All blacks could adopt the Springboks tactics for England; all blacks could adopt the Springboks tactics for England

SPOTLIGHT: The All Blacks could unleash a forward-based power play on England in next month’s Test series, the Chiefs coach has predicted after the Blues thumped his team in the Super Rugby Pacific Final with a similar style of play.

Forward momentum and risk reduction have been the hallmark of the Blues during the Super Rugby Pacific season, culminating in Saturday’s 41-10 dismantling of the Chiefs in a one-sided final at Eden Park.

New Zealand’s Super Rugby teams have traditionally shown a willingness to play expansive rugby, a style that translates into an attack-oriented approach from the All Blacks.

However, the Blues have relied on close drive play and the use of one-off runners to bully opponents into submission this year.

Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan, whose team made more than 250 tackles in the final, said the Blues’ dominance could force a tactical rethink from new All Blacks coach Scott Robertson.

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New Zealand will name a 32-man squad on Monday for the home two-Test series against England in Dunedin on July 6 and at Auckland’s Eden Park the following week.

“It will be interesting to see how the All Blacks go because this (playing style) is something new for New Zealand, isn’t it?” McMillan told reporters.

“We haven’t really seen a team do that yet. It’s probably a bit of a departure from the DNA of All Black rugby.

South Africa won the World Cup last year by also relying heavily on its attackers.

“We know the South Africans and some teams in the north are a bit more direct,” McMillan added.

“I think the key will be to understand if we have the athletes to play that at the international level.”

Blues coach Vern Cotter admitted that it took time to integrate a conservative style into a blues team full of players who had built a reputation through extensive playing.

The process started in preseason and the players slowly began to suppress their habits.

“As you can imagine, it probably wasn’t assimilated right away, and that’s normal,” Cotter said.

“The boys were used to playing one way and we changed that.

“It was just to make the All Blacks players understand when they filtered back into the team. They picked it up and started working on it.”

Cotter, who had previously coached the Scotland and Fiji national teams, became the fifth man to win a title in his first season as Super Rugby head coach.

He joins an illustrious New Zealand list of Graham Henry (Blues, 1996), Robbie Deans (Canterbury Crusaders, 2000), Dave Rennie (Chiefs, 2012) and Scott Robertson (Crusaders, 2017).