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Smal: NZ team could be special

Christchurch - Ireland's assistant coach and former Springbok, Gert Smal, thinks the All Blacks have the makings of a great team in the squad selected by new coach Steve Hansen.
 
According to the allblacks.com website, Smal said he didn't know where New Zealand got their players from but there was an amazing amount of talent seemingly on call for the selectors.

"This one (team) is very special I think," he said.

"But in saying that we're not going to sit back and see what they can do. We also can play a little bit and we also showed two years ago that even with 14 men we can score two tries if we keep our possession and have a go at them, and that's what we're going to do on Saturday."

Ireland were conscious of managing the players' workloads after a long season and there was every chance that a nearly full muster would be available for selection for the second Test. This was despite the fact that several players took things easy at Tuesday's training run.

"It's not ideal going into big Test matches like these but I think it is quite important that we have them fresh," Smal said.

New Zealand won the first Test against Ireland in Auckland 42-10.

 
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