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Speculation about which All Black the team can least do without has a horrible habit of coming to pass.
How to put a jinx on an All Black – say he’s indispensable.
We are exactly a year out from the 2019 Rugby World Cup final. It will take place at the International Stadium Yokohama, where last weekend the All Blacks effectively launched their campaign to retain the Webb Ellis Cup by beating the Wallabies in the first of three matches being used as a rehearsal for the tournament’s knock-out phase. The others are those against England, the fourth-ranked team in the world, in London on November 11, and secondranked Ireland in Dublin the following weekend.
Injuries will undoubtedly be a factor. Not long into the 2011 final, fourth-choice first five Stephen Donald was making his way onto the field in a jersey at least one size too small, thereby cruelly emphasising the fact that he’d tapered off training after missing out on the original squad. In 2015, loosehead prop Joe Moody was flown in as injury cover but ended up in the semi-final and final starting line-ups. At one stage this year, seven of the 13 front rowers the All Blacks used in 2017 were either sidelined with significant injuries or rehabbing after significant surgery.
With that in mind, and in accordance with the superstition that disaster imagined is disaster forestalled, who is the player the All Blacks can least afford to be without in Japan? In 2016, Wales’ and the British and Irish Lions’ Kiwi coach Warren Gatland had no doubt: “There’s one player in particular who’s the driving force and that’s [halfback] Aaron Smith. Take him out of that All Blacks team and they might be a little vulnerable.”
It was one of the great commentator’s curses. A week later, Smith jauntily emerged from a disabled toilet at Christchurch Airport triggering a fall from grace and form slump that saw him supplanted by TJ Perenara. As was the case in Yokohama last weekend. Whatever the selectors’ thinking, the decision wasn’t that much of a surprise given the pair’s respective recent performances.
Responding to Gatland, former All Black Ian Jones nominated hooker Dane Coles. This, too, was a commentator’s curse and arguably a more potent one. Injury has kept Coles out of 14 of the All Blacks’ 24 tests in 2017/18. Replacement Codie Taylor has filled in so admirably that Coles’ return to the starting side can’t be considered a given.
Naturally, the current and back-toback World Rugby (WR) player of the year, Beauden Barrett, looms large in this conversation, although perhaps not quite as large as he did a year ago. That’s partly because a common factor in the narrow losses to the Lions last year and the Springboks this year was his wayward goal kicking, and partly because of the rise and rise of Richie Mo‘unga.
There’s a school of thought that Barrett is a great footballer but a flawed first five, therefore the best use of resources is to play him at fullback where his freakish talent has freer rein, while the arguably technically superior and preternaturally composed Mo‘unga runs the cutter at No 10.
The media’s choice would be Brodie Retallick. He not only is the best lock in the game, but also exemplifies the maxim that the most effective way to make yourself seem irreplaceable is to be
conspicuously absent when painful defeats occur. A common factor in the losses to Ireland in 2016, Australia last year and South Africa this year is that Retallick didn’t play.
In fact, through a combination of bereavement and injury, Retallick has missed half the All Blacks’ games in 2017/18. As is usually the case, one player’s absence is another player’s opportunity: Scott Barrett has played in 15 of the last 16 tests, the steep upward curve of his performance trajectory matching Taylor’s.
Kieran Read has made a steady rather than spectacular return from major back surgery and, in his absence, Sam Whitelock handled the captaincy duties with aplomb. But, although New Zealand’s loose-forward depth is impressive, none of the other No 8s or blindside flankers are in Read’s league as a lineout operator.
The lineout has been a major factor in the All Blacks’ unprecedented success since 2012. Indeed, those who remember its capacity for dysfunction before that might argue it’s the major factor. As the lineout caller and most frequent target, Read must take a lot of credit for the pack’s proficiency at this once-problematic set piece.
Ardie Savea’s display at No 8 in the recent test in Argentina persuaded some that we have nothing to worry about should Read fail to go the distance. However, having a (comparatively) short loose-forward trio and therefore fewer lineout options would be a return to the arrangement that former Springbok coach Nick Mallett, a renowned analyst, identified as a leading cause of the All Blacks’ repeated World Cup meltdowns.
A common factor in the losses to Ireland in 2016, Australia last year and South Africa this year is that Retallick didn’t play.