'Where's that spine?': All Blacks slammed after record loss / Photo: Grant Down - AFP
'Where's that spine?': All Blacks slammed after record loss
The All Blacks' record loss to South Africa was blasted by New Zealand media and commentators on Sunday, with former captain Kieran Read asserting rugby's most famous team lacked a "spine".
Scrutiny on coach Scott Robertson and his team was intense following their late capitulation in Saturday's 43-10 Rugby Championship Test in Wellington.
It was the heaviest defeat in all of New Zealand's 658 Tests and prompted Read to condemn a lack of fight when the Springboks ran in four of their six tries in the final 18 minutes.
"You've got to look at this All Blacks side and go, okay, there's something not right there," Read told Sky Sport.
"There's something within that group when you're able just to leak and leak. Where's that spine that we want to see?"
A member of New Zealand's 2011 and 2015 World Cup-winning side, Read said the current team cannot match the inspirational leadership of South African skipper Siya Kolisi.
Back-row forward Kolisi played in the Springboks' 24-17 loss to the All Blacks in Auckland last week, but was not wearing the armband.
Read said the way the visitors rallied around their "talisman" when he was restored as captain in Wellington was obvious.
"He is unifying that side and not only that, he's unifying the country. He's done it for a number of years," Read said of the 2019 and 2023 World Cup-winning captain.
"The scoreline's unbelievable to see and you can see how much it means to them. Like 43 points to 10, that is an absolute hiding."
New Zealand media highlighted the inconsistent results since decorated former Canterbury Crusaders mentor Robertson succeeded Ian Foster last year.
Six losses from 21 matches is a record that would have been inconceivable during a dominant era under former coaches Graham Henry and Steve Hansen, from 2004 to 2019.
Sports writer Gregor Paul said New Zealand were now a clear level below their great rivals.
"Rarely, maybe never, have the All Blacks been beaten like this. They were annihilated," Paul wrote in the New Zealand Herald.
"They were made to look like some ill-conceived analogue contraption trying to compete with the latest iPhone.
"The self-styled innovation leaders of the world game were blown off the park, and chunks were taken out of the legacy. Losing doesn't do wholesale damage to the brand, but record defeats do."
A story on the Stuff news site opined that New Zealand deserved to fall from first in the world rankings to third -- behind South Africa and Ireland -- after a performance that included 46 missed tackles.
"Almost every All Blacks fan in the cold, hard light of Sunday will have trouble accepting Robertson talking about 'great efforts' by his players," Stuff said.
"It was a night when just about everyone wearing black fell a long way short of the acceptable standard."
K.McMillan--EWJ
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