Hype surrounding Barrett overblown
Younger brother has all the attributes to be an All Blacks great but he is not the finished product
There’s a bit of a misleading media love affair going on with Jordie Barrett. A few weeks into the season and it would appear as if Barrett has been sensational and not made a mistake.
He is the man who can seemingly do no wrong and his every touch, his every decision is hailed as a stroke of genius. It’s not healthy and it’s not a true reflection of what we have seen from him so far this year.
Maybe the surname has turned a few people blind or it’s a case of only seeing what they want to see, but the youngest Barrett in the professional ranks has not been mistake-free in 2018 and his performances, while handy enough, haven’t quite touched the stars the way reports of his form have suggested.
But this sometimes happens — a young player arrives on the scene so obviously destined for greatness that they start to be judged by different standards. Some errors are ignored or accepted as a consequence of their age and lack of experience, and written off as not important.
All people see are the moments of brilliance and not the occasional failure to execute the basics at the required level.
Allowances are made, and over time, there comes a separation between the media and public assessment of a player, and that of the selectors.
To a less obvious extent, the same phenomenon played out with Ardie Savea. His athleticism and ability to conjure a bit of magic on the ball were compelling and had the masses calling for him to start ahead of Sam Cane.
The selectors though, as much as they admired Savea’s random
Fbrilliance, could see the youngster was struggling to have an influence over the ball and deliver on the core expectations of a test openside.
That Jordie Barrett is gathering equally favourable reviews is understandable. His brothers, Beauden and Scott, have lifted expectation about what the gene pool contains and Jordie, in his brief career to date, has hinted at his extraordinary potential.
His performance against the British and Irish Lions last year in the third test was phenomenally good. He was composed, accurate and involved. He scored a try, made a try, took some tricky high balls and put in strong defensive touches of high impact.
Anyone with even a half-pie understanding of rugby can see the 21-year-old is going to be a sensation. He has everything he needs to conquer the elite game — size, power, speed, agility, a huge boot, polished skills and a supremely good attitude.
He’ll be special. But he’s not there yet, and while he’s had some brilliant moments in 2018, he’s made a handful of core skill execution errors that will not have gone unnoticed by the All Blacks coaches.
In last week’s game against the Crusaders, Barrett ran a sensational line to create a hole close to the ruck and then threw a calculated offload that always had a higher chance of going to a Hurricanes players — which it did — than not. It was a brilliant burst and contribution.
But he also spilled two high balls — bread and butter stuff for a fullback. At test level, mistakes like that can be devastating.
Barrett also pushed a long-range penalty wide, which is probably forgivable, but then again, the best long-range goalkickers are given one chance and they deliver.
Not enough has been made of the importance of Lions wing Elliot Daly’s 55 metre penalty in the third test against the All Blacks. He had one chance to nail a monster effort and he did. Those three points were crucial.
There is going to be a time when Barrett really will be as good as many say he already is. But until then, best to be honest and say mistakes are still mistakes, even if they are made by a 21-year-old on his way to stardom.