Quality first five-eighths often ‘double A’ s

TASESA Lavea knows plenty about being a Super Rugby first five-eighth.

After all, he was one for a few years in the mid-to-late 2000s, with the Blues and the Chiefs, before heading to France.

Now he’s back in Auckland coaching the King’s College first XV, and what he finds most notable about the 1A competition is how ferocious it is.

‘‘The physicality of the 1A is pretty intense, and it’s pretty brutal,’’ he said.

That physicality does play a part, he said, in why the region seems to struggle to produce not only first fives, but halfbacks as well, with those less-physical roles somewhat marginalised as a result.

Another first XV coach who knows plenty about first fives is Rhys Archibald, who is at Christchurch Boys’ High School, the closest thing the country has to a first-five factory, and was previously at Palmerston North Boys’ High School, at the same time Aaron Cruden was coming through.

In teams Archibald has been involved with, first fives are given plenty of freedom, he said.

‘‘We believe that we’ve got to teach the kids to play what’s in front of them, we haven’t got set structures and patterns like that, and the boys have to make a huge amount of decisions while they’re out there. We put a whole heap of responsibility shoulders.’’

The list of first fives to come out of Christchurch Boys’ is quite something, with seven featuring in Super Rugby since 2010 alone – Andrew Horrell, Colin Slade, Dan Carter, Fletcher Smith, Marty Banks, Stephen Brett, and Tim Bateman.

Most of those were before Archibald’s time, and when it comes to explaining how and why it has happened, all he can point to is something that could be true on their