Ultra-dominating for decades, the New Zealand team faces Australia on Saturday in Auckland. Defeated four times in 2022, the Fern XV is the target of criticisms in the country and seems to have lost its bearings.
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Saturday, September 24, the New Zealand team welcomes Australia and could win rugby championship in the event of a victory at Eden Park in Auckland. Until then, nothing extraordinary, the All Blacks having won eight of the ten edits of this annual competition putting them in the grip with South Africa, Argentina and therefore the Wallabies. However, time is storm at the “Long White Cloud Pays”.
“It’s time to change,” titled the New Zealand Herald on August 8. The day after the largest defeat of the Blacks against South Africa since 1928 (26-10), the country’s first daily life demanded the head of the coach, Ian Foster. The former opening half is struggling to convince since his appointment in 2019, and continues the sad records. Under its orders, New Zealand has lost eight times (including four setbacks this year) in twenty-nine meetings … already more than between the two previous World Cups, from 2015 to 2019 (seven defeats in 46 games)!
The All Blacks also plummeted in fifth place in the world ranking in early August -unheard of -and then lost for the first time on their soil against Argentina on August 27. Without forgetting the large defeat (40-25) conceded at the Stade de France against the Blues, in November. “I have the impression that the myth is collapsing. The New Zealanders are currently entering the rank,” says the rugby specialist in the southern hemisphere Francis Deltéral, to the comments of the match against the Australian neighbor , Saturday, at 8:55 am, on Canal+ Sport.
3 – New Zealand Have Lost Three Consecrative Matches on Home Soil for the First Time in Their History. Unheralded. https://t.co/8a2qfmiwyl
– Optajonny (@optajonny) /Blockquote>
Accustomed to seeing his team outrageously dominating the Oval Planet, the New Zealand audience is very little taste this downgrading on the world chessboard. After decades at the highest level, the idea that this team can be in reconstruction is struggling to make its way, even when, on the field, the players obviously give the best of themselves. Media criticism is often harsh. According to the New Zealand Herald, some players have even received death threats. 2>
febrile and lack of leaders
In this context, Ian Foster has managed to keep his post. But two of his assistants were dismissed and the former coach of Ireland Joe Schmidt was called in an emergency to become an attack coach. “A way of reassuring the public by setting up an unassailable coach on his record [three times winner of the Six Nations Tournament with the XV of the Clover] and his personality,” explains Francis Deltéral.
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