'It's not a bad stat': All Blacks are still thumping Boks in one area
SPOTLIGHT: All Blacks attack coach Mike Blair wants his team to be more ruthless with the ball as they aim to level the Greatest Rivalry series in Baltimore this weekend.
The Springboks have a 2-1 advantage after the first three Tests. However, the Kiwis are taking some encouragement from the attacking side of things.
They are leading the tries scored and linebreaks columns in the series, and they believe they can get the better of the South Africans again in the fourth and Final Test.
In last Saturday’s 24-29 defeat in Soweto, they scored another four tries and breached the Boks’ defence on a number of occasions.
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“Twelve linebreaks is a great stat for us. Four tries against South Africa is not a bad stat – that’s 13 tries in three games,” said Blair.
While the Boks have improved with each Test, they still trail the All Blacks by five tries in the series. However, the only stat that really matters in the end is the scoreboard.
Blair added: “It’s not nitpicking as such, but we are scoring tries, we are creating linebreaks. We certainly want to convert another couple of them, but we’re also aware that you can’t convert everything.
“So, it’s that ability to hold onto the ball and build pressure and build scoreboard pressure, and that might be through kicking at goal as well, which we’ve not had a huge amount of.
“I think we had one penalty goal in the three Tests far, so our ability to convert pressure into points is important.”
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Blair believes a more clinical approach on attack will also help nullify the Boks’ strengths.
“Our finish success rate inside the 22 over the three Tests has been excellent on the whole, so we want to get more out of our attack and our ability to finish,” said Blair.
“We’re aware that you can’t finish every opportunity, but we don’t want them to finish in a turnover. If it finishes in a turnover, what’s happening is it goes to a set-piece. This slows the game down a bit, and it feeds their strength.
“So, our balance between finishing our opportunities and keeping the pressure on through multiple phases is really important.”
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