finlay Christie replacing TJ. Peinada following his injury. There's also
a change over at the England side. Elliott Smith is
News Talks here Be's rugby commentator and he is with
me now. Elliott, good morning, Nice to have you on

(00:21):
the program. Is this a more significant test given than
it's Eden Park?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, I think so. Possibly for the All Blacks now
they've had a week to settle into their combinations. Scott
Roberts Simm's no longer like the first week of school,
he was saying yesterday to the media. It's more like, Okay,
we know what we're doing. Now everyone knows they're way
to the class room. Let's get things done. So for
the All Blacks, I think is the sense that last
week was about putting some systems in place. This week

(00:49):
it's really about fine tuning that and putting what they
want to do in terms of a rugby product out
onto the park. Look, they got the win last week,
but it's quite clear that it wasn't entirely per effect
or thing that hard want things to go over the
course of a season. So week one on the board,
now that looks a week two and try and make
some improvements.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
What are you expecting. Do you expect that now that
they've got that first one out of the way, maybe
the nerves or the gishes or whatever are gone and
that we'll just kind of run home.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Let's hope so from an all tax perspective and hope
that things run a little more smooth. England will be
making sure to the best of their possibilities. That can't happen,
of course, and you all Blacks desperately need to find
a way to figure out this rush defense or the
unbreillered defense, whatever way you won't call it. They need
to find a way to score more points against England.
England were very very good at suffocating the All Black

(01:38):
last week, making sure there was in enough space. And
you'll Blacks are a team that historically likes to run
the ball and use their outside backs and create some
opportunities there. They simply didn't get enough of those last
week against England. They had two tries in the first
spell where keeps to trialists and the second spell, and
that they're not a team that is comfortable. I don't
think we're scoring penalty goals to keep the scoreboard ticking

(02:00):
over and win test that way. So they're going to
have to try and find ways to get past this
English defense. And there wasn't a lot of space out
on the park last week, and that's what international rugby
is seemingly all about at the moment, is finding those
little patches of space and converting that into try scoring opportunities.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Elliott, thank you. You're going to pick a score for us?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I'll go to the All Blacks. I hit the All
Blacks I think by five when I was chatting last week,
So I'm going to go the All Blacks by seven?
How about that tomorrow?

Speaker 1 (02:26):
And I sounds pretty good. Allott Smith with US News
Talk said, be rugby commentator. For more from News Talks dB,
listen live on air or online, and

Speaker 2 (02:35):
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