Barrett’s balancing act
Moving Beauden to fullback and starting Mo’unga at first-five would give All Blacks backline a better balance
The All Blacks are forever talking about the need to strike the right balance. It’s usually in a risk versus reward scenario or finding the right blend of youth and experience.
But in the wake of Sunday’s loss to Ireland, they face an altogether much harder balancing act.
The coaching team will have to determine how much they need to react to one defeat with a vigorous private examination of their public conviction the difference between the two teams was finishing.
Ireland had two chances and scored one, while Steve Hansen says his side made four and blew them all.
That’s big-game football, super tight margins, and on another day, the All Blacks would have won with room to spare.
Goodness knows they have a track record that says this isn’t wishful thinking, and profligacy as witnessed in Dublin is hardly endemic or even close to being a recurring theme.
But as much as the 16-9 defeat could be filed as a one-off loss inflicted by an excellent team who were just that little bit more clinical when it mattered, it feels a little more significant than that.
The defeat in Dublin brought to the surface this sense of fragility that has been lingering around the All Blacks since they lost to the Lions last year.
They do a pretty good job papering over the crack, but it is indisputable that it is there: the best teams can lay bare the fact the All Blacks don’t have the breadth of game yet to ignite their attack in any circumstance.
They are not, as they once were, a triple threat team. Not effectively or consistently, and while their running game has reached unprecedented levels of brilliance since the last World Cup, their kicking, aerial work and decision-making have all regressed.
Maybe not so much in their component skills — but they probably have — more in the ability to put them all together in the right way at the right time and find a way to break or escape a smothering defence.
And this is where the question of balance kicks in. The All Blacks, says Hansen, have been trying to play differently this year.
The specifics on that, he won’t elaborate, but admits the transition from the old way to new is taking longer than imagined.
Some of the decision-making is being compromised by players not all attuned to the new demands — the old habits are hard to break, being as ingrained as they are.
Frustrating, yes, but patience will pay dividends, says Hansen, and his record is such that he has earned a significant degree of trust.
But is the All Blacks’ stuttering attack or continued inability to ignite against defensively-minded, confrontational teams purely attributable to a bumpy tactical conversion?
It comes back to balance again and whether all the blame can be put there or whether as much consideration has to be given to the possibility that the backline personnel isn’t quite right.
Ireland, after England had hinted at it, exposed the truth that the All Blacks don’t have the right combination in their back three with Damian McKenzie at fullback.
As much as the world loves seeing the smaller man in the test arena, his lack of size at fullback is a problem and the All Blacks cannot pretend they haven’t seen that. That word balance comes up again in relation to the back three in that they don’t have the right one with McKenzie at fullback and Rieko Ioane and Ben Smith on the wings.
To be serious about winning the World Cup, the All Blacks need two aerial, all-round footballers in the back three, with the power game of Ioane staying where it is on the left wing. They could shift Ben Smith to his preferred role of fullback but then who on the wing would give them the right overall blend? Waisake Naholo is not a kick-chase player and would be ruthlessly targeted by the likes of Johnny Sexton and Owen Farrell. Nehe Milner-Skudder is also not in possession of the right skill-set either. George Bridge is but is maybe not quite ready for regular tests, and while Israel Dagg has the aerial portfolio and booming right boot, it’s hard to believe he’s still got the top-end pace and agility to cut it in test football.
All roads at this stage, then, appear to lead to the Barrett family as the solution to balancing the back three.
Jordie could be the answer at fullback in the World Cup as he is an aerial player — a kicker, catcher and tackler, and his skills lean towards the conservative, which is no bad thing in knockout football.
But his confidence appears shot and he’s been all over the place since his Wellington meltdown, and even if he comes right mentally next year, his brother Beauden would still be the better option.
From being a red-herring debate earlier this year, the question of whether to start Beauden Barrett or Richie Mo’unga at first-five is now one the All Blacks coaches can’t be pigheaded about.
The All Blacks do appear to have a better balance to their backline when Mo’unga comes off the bench and Barrett reverts to fullback.
The pace, flow and intensity of tests are often different by the time the All Blacks make this positional switch, but still, even accounting for that, the set-up looks better.
It has that intangible quality of feeling better, too, and the All Blacks are right to be wedded to the belief they need two playmakers, but Barrett and Mo’unga feels instinctively the right combination rather than Barrett and McKenzie.
The way the All Blacks play, fullback and first-five interchange roles fluidly and relentlessly and to avoid any sense of there being a lack of faith in Barrett’s work at firstfive or any kind of perception that Mo’unga has surpassed him, then he could continue to wear No 10 with the latter wearing No 15.
It is hard to avoid wondering if the team needs Barrett at fullback or alternatively, at the very least, Mo’unga to be on the field from the start with a licence to be highly involved as a first receiver even if listed at fullback.