Barrett needs to kick-start his season
OPINION: When is the real Beauden Barrett going to show up in 2017?
It’s a question we’re entitled to ask if we look a little closer at the season the world’s best rugby player (officially) of 2016 is having this year, and the quick revision going on around his so-called gazumping of the Dan Carter legacy.
Hurricanes fans would like to think this weekend might be a nice starting point. The Super Rugby semifinal in Johannesburg, which pits the defending champions against the minor premier Lions, shapes as the ideal stage for the gifted All Blacks playmaker to cast off the shackles and free himself from the constraints he has faced in 2017. Well, that’s the theory anyway. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Barrett has not been exactly setting the world on fire in 2017. It has been, hitherto, a farfrom-vintage Beaudy campaign.
Not that he has been playing poorly. Far from it. But just that he has struggled to make the same impact with which he sashayed through 2016 when he tore up defences, had the ball on a string and bamboozled all and sundry with his creativity, pace and ability to seize a moment.
So, what’s changed for Barrett in 2017 that appears to have challenged him so?
Principally, you have to say that opposition teams, whether it be in Super Rugby or in the form of the British and Irish Lions, have come much better prepared, and armed, to deal with the threat he poses.
Essentially teams – well, the good ones, anyway – have taken away the time and space that makes him such a threat, and forced him into being more of a facilitator than a creator. As pickyour-poison options go, it’s not a bad one.
The touring Lions did it brilliantly through the three tests against the All Blacks with their lightning line-speed on defence. The New Zealanders had some success in the first international, mainly through playing off the halfback, but in all three Barrett’s influence was minimal and sporadic.
It’s been a similar story in Super Rugby. The Chiefs (twice) and Crusaders have been the only teams to roll the Canes this season, and part of their successful formula involved getting up fast and taking away the threat that Barrett poses.
Of course, this is all just smart rugby. And what Barrett has faced has been a form of the sophomore blues. What worked for him so well in his first campaign as a fulltime starter for the All Blacks appears to have been negated in 2017 by some sound adjustments from opposing teams.
Surely, Wallabies coach Michael Cheika is working on something similar for the first two Bledisloe Cup tests.
Barrett has to expect it, and he has to start figuring out some solutions. It’s not about him taking on teams on his own, of course, and you have to give him some credit for the fact that the two players who have fronted for most of the season for the Hurricanes in the two spots outside him (Ngani Laumape and Vince Aso) have combined for 28 tries.
The All Blacks are not panicking over a challenging Lions series for Barrett. They rightfully figure it will all be part of the learning process and, if anything, will fast forward his readiness for what lies ahead.
But national coach Steve Hansen acknowledged that it was not a vintage series for Barrett, with his goalkicking fallibility also laid bare in the second and third tests when one or two highly makeable misses carried weighty ramifications.
‘‘If you look at Beauden he came into 10 [post-Carter] and everything had gone great for him, and there had been no real pressure on him. Throughout the [Lions] series, both with his goalkicking and direction of the game, he was put under pressure. He’ll come through this series better in both those departments going forward,’’ Hansen said.
The ball is very much in Barrett’s court now to deal with his new challenges. The goalkicking, we’re told (by Hansen), is a mechanical thing. And he is getting help with that. The comforting presence of his younger brother, who’s a much more technically adept placekicker, might help too.
But the general and tactical play is all about Barrett figuring things out. He has to find the weaknesses in those rushing lines, either through distribution or an adept kick, and maybe has to cut his losses and take a stride or two extra depth.
Whatever. It’s on Barrett to nut this out. It’s what the great players do. And playing on the semifinal stage this weekend, in likely userfriendly conditions, in what should be an open and fast-paced encounter, looks like as good a place as any to start.