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Warned wasn’t prepared for the All Blacks in Wellington last Sunday, and Anton Lienert-Brown, for example, is kicking himself about it.
Lienert-Brown and the All Blacks received something of a lesson in aggression, dominance of the win line and harassment from Dave Rennie’s Wallabies in the first Bledisloe Cup game at Sky Stadium that ended, frustratingly, in a draw 16 -16.
If the All Blacks are honest, they will admit they were lucky to save that result. Their forwards were dominated in the front foot battle all afternoon and their backs looked puzzled the whole time. Without a doubt, the lack of advancement cost the home team dearly in a lackluster opening effort for 2020.
He doesn’t have the feeling that Lienert-Brown, a prospect entering the starting midfield after a role on the bench in Wellington, or his teammates will repeat that mistake in Auckland this week when the Wallabies aim for a first New Zealand win since. the Dunedin surprise in 2001.
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* All Blacks vs Australia: John Plumtree talks about Wallabies off-the-ball tactics
* All Blacks hooker Dane Coles respects Dave Rennie’s ‘ruck chaos’, demands to lift intention
The Australians played almost exactly how the All Blacks expected them to do with their new coach Kiwi. And that made the New Zealanders’ shortcomings even more frustrating as they prepared for the sequel at Eden Park on Sunday (4pm start).
“I was trained by Rens for four years, and it didn’t surprise me at all,” Lienert-Brown said Wednesday while speaking to the media after the All Blacks’ first big training hit of the week. Create a good culture. We know you are going to have big, physical, mischievous men on the field, and that’s what they did.
“We talked about it before the game. That is the most disappointing. We talk about it all week, but we do not match his intention or his physique. But hey, that’s good for us this week. It’s going to be sitting on our stomachs and it’s something we have to do right. “
Phil Walter / Getty Images
Anton Lienert-Brown: “We know you are going to have big, physical, tight-fisted men on the field.”
Rennie’s reputation, of course, precedes her in New Zealand. He carved his name with a brave and competitive Manawatu from 2006-11 and immediately transformed the Chiefs when he replaced current All Blacks coach Ian Foster in 2012. They won the Super Rugby titles the first two years with Rennie and made it to the league. final in all six of his campaigns.
And now the hard-nosed coach appears to have taken his successful plan to the Wallabies who not only appear to be wildly competitive on the field, but are becoming increasingly tight. They are even adopting their Pacific Island culture as part of their makeup, and players are learning the anthems of Fiji and Tonga.
“This is how a team likes to connect,” observed Lienert-Brown, who played for Rennie from 2014-17. “They have a lot of Pacific Islanders on their team and it’s special for them to feel part of it. He’s pretty good at connecting a team that way. “
But the 25-year-old 44-test All Black believes the necessary answer at Eden Park on Sunday is within his grasp.
“The beauty of that is that you don’t need talent. It’s something up, ”he said. “You can feel it in the room this week. We have a lot of it. We just have to mentally turn on.
“We have faced them now, we know how they are going to play and now we know what it takes to go out and compete.”
Hagen Hopkins / Getty Images
Wallabies new coach Dave Rennie has a successful formula for transforming rugby teams.
Lienert-Brown also backed young All Blacks center Rieko Ioane to ditch his horror show in Wellington if he is given another shot at No. 13 at his home court. The 23-year-old missed a crucial halftime try with a Keystone Kops-like handling error and had at least one costly defensive confusion in midfield.
“Knowing Rieks, he’s going to hit back,” said Lienert-Brown, who may or may not be his partner in midfield this week. “Obviously, there were a couple of things that could have been improved, but we all know the enormous talent he has and the character that he has.
“It will learn from those occasions and it will not enter its shell. I thought for the most part he did his role pretty well. Unfortunately that will be overlooked in a moment, but he is a classy player and will strike back. “
Also, as Aaron Smith pointed out Tuesday, Ioane was far from a lone ranger on the guilt front. The seasoned All Blacks running back was convinced he had fallen far short of his own high standards.
“I don’t think there is a person on the team that is too proud of what they put out,” added Lienert-Brown. “I got out of the bank and needed to be better. That’s the feeling in the group: everyone is motivated to be better ”.
And that means getting ready for Rennie’s recipe.
