Back >>

Lineout making progress

New Zealand's lineout has been much less the point of concern than in the past year or two during the preliminary Tests this season, but the real challenge lies ahead against South Africa.

Monday, 28 June 2010

Sportal.co.nz

New Zealand's lineout has been much less the point of concern than in the past year or two during the preliminary Tests this season, but the real challenge lies ahead against South Africa.

Forwards coach Steve Hansen admitted as much when he said the side headed into 'the big boys area' now.

South Africa has the dominant lineout in the world game and its power in that area was behind its 3-0 Tri Nations sweep against New Zealand last year.

Countering that dominance will be a key area for the All Blacks when the Tri Nations opens with two home Tests against South Africa, with home advantage a potentially massive incentive to start the campaign well.

The return of Tom Donnelly on Saturday night in Hamilton was welcomed because of the old-fashioned but useful grunt he gives the All Blacks pack. Add to that his control at restarts and he is a key component in New Zealand's effort to take on South Africa.

Donnelly was given 60 minutes in Hamilton and was delighted to be back.

"I'm just happy to be back playing footy really. It was pretty rusty to start with. The first touch of the ball I dropped, I missed a tackle and was a bit rusty in the scrum so [there's] still a lot to work on and a long way to go," he said.

"The scrum was a bit of a funny one tonight. On our ball it seemed to go all right and on their ball it was all over the show."

Donnelly felt coach Graham Henry's criticism of issues with the scrummaging laws was not far off the mark.

He said it seemed that no sooner did the laws seem to get settled in scrums than they were adjusted again.

As far as the lineout went, he didn't play in the Tri Nations last year, but he said there was a lot of hard work being put into the lineout.

The players focused on the task at hand without getting over-wrought on the department.

"I think last year we got to taken up and worried about things we couldn't control. We've just started focusing on our job and our ball and we seemed to get a lot better. And I suppose in the end-of-year-tour and the start of this year it was worked all right so far," he said.

Back >>