Barrett verdict: The jury is still out
The far-off gaze would have come into Henry Fonda’s eye after Beauden Barrett’s performance on Saturday night. His fellow jurors would have groaned, knowing that look only too well. The jury was out. And it was going to be out for a few long hours yet.
‘‘We have a reasonable doubt,’’ says Fonda.
And it doesn’t look as if that doubt is going away any time soon. Barrett’s performance against Australia in the first Bledisloe Cup test was a perfect encapsulation of his mixed skills as a rugby player. There were moments of the miracle Barrett, when he did things of which only he is capable. And there were passages of the bewildered Barrett when he and the team gets lost in the inaccuracy of his passing and muddled thinking.
But let’s accentuate the positive to begin with. There is not another rugby player on the planet who could have scored the dribbling try that broke the game open. The kid who once dreamed of playing for Real Madrid was there in the close control. It is far from the first time he has scored such tries.
Barrett is a poacher supreme. When Jack Goodhue jammed in from the side and Bernard Foley’s poor pass was dropped, Barrett was the first to react. It was an awful mistake from Australia, and the jury is certainly not out on Foley; the public want him gone, fed up with a kicking game that does not have the length for international level. But Barrett still had to seize the day – to win a race over 40 metres while dribbling a rugby ball was a tribute to Barrett’s skill and to his pace.
And then there was the kick for Waisake Naholo’s try. The vision for this has been overstated. Ben Smith’s pass and then Damian McKenzie’s jinking run made Barrett a lot of time and space. The opportunity was so obvious that Kieran Read was shouting and pointing alongside Barrett. But the left-footed execution was sumptuous.
Barrett’s defence also saved the All Blacks a couple of times and this is where he is particularly valued by the management. He caught Marika Koroibete on one occasion, forced him to pass on another and made a try saving tackle on Jack Maddocks.
Steve Hansen reckoned after the game: ‘‘First of all he showed us he’s human and he probably felt a wee bit of the pressure. But more importantly he showed us he can cope with it. The more the game went on, the better he went and his confidence grew. We know he’s a world-class player and have got all the faith in the world in him.’’
Hansen sounds a bit like the juror in Twelve Angry Men with the baseball tickets burning a hole in his pocket. He’s pretty much made up his mind and just wants to get out of here. He can’t
When the second playmaker comes on in the second half and the game breaks up, Barrett is a devastating rugby player. But while the defences remain tight in the first half and the game is structured, Barrett remains a bit of a chump.
see the point in the debate.
But the point is that we see this pattern from Barrett time and time again. When the second playmaker comes on in the second half and the game breaks up, Barrett is a devastating rugby player. But while the defences remain tight in the first half and the game is structured, Barrett remains a bit of a chump.
The passing weakness will not go away. There was a passage of play in that first half when the All Blacks went through 17 phases of play and ended up where they had started. In that sequence Barrett checked Anton Lienert-Brown with an offload, he stopped Ben Smith with a pass down at his calves, Rieko Ioane had to jump and reach behind for a pass and then Ben Smith got man and ball.
Barrett made a break in either half. But instead of straightening and bringing on the tackle, before giving a short pass to first Read and then McKenzie, Barrett allowed himself to be smothered.
He blew a try by forcing a pass that ended up going forwards, he was intercepted, he threw another pass along the ground, another couple that went forwards. Barrett’s passing is a real weakness and stalls the All Blacks’ momentum.
Barrett’s kicking from hand was sparse, presumably playing to a plan to run the Aussies out of legs. But it was too sparse and something must have been said at halftime, because Barrett began to turn Australia in the second half.
Ian Foster said at the break: ‘‘It’s probably a day to be a little more patient.’’
In other words Barrett was forcing the play. His play calling was not good and he failed to expose Australia’s defence rushing up on the outside. He also missed a couple of kicks at goal at an important time at the end of the first half. And apart from one exceptional kick to the corner, Barrett’s line kicking off penalties was short.
The game could have been a lot more sticky for the All Blacks if Jaco Peyper, typically, hadn’t favoured them with calls. He should have binned Naholo for a lifting tackle, he called an Aussie attack back with a ridiculous knock forward ruling.
And neither of the first two tries should have stood. Under the current interpretation of the laws (it’s physics and altering the direction of the ball travelled) Goodhue knocked on in the build-up to the first. Then Naholo ripped the ball free for the second when the attacker’s knee had long been on the ground. If those calls had been accurate Australia would have had an attacking penalty and the chance to go 13-0 up.
I don’t believe for a moment they would have won. Australia were feeble at times in the second half. And when McKenzie came on the game changed. It allowed Barrett to find holes playing off McKenzie’s shoulder. The world player of the year – gurgle, cough – may not be much of a baker, but he sure knows how to put the icing on the cake.