The All Blacks need more variety in their game as their ball-in-hand mentality is being taken advantage of by opposing teams, scrumhalf Aaron Smith said Thursday.
As New Zealand looked to stave off another Rugby Championship defeat to Argentina in Hamilton on Saturday, Smith said his team had to be prepared to bat the ball away rather than constantly trying to run with it.
“I think variety is key, but the mentality of our guys is to want to keep the ball, press and use our attack,” he told reporters.
“As we see with Northern Hemisphere teams and previous teams in Rugby Championship, they want to give us the ball.
“They don’t really want to play and really attack our breakdown.
“If you attack with the ball for a long time, you give them chances and they take them.”
Argentina needed just one try in their 25-18 win over the All Blacks in Christchurch, the visitors’ first win against the hosts in New Zealand, as they applied pressure and converted penalties.
South Africa, a long-time champion of foosball, beat New Zealand in their Rugby Championship opener in Mbombela but lost their next meeting at Ellis Park.
Smith said there have been candid discussions with flyhalf Richie Mo’unga about directing their game plan.
“Because teams are playing 2-3 stages at the moment and they just go for it because that’s their tactic and they try to punish us when we collapse and that’s what the Argies did,” he said.
“Argentina didn’t try to win the game, they just tried not to lose it. They used their defense to do that and we played into their hands.”
“Variation, that was something we looked at closely in the evaluation and we can still use our kicking game, use the ball to pressure teams and obviously turn them around.”