Up The Guts Rugby

There was no room on the first All Black Bus of the year for Cruden, Rokocoko, Jane, McAlister and Sivivatu.  The first I’ve already spoken about and a lot of people would say that Rokocoko and Jane have not dazzled us with their form in this years Super Rugby.  However, McAlister and Sivivatu will be a big shock to most.

Use The Force Luke

Many pundits thought Luke McAlister was surely the man to back up Dan Carter in this years World Cup.  It turns out Luke didn’t use the Force™. Extremely solid with the boot and can comfortably kick 60m if required, blockbusting midfield line breaker, great decision maker and strong defender but is there room for him?  The answer is a resounding no.  If you look at the rest of the squad you realise we shouldn’t just be picking McAlister for his kicking ability, there are plenty of guys who can kick goals in this team if Dan can’t and let’s face it, he’s way down the pecking order of inside centres after Nonu and SBW who are the specialists and Kahui and Toeava who can also cover that position comfortably.  Sorry Luke, but it’s just a case of ‘No Room on the Bus!’  Also, pissing off back overseas when you were just starting to get your form back probably didn’t help your chances much either.

Zac vs Siti

Sitivini Sivivatu is an interesting one.  I thought Gear and Siti were going to be our first choice wings but there was No Room on the Bus for Siti at all, not even on that uncomfortable seat at the front next to the driver.  I thought Siti had a great season for the Chiefs considering how poor the Chiefs forwards platform was and how few opportunities he was given so I thought I better dig up some stats to see if I could figure out how the Three Wise Men justified Siti’s ommission.  Let’s just forget for the moment that the Crusaders gave Zac Guildford a hell of a lot of ball and a hell of a lot of space and go forward and just focus purely on each mans individual work rates.

Sivivatu makes more line breaks than Guildford and we have always known it has been his strength to make something from nothing and find a gap where there wasn’t one.  You can also see that Siti takes responsibility for catching a lot of high balls at the back (Catches).  Opposition teams were probably targetting him because they knew Mils was safer but Siti proved to be very dependable in this area.  It looks like Siti caught most of these too as you can see his Lost Possession stats are still lower than Zacs despite having to catch 20 more balls than him.  You can also see Siti gets a lot more Go Forward in the tackle even when he is brought down giving his team valuable territory and space.

The only blight on Sivivatu’s game this year statistically is that he has been heavily penalised.  11 times and I suspect most of these were for not releasing the ball quick enough in the tackle as he’s not positioning himself well enough to distribute the ball cleanly once he’s gone down.  So it’s  tough call but I guess in Zacs favour he really has looked for a lot more work this year, really getting involved in every area of the game and his defense has improved massively.  And to go back to the original point, it certainly didn’t harm his chances playing alongside the best NZ team in the competition.  It could simply be that Siti’s fitness has not been up to scratch.

Zac vs Siti - Round 1 - Fight!

The Siti vs Zac battle will be an interesting one to follow in the coming months.  As we know, All Black selection is ruthless and all this really means is that Zac will probably get the first opportunity to impress in the black jersey.  If he doesn’t impress, he’ll make way for Siti and the guy that plays better on the day will likely cement his spot.