Adding a Barrett rather than subtracting one key to All Blacks’ fickle kicking
He’s been dropped from the squad against the Pumas but there seems little doubt Jordie Barrett is the answer to the problems brother Beauden Barrett is causing with his fickle goalkicking.
The concern arising from the All Blacks’ narrow loss to the Springboks was not just that they should still have won a tight game even after dishing up two of the softest of soft tries. Barrett’s kicking should also have won the match had it been at the level expected of him.
That’s the biggie. The soft tries and the game management can be fixed. Barrett’s kicking?
Coach Steve Hansen is fond of quoting Barrett’s kicking percentages — and they are usually impressive. But every now and then, “Beaudy” has a black day. The big worry is if one of these shockers occurs when the match is a close affair during the knockout stages of the World Cup.
Watching the All Blacks miss easy points is a fillip for the opposition. So is the realisation the All Blacks’ top team has only one kicker and all that pressure is bolted to his shoulders.
The usual starting XV has only Barrett as kicker until Damian McKenzie comes on later in the match. Even then, Barrett often stays on the field (McKenzie replaced Jordie Barrett at fullback last time) and continues to take the kicks. Fine when he’s on song. Not when he’s not.
A solution is to shift the stillbrilliant Ben Smith to the wing and play Jordie Barrett at fullback. But the latter was yanked from the All Blacks 23 after his ill-judged quick lineout led to one of the Boks’ soft tries.
The All Blacks need Jordie. He has the same calm manner as Beauden, plus he can strike from distance; he has about an 80 per cent success record at Super Rugby and Mitre 10 Cup level. McKenzie is also a reliable goalkicker with a similar cool temperament. But he is also not quite the finished article; in that helter-skelter end of the test against the Boks, his hesitation to throw that lastminute pass was one of the many small crimes filling the folder of the All Blacks’ postmatch analysis. However, leave out McKenzie for Richie Mo’unga, for example, and you lose his electric ability to make a telling contribution in the last 20 minutes. And it doesn’t alter the fact the All Blacks have no back-up kicker in their starting XV if Beauden Barrett starts missing the target.
It’s a selection conundrum, wrapped in a dilemma and tied up with a quandary. Jordie at fullback and Smith on the wing would be tough on winger Waisake Naholo, so good on attack and so valuable for key turnovers. But in the white-hot pressure of World Cup knockouts,
it could well be the way to go.
The Mo’unga brigade will no doubt clamour for his inclusion and there is no doubt he has better dropped goal credentials than Beauden Barrett, handy in tight finishes in World Cup knockouts.
But most believe Barrett is the man for the job — as long as he has adequate back-up and the All Blacks coaching staff change their seemingly unshakeable view that Barrett should always kick.
There were times in that Boks test the baton could have been passed to Jordie or McKenzie, but the status quo persisted. You wonder, too, if the shift of kicking coach “Mick The Kick” (Mick Byrne) to the Wallabies has had more effect than thought. However, the All Blacks can still call on a bloke called Grant Fox who, not that long ago, was the goalkicker we would all have chosen if someone had to kick a goal to save our lives.
We can take with a teeny tiny pinch of salt the comments of South African kicking guru Vlok Cilliers questioning Barrett’s technique. That could be filed under ‘Criticism Designed To Increase Pressure ahead of next year’s World Cup’.
But here’s the bit that rang true: “There had already been stats available to show the danger of New Zealand losing through bad kicking,” Cilliers said. “Barrett missed a few sitters, and that’s at his Hurricanes home ground where he should be able to kick with his eyes closed.
“In recent years, the All Blacks have been outscoring teams by, say, five or six tries to two, so even if he kicks at somewhere around a modest 60 per cent success rate, the All Blacks won’t feel it too much on the scoreboard.”
We have to understand the way the All Blacks are playing now may not be their modus operandi in Japan next year. But the goalkicking question remains and the only clear answer I can see is to add a Barrett, not subtract one.