JUDGMENT CALL
The verdict on Beaudy
The far-off gaze would have come into Henry Fonda’s eye after Beauden Barrett’s performance on Saturday night. His fellow jurors would have groaned, knowing that look only too well. The jury was out. And it was going to be out for a few long hours yet.
‘‘We have a reasonable doubt,’’ says Fonda.
And it doesn’t look as if that doubt is going away any time soon. Barrett’s performance against Australia in the first Bledisloe Cup test was a perfect encapsulation of his mixed skills as a rugby player. There were moments of the miracle Barrett, when he did things of which only he is capable. And there were passages of the bewildered Barrett when he and the team gets lost in the inaccuracy of his passing and muddled thinking.
But let’s accentuate the positive to begin with. There is not another rugby player on the planet who could have scored the dribbling try that broke the game open. The kid who once dreamed of playing for Real Madrid was there in the close control. It is far from the first time he has scored such tries.
Barrett is a poacher supreme. When Jack Goodhue jammed in from the side and Bernard Foley’s poor pass was dropped, Barrett was the first to react. It was an awful mistake from Australia, and the jury is certainly not out on Foley; the public want him gone, fed up with a kicking game that does not have the length for international level. But Barrett still had to seize the day – to win a race over 40 metres while dribbling a rugby ball was a tribute to Barrett’s skill and to his pace.
And then there was the kick for Waisake Naholo’s try. The vision for this has been overstated. Ben Smith’s pass and then Damian McKenzie’s jinking run made Barrett a lot of time and space. The opportunity was so obvious that Kieran Read was shouting and pointing alongside Barrett. But the left-footed execution was sumptuous.
Barrett’s defence also saved the All Blacks a couple of times and this is where he is particularly valued by the management. He caught Marika Koroibete on one occasion, forced him to pass on another and made a try saving tackle on Jack Maddocks.
Steve Hansen reckoned after the game: ‘‘First of all he showed us he’s human and he probably felt a wee bit of the pressure. But more importantly he showed us he can cope with it. The more the game went on, the better he went and his confidence grew. We know he’s a world-class player and have got all the faith in the world in him.’’
Hansen sounds a bit like the juror in Twelve Angry Men with the baseball tickets burning a hole in his pocket. He’s pretty much made up his mind and just wants to get out of here. He can’t