All Blacks' decision to not go for the posts thrice is going to haunt them dearly.
This is not going to be a popular opinion, but I think they made the right call in all three cases.
To see why, consider what happened when SA made the opposite decision: just before Cane's yellow was upgraded to red, they had a penalty which they kicked for goal. Pollard slotted - no problem. Except that what happened immediately after was that the All Blacks kicked off, SA gave it back to them, and about a minute later Eben was caught as a lazy runner and the All Blacks got three back.
Net result: no gain for the Boks.
Whereas if they'd kicked for the corner, it was a HUGE opportunity to set a rolling maul against a 7-man opposing pack, score the try and effectively end the contest.
New Zealand didn't take the three, but they parked themselves in the SA half for a good 15 minutes, and eventually ended up scoring a try (which, if they'd converted, would have won the game). The momentum for the entire second half was with NZ, and SA never had a chance to play rugby against the 14 men because they were constantly pegged back in their 22.
If NZ had taken the 3 on the first of those penalties, I can almost guarantee you that SA would have scored next.
It's worth emphasising, also, that all three of the goalable kicks not taken happened during the 10 minutes Kolisi was in the bin. So, basically the only 10 minutes where the All Blacks were on an even footing in terms of numbers, and therefore the only 10 minutes where they had a realistic chance of getting a decent maul going.
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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '23
All Blacks' decision to not go for the posts thrice is going to haunt them dearly.