After the opening 12 minutes of the Bledisloe Test, nobody could be sure what to expect from All black people. They were 7-0 down after being disrupted by some sharp Wallabies back play and indeed, the home side didn’t touch the ball after a quarter of the first half.
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And then everything changed. With not much going on in the ruck midway between their 22m and 10m lines, Cam Roigard decided to deliver what would be the first of many perfectly timed and weighted kicks into the box.
It was high and hanging and landed just before the Wallabies 10m line. That gave Jordie Barrett plenty of time to get underneath her and beat Australian winger Joseph-Aukuso Suallii to make a good catch and kick forward for another few meters before the ball was passed to Damian McKenzie who burst through the retreating defense and flicked a perfect pass to the supporting Peter Lakai.
McKenzie played his part, but the impetus came from Roigard and Barrett, who both put in performances that confirmed their world-class status.
Roigard was selected in the style of a French number 9, entrusted with most of the shots and effectively the man who set the pace and direction of the All Blacks’ attack.
It fit him perfectly. The footy role is his bag as he has a left-footed boot that twice managed to clear the All Blacks from their 22 to 10 meters inside Wallabies territory, and took 16 other contested kicks, almost all of which were either recovered or the opposition receiver received the ball and the receiver at almost the same time.
It was a master class in tactical execution and how to create and then use momentum. But Roigard also delayed the pass and changed the shape of his body from the base of the arm to leave the Wallabies defense in constant suspense as to where the next wave of All Blacks runners would strike.
Wallabies coach Les Kiss would bemoan the lack of speed his side produced and it was likely the threat of Roigard exploiting them regardless was the core of passivity.
As for Barrett, that high-kick attempt was just one of a string of brilliant acts he produced in a performance in which manager Dave Rennie told Sky Sport he thought the 29-year-old was “by far and away the best midfielder in the world”.
“You could probably have a 6, 7 or 8 on the back and it wouldn’t look out of place,”
Codie Taylor on Jordie Barrett
“He was phenomenal all year,” Rennie repeated later. “He was outstanding in South Africa, I just think he’s taken his game to a new level.
“It’s not just the skills, he’s got a huge engine. His physicality, his defence, I thought he was excellent again.”
The range of Barrett’s involvement was what made his performance so remarkable. He ran straight and hard and operated as the first receiver for much of the game with No. 10 Damian McKenzie fumbling behind.
Then there was Barrett’s defense – his head on bone-crushing tackles (he made 16 tackles, three of which were dominant), and his uncanny ability to move all over the court.
He caught high balls, made smart decisions, organized others and was everywhere at once.
“He could probably have a 6, 7 or 8 on his back and it wouldn’t look out of place,” said his captain Codie Taylor.
“He’s definitely earned the right to be called one of the best 12s, if not the best 12s in the world at the moment and not just his offense – it’s his brutality and everything he does is what you want to see as a striker when your 12 is ready to throw his body at everything.”
There have been plenty of great performers for the All Blacks in Auckland – Damian McKenzie, Tupou Vaa’i, Scott Barrett – but what’s becoming apparent is that Roigard and Jordie Barrett can move the dial far more than anyone else.
They are two players with the capacity to lift the performance of the All Blacks to the next level and probably, New Zealand are one team with them and an inferior version without them.
And this is the problem. Rennie and his coaching staff create real depth in the squad and look good in most positions.
There is a large gap in ability between Roigard and the alternate options of Kyle Preston and Cortez Ratim.
There is a prop squad – both sides – that has experience and ability, and that will be even more so when Tamaiti Williams returns next year.
There are three real options with the whore and George Bell as the next man who is very capable. There are a number of locks, plenty of free forwards and four options at number 10 in Ruben Love, Richie Mo’unga, McKenzie and Beauden Barrett.
The search for at least one, if not two, air-capable wings is still ongoing, but there is at least a current pool of talent coming through.
The dark spots—positions where there isn’t necessarily adequate coverage—are half-and-half and inside the center.
On the former, there is a large gap in ability between Roigard and the alternate options of Kyle Preston and Cortez Ratim.
Preston has the footwork but is not in the same class – he lacks the length and distance of Roigard. He doesn’t have the versatile decision making to facilitate the game plan in the same way that Roigard does.
Ratima definitely doesn’t have the length or accuracy in his shot to be effective. He can’t clear the same huge distances as Roigard and so far in his career he hasn’t been able to find the right combination of length and height to withstand a barrage of contested shots from the box.
And as Roigard showed at Eden Park, it matters. When the All Blacks were stuck, with no momentum, they were able to build on it with Roigard launching contested kicks into the box which were returned and enabled the next phase of the attack to be launched.
That ability to punt and rebound became such a big part of the current game – and that was something South Africa did a great job against the All Blacks, and one of the big lessons the latter learned from Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.
Preston seems best equipped to develop as a replacement for the likes, but even if the All Blacks manage to find game time between now and the World Cup – it’s highly likely he’ll end up in Australia feeling worried about what would happen if Roigard got hurt.
Rieko gives you the X factor. He doesn’t defend as well as Anton and probably doesn’t have the same level of work ethic, but he’s an absolute freak when he has the ball in hand.
In theory, the All Blacks have a replacement for Jordie Barrett at number 12 – that’s his center partner Quinn Tupaea. As an interior center Tupaea left its mark for Bosses and made his first appearance for the All Blacks before being moved to outside center last year due to the injury crisis.
He is a naturally direct, bruising runner at 12, with a good set of soft skills as well as a clever short kick game. But if the All Blacks move him to 12, they still have a problem as there is no other truly compelling number 13 to replace Tupae with.
Rieko Ioane would be first choice, but his game has limitations. As Rennie said when asked in South Africa why he didn’t bench Anton Lienert-Brown rather than Ioane for the third Test: “Rieko gives you the X factor. He doesn’t defend as well as Anton and probably doesn’t have the same level of work ethic, but he’s an absolute freak with the ball in hand.”
Billy Proctor is set to return from a serious shoulder injury next year, but he is another who hasn’t convinced as the type of player who could contribute to the World Cup quarter-final win against the Boks.
There is an alternative to moving Tupae to 12, which is to pick Timoci Tavatavanawai there. The Fijian-born midfielder has his fans, but Rennie’s concern is that Tavatavanawai is simply a player capable of the odd spectacular display, but not someone ready enough to contribute for 80 minutes.
He was taken to South Africa mainly to work under the tutelage of All Blacks fitness coach Phil Healey and to better acclimate him to the kind of effort required to play Test rugby.
“So Big Jim is fantastic when he’s around the ball; his carrying, tackling and dribbling are excellent,” Rennie told Newstalk ZB.
“His work rate has gotten better, and that’s a constant focus for him. The type of game we play, we need our midfielders to do a hell of a lot with the ball and stuff, so we feel the guys we’ve picked are better in that area.
“But he did well. That was the reason we took him to South Africa: we wanted him to make changes in that area. We felt that if we didn’t get him there and get him going, he probably wouldn’t be an option at the World Cup.”