Tri Nations rugby: All Blacks still plan to send players home despite loss to Argentina

Despite suffering their first loss to Argentina at the weekend, the All Blacks’ plan remains unchanged.

At the start of the match, coach Ian Foster said the team was considering sending the team’s players back to New Zealand early, to give them more time to recover before the Super Rugby season begins in February.

The finer details of that plan have yet to be decided, but Foster has confirmed that the players will still be returning home.

“We’re working on that right now,” Foster said the day after the loss, with questions pending as to how many first-choice players will be returning to New Zealand, or whether they will largely be recently unused team players returning home. .

With a 36-man team brought to Australia for the Three Nations, the All Blacks can afford to lose some members, but will need to ensure a balanced group remains to help with preparations for their final test of the year against Argentina in Sydney in a fortnight. .

Australia and Argentina will meet on Saturday, and the All Blacks will have two weeks to recover and improve on their lackluster performance against the Pumas.

Players who will remain in Australia will have received a warning from Foster, who was not impressed with his team’s discipline in the loss, nor with the previous loss to the Wallabies.

In his last two games, he has averaged 13 penalties conceded, which has been costly on the scoreboard in both meetings.

In their loss to the Wallabies in Brisbane, 12 of the Wallabies’ points came from penalty goals. Against Argentina, he conceded 18 penalty points.

“I know it’s frustrating for the players and for us collectively,” acknowledged Foster.

“It’s funny, you go back two weeks and composure was one of our strengths, and now we’ve just come down from a little high in Sydney and it doesn’t seem like we’ve made the adjustments in that space that I would have wanted.

“I don’t think there is anything new in what is happening in the park; rugby test matches have always been played to the limit and what we saw was the same as what we have seen for years and years in Argentina. So there is no excuse so that we are not disciplined on key things and suddenly in the last few weeks we have gone from being an immensely disciplined team, for example on the offside lines, suddenly we are giving up two or three penalties for something we can control well and we have to see the cause of that.

“Those are easily fixed, but it shows that people are probably trying too hard in that space and we have to start trusting a little more in what we do.”

Against the Pumas, some penalties could have been easily avoided, such as hooker Dane Coles and flanker Shannon Frizell, both penalized for slapping an opponent in the face.

When asked about some of the older team members who made such mistakes, Foster was blunt about how those players would be approached in the coming week.

“There will certainly be a word.”