Mo’unga’s BIG moment
Mo’unga gets big vote of confidence for Pumas test, writes Gregor Paul
Richie Mo’unga gives off a vibe that invokes a particular sense of confidence he’s going to deliver on his immense promise when he makes his first test start this weekend.
There’s a maturity to Mo’unga that sets him apart from his peers. He’s only recently turned 24, played just 15 minutes of test football and yet it’s so much easier to imagine him giving a commanding performance against Argentina in Nelson than it is to see him falling apart under the pressure of it all.
This young man seems to be blessed with not only a wider, finely honed set of physical skills, but also a different mental makeup to the other hopefuls who have been given their shot at stardom in the All Blacks’ No 10 jersey.
Such has been the abundance of riches at first-five in recent times that many have probably forgotten how much drama used to be involved whenever the All Blacks had to test their depth at pivot.
If Dan Carter was ever injured back in the day, there was a dark mood about those who followed rugby and the fortunes of the national team.
Forgotten too, no doubt, is the difficulty even good players had in initially finding their feet in such a demanding role. Aaron Cruden went on to become a 50-test All Black and a world class operator, but his first start in Sydney 2010 was a bit of a horror show.
He’d had a few games off the bench that year, but his first time in the actual No 10 jersey saw the wheels come flying off.
Colin Slade, another who went on to establish himself as a good All Black, made his debut at No 10 off the bench that same night. He was a little more composed than Cruden but when his turn to start came the following year, he was a similar bag of nerves and obvious flaws.
Even Beauden Barrett didn’t really convince in his first start at No 10. That came in Napier 2014, against the Pumas, and while he’d been a super sub many times since 2012, he definitely wobbled a bit when he finally got into that coveted jersey.
He wobbled a few more times to be honest and as unbelievable as it is to think, it was to such an extent that he wasn’t actually the preferred successor to Carter when the great man retired from test football in 2015.
The only player in recent history who slipped into the No 10 jersey and made it look effortless from day one is, of course, Carter.
And Mo’unga seems, mentally at least, to be a similar kind of beast. Last year his Crusaders coach Leon MacDonald made that very comparison ahead of the game against the Lions.
MacDonald, who had played a bit with Carter, saw Mo’unga in much the same mould — never flustered, never hurried and never one to dwell on his mistakes.
He also felt that commonality in mindset enabled Mo’unga to be a similarly astute decision-maker and game manager.
And that’s so much of the battle for first-fives – it is not necessarily about being able to run, pass and kick — it is about knowing when to do it.
It’s that insight into the game which makes the best No 10s stand out. Mo’unga is quick and agile, but he looks quicker than he is because he reacts to the opportunity before anyone else.
He has so much influence on Super Rugby games because he gets compounding value on his good decisions.
This was the key to Carter’s quick transition to test rugby — he had the temperament to trust his instincts and believe in his game management.
Starting a test at No 10 is a big step up from steering the Crusaders through two successful championships, but he’s that same unhurried, calm character as Carter and that’s why Mo’unga is likely to make the same successful transition to the test arena.
As expected the All Blacks have shuffled their playmaker, introduced a new finishing weapon in Nehe Milner-Skudder and asked Shannon Frizell to back up his promising first cap.
The headline news is of course the presence of Richie Mo’unga in the No 10 jersey.
The Crusaders first-five has had a legion of admirers pushing for him to get this chance to see if he can take his Super Rugby form into the test arena.
And he now gets it, not because the selectors have been swayed by public opinion, but probably because it was always their plan to use the home test against the Pumas to rest a few tired senior bodies and find out a few things about the emerging talent in the group.
The coaches backed Damian McKenzie in June to see how he coped with the different demands of starting at No 10 as opposed to coming off the bench.
Now they want to see if Mo’unga can deliver and provide clarity around how best they can use their available talent.
Incumbent first-five Beauden Barrett delivered the most astonishing performance in the All Blacks’ last test to prove he is the country’s best playmaker and automatic choice to start at No 10 if he’s fit.
But the selectors need some answers about what they might do in future should Barrett be injured or in need of a rest.
If Mo’unga can prove in Nelson that he can handle the demands of the starting role, it may be that he effectively jumps to number two in the pecking order, but only in the sense that he would start ahead of McKenzie — not oust him from the regular match day 23.
McKenzie’s pace and versatility have been lethal weapons off the bench this year and the All Blacks want to keep that in their match day mix, especially as the 23-year-old can slot in just as well at fullback.
The return of Milner-Skudder was just as heavily signalled by the selectors but no less significant for it.
The Hurricanes wing, like Mo’unga, was long pencilled in to start this game. Ideally, the coaches wanted to have a look at him in June against France but felt he lacked enough game time to make the right sort of impact.
There’s a strong symmetry with last year for Milner-Skudder as he returned to the All Blacks fold in the corresponding fixture in much the same circumstances.
He only recovered from a broken foot to play in the last few weeks of Super Rugby in 2017 and it took him until early September to rediscover his sharpness.
He has been released to play for Manawatu in the last few weeks to find that last edge the selectors thought he needed after again missing most of this year’s Super Rugby competition after recovering from shoulder surgery.
They think he’s ready now to once again remind the world that he has an astonishing ability to beat defenders with his pace and footwork and give the All Blacks a different sort of option to the power game offered by Rieko Ioane and Waisake Naholo.
All Blacks head coach Steve Hansen said: “While we’ve made a number of changes from our last outing, this is not a reflection on Argentina but rather a desire by us to grow the experience and depth of our squad.
“Secondary to that, we also know that if we don’t use the whole squad across a long season, we’ll run out of steam later in the year.”
Frizell wins a second start at blindside after impressing in his first and that change is considerably more about seeing what he can do than it is about giving incumbent Liam Squire a rest.