Rugby Bledisloe Cup, Australia vs New Zealand, Match 3: 3 talking points

#2 Israel Folau should go down at times, literally:

Israel Folau

Folau has recently extended his playing contact with the Wallabies up to 2022. He played as an outside-centre against the All Blacks on Saturday and managed to score a try too with one of his meandering runs. However, he should work on some other aspects of his game. One of his mispasses led to an All Black try and this should have been avoided.

Folau was tackled by the Kiwi players and most of his teammates were on his right side. However, none of them were close enough for Folau to play the ball to them and therefore, he tried to play a near-impossible pass to his left. His pass was intercepted by a Kiwi player and a try was scored subsequently.

Folau should have gone down to the ground and tried to play a ruck. He should have waited for support to arrive and tried to keep possession instead of wasting it with an impossible pass. He should prepare himself to endure more collision and also learn to keep possession by building phases. Unless he works upon those areas of his game, he would find it difficult to adjust to the new role that has been assigned to him.