Forwards coach Jason Ryan says the All Blacks have suffered for the exit of tough South African packs from Super Rugby.
While the All Blacks prepared for their crucial World Cup clash against Italy on Friday, Ryan was keeping an eye on the thrilling Pool B encounter between the Springboks and Ireland.
Ireland come away with a 13-8 win in Paris, after brutal contest between the two packs, which showed just how much the Irish have benefitted from South Africa’s move to the URC.
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On the other hand, New Zealand’s domestic teams have been left facing teams from Australia, Fiji and Samoa as part of the rebranded Super Rugby Pacific, which Ryan admitted was just not the same without the South African franchises.
“It was always enjoyable playing the Boks in Super Rugby, in my experience, because of those big forward packs,” said Ryan. “You probably don’t have that sort of demand in Super Rugby as much as you used to.
“What’s important is that you just have to run scenarios in training and you have to make sure that you’re setting guys up to succeed through different situations that you can create.
“Super Rugby is probably not what it used to be, to be fair, but we can’t use that as an excuse. We have to get ourselves right in training. We learned that from the Test at Twickenham.”
Looking back at the match between the defending world champions and current world number one, Ryan said he was impressed by how Ireland stayed in the contest, despite their misfiring lineout.
“I thought it was a great contest. It was extremely physical and both teams were pretty accurate. It was really well officiated. Both teams played well.
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“Ireland showed a lot of resilience, losing six lineouts didn’t affect them, they just got on with it. I saw similar things when they played Scotland [in the Six Nations], losing both of their hookers.
“It was a good contest, but I watched it briefly, with eyes on Italy.”
Photo: Ian Kington / AFP