Scott Robertson has explained Ethan de Groot’s absence in the All Blacks squad to tackle Ireland on Friday evening.
Loosehead prop De Groot has been a mainstay in the All Blacks team since his debut in 2021 but will now miss his second consecutive Test match despite being fit for the encounter.
Ethan de Groot’s snub
The 26-year-old was a notable omission from the team to tackle England at Twickenham in the side’s opening Autumn Nations Series match.
Robertson explained that he failed to meet ‘internal standards’ which led to him being overlooked, but this week his omission has nothing to do with his discipline.
Instead, the All Blacks boss explained that Tamaiti Williams and Ofa Tu’ungafasi have been rewarded for their form.
“Yeah, look it’s a performance decision and those two performed really well,” Robertson said when asked about De Groot’s omission.
He added: “It’s a decision for the whole season, Williams is a 50, 60-minute player and we got a couple of tough calls we believe last week that probably went against him – he’s fit and ready to go so he’ll continue.”
New Zealand struggled in the final quarter of matches in the Rugby Championship when they only scored points in the last 20 minutes of their final game of the competition against Australia.
The All Blacks also managed to score points in the last 20 minutes of the clash at Twickenham to seal the victory and Robertson explained that they would not be making changes for the sake of it.
“So what we sort of learned over the year, the continuity part is really important and the guys that have come off and done that they continue to do it so we won’t change for the sake of it,” he said.
“They’ve had a good week and you turn up on a Monday and you play Friday, you keep the cohesion going.”
Furlong’s absence
Starting loosehead Williams will go toe-to-toe with Finlay Bealham in the scrum on Friday evening after veteran Ireland prop Tadhg Furlong was ruled out of the encounter through injury.
Robertson was rather emphatic when asked if Furlong’s injury had changed their view on the encounter.
“Well it’s Tadhg, it’s Tadhg that’s out so of course it does,” he quipped.
“That’s a leading question isn’t. He is world-class so we see some opportunities in it yeah.”
The All Blacks boss added that the team feels that they have not been sufficiently rewarded for their scrummaging prowess this year and felt that his players do need to adapt better.
“At times, yes, but at times we probably would like to have eked out a couple more penalties to be honest and use it a bit more as a weapon,” Robertson said.
“We have put a lot of time into that and probably could have got a little bit more reward.
“It’s probably just how other teams have scrummaged against us too and we probably could have adapted a little bit better, to the opposition and the referee as well a couple of times.
“We have shown some really good pictures, we are not looking to say that we haven’t, but we probably could have got a couple more penalty advantages out of it.”
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