Havili, Ioane could solve All Blacks’ midfield malaise
The David Havili and Rieko Ioane midfield partnership could be about to blossom into something the All Blacks have long been searching for.
Havili certainly thinks so on the back of their performance against the Springboks in Johannesburg, where they combined to help the All Blacks record a crunch 35-23 scalp.
‘‘Definitely,’’ Havili said. ‘‘I think we can take a lot of confidence from that. We went into a pretty high stakes game, a lot of pressure there.’’
The All Blacks’ midfield has been a constant area of debate since Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith departed after the 2015 World Cup.
Many combinations have been tried, players have come and gone, including Sonny Bill Williams, Ryan Crotty and Ngani Laumape, but a long-term pairing hasn’t been found.
Not helped by injuries to veterans Anton Lienert-Brown and Jack Goodhue, head coach Ian Foster tried five combinations last season alone.
With Havili sidelined for the first two tests of the year against Ireland, Quinn Tupaea and Ioane got first crack this season.
But it’s been the Havili and Ioane show since, and the pair will make it four straight starts when they run out against Argentina tonight.
‘‘It’s been an absolute pleasure to play with Rieks, you just see what he can do on the field, you just give him a bit of time and space, he’s a world-class athlete,’’ Havili said.
With an eye on continuity ahead of next year’s World Cup, Foster emphasised a desire to start settling on combinations ahead of the season.
This week, he named an
unchanged starting XV for the first time in his 27 tests in charge of the team.
‘‘If you go back, I’ve been talking a lot this year about this year the
goal was to try and get some more combination work. There are various reasons why we probably haven’t been able to do that to the extent that we perhaps planned at
the start, but nice to be able to do it now,’’ Foster said.
‘‘Right now, we are picking a team for now, and the onus is on players who go out on that park to
perform at a level this team needs them to perform. If they keep doing that it does make it hard to change.’’
Having only made one change to the reserves – Stephen Perofeta replaced the injured Beauden Barrett – this week marks just the third time a starting XV has been repeated since Steve Hansen took over the All Blacks in 2012 – 133 matches ago.
The All Blacks’ attack has been far from stellar this season, and was particularly clunky during the twin defeats to Ireland, and during the emphatic 26-10 defeat to South Africa in Mbombela.
However, with new attack coach Joe Schmidt on deck, and some much-needed continuity, outside back Will Jordan believes cohesiveness is building.
‘‘We’re five or six games into the season now, so combinations are starting to grow from where we were in the Irish series, so it’s nice with the unchanged team to be able to roll through that same stuff again,’’ he said, adding Schmidt’s arrival hadn’t signalled big systematic changes.
‘‘It’s just a lot of little minor details. He’s pretty detailed about how he goes about things. Nothing hugely too dissimilar, but just stuff around running lines, catch-pass quality.
‘‘I don’t think it’s huge structural changes, but little things go a long way to being more successful in that space.’’