Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Elliott Smith: Newstalk ZB rugby reporter on the second test against the Springboks

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Elliott Smith: Newstalk ZB rugby reporter on the second test against the Springboks · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Leroy Carter, Simon Parker, the All Blacks need to back
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: it up against the box. Here's Rennie overnight.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: You know, we've got 40-odd players to pick from. So
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: we've got a fair number of fresh bodies heading into
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: the weekend. I think four or five of the guys
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: who play tonight will potentially back up or start. Right.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: With the details, Elliot Smith, Newstalk ZB's voice of rugby,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: is in Cape Town. Elliot, good morning.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Good morning, Ryan.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: So what happened? What are the changes?
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: What do we know?
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Well, two enforced changes through injuries. So Simon Parker moves
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: onto the blind side. He was on the bench last week.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Ryan and Tupo Vai, who started at blind side last week,
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: moves into the second row. This is with Josh Lord,
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Ethan DeGroote, both out there at a sickening head clash
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: in the first half. De Groot replaced by George Bauer.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: The one injury unenforced change is Leroy Carter coming in,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: as you mentioned there before, into the run-on side. He
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: switches places with Josh Morby. Dave Reddy saying overnight there's
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: largely a defensive call. They back Leroy Carter. in one-on-one situations.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: He's got a sevens background, very, very strong upper body strength.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Even though he's quite a small player, he's deceptively powerful.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: So they want him to use that in the test
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: on Sunday morning New Zealand time.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Simon Parker's a big boy, isn't he? 6'6 and 117 kilos.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: That should help.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: It should help, absolutely. Look, to be fair, Simon Parker
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: probably hasn't had an explosive test match that He's owned
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: us yet, but this is a gilt-edged opportunity. He's been
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: in the All Blacks for about 18 months now, and
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: you look at a huge opportunity for him to stamp
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: his mark on that sixth jersey with the changes this week.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: And as you say, that big body coming up against
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: the likes of Sir Khaleesi, Peter Stiftetui, playing his 100th
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: for South Africa on the weekend. That's the kind of
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: combative nature that the All Blacks want. They want that
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: defensive edge and he'll add that steel to the pack.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: And as you say, look, they're going to have to
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: improve from what we saw last week as well, even
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: if they want to go up 2-0 in the series.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, what do you think is going to happen? Is
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: it going to be, you know, is someone going to
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: come out strong? Is someone going to finish stronger? What
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: do you think is actually going to happen during the game?
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the great news, Ryan, is for the
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: All Blacks perspective, is that they won last week despite
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: being sloppy in a whole lot of areas. It wasn't
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: until They kicked home in the last 20 minutes that
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: they took hold of the game. They were poor at
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: scrum time for the first hour. They couldn't catch many
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: of the high balls. They turned over the ball a
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: lot of times. So too did South Africa. So the
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: list of what New Zealand needs to improve on is
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: quite long. They won last week in spite of that.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: So if they improve with that, and the key is
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: keeping the ball in play for longer. That's the big stat, Ryan.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: 25 minutes, 28 minutes it was last week. The All
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Blacks can edge that towards the mid-30s, they'll bring fatigue
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: into the game and back themselves to run South Africa
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: ragged and potentially go 2-0 up in the series.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Nice one. Elliot Smith, Newstalk ZB's voice of rugby in
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Cape Town.