PERFECT PAIRING
THE TRUE value of certain players often isn’t fully appreciated until they’re not there.
That’s certainly true of Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock. Everyone knew they were great players but at the end of 2016, when the All Blacks lost to Ireland without them, just how critical they are to New Zealand’s Test aspirations was hammered home.
The All Blacks, on an 18-Test unbeaten run coming into that match in Chicago, were just not the same team without the injured Retallick and Whitelock.
They wobbled at the lineout, were loose around kick-offs, lacked grunt in the scrum and, without the ball-carrying carnage of Retallick in the middle of the field, they didn’t rock Ireland back on defence and generate the momentum from which their attack flows.
Two weeks later in Dublin, with Retallick and Whitelock back in the starting side, the All Blacks won 21-9 – a victory built on their physicality.
Maybe it wasn’t simply the return of Whitelock and Retallick that changed everything. Then
