Beauden, you beauty
Barrett stars as All Blacks humble Samoa
First- five Beauden Barrett celebrates with Israel Dagg after scoring for the All Blacks against Manu Samoa at Eden Park last night in what was an emphatic New Zealand performance.
In case anyone didn’t know already, it turns out the All Blacks can play rugby. Pass and catch stuff where players kind of make it up as they go and trust their basic skills.
They can see space, offload out of the tackle, run good lines and score tries.
It’s going to be hard to shake the suspicion that Samoa were fairly ordinary — maybe even quite bad — but still, even allowing for that, the All Blacks did a reasonable job in blowing them apart.
They did, after all, score more tries and points in one game than the Lions have managed in four.
The All Blacks played enough good rugby to feel satisfied. There was enough awareness about what they were trying to do and enough precision to feel that even when the stakes jump next week and the line speed goes into hyper drive and the Lions come hard at them with the ball, the All Blacks are about ready.
Or as ready as they can expect to be at this stage of the season. No one was expecting immaculate or thinking it would be perfect.
Other than winning, the All Blacks were there to lay down a foundation: to get the worst out of their system. Even they can’t click their fingers and come together in five days.
It takes a little time for teams to settle when they bring players together from different places.
It doesn’t matter how good the individuals are, they still have to find their cohesion and flow.
They still have to connect with those around them, get their timing sorted in the various technical elements and sense each other’s movements.
The All Blacks are probably quicker than most international teams to find themselves and they will be happy enough with their progress in that regard against Samoa.
The lineout went well for them. Admittedly Samoa’s didn’t look great but that may have had a fair bit to do with the pressure being exerted.
It was much the same story with the scrum. Except the All Blacks were especially good there. They were in total control and that was the beauty of having four of the tight five all playing regularly for the Crusaders.
Sam Whitelock showed his teammates how to deal with kickoffs — something no side that has played the Lions on this tour has done so far.
Aaron Smith, picked because he’s rated by the coaches as the best passing halfback in the world, proved they were right while also making a claim to be not so far behind Ireland’s Conor Murray when it comes to tactical kicking from the base.
If there was another individual performance worth singling out, it would be that of Anton Lienert- Brown. The youngster has been a little quiet in Super Rugby but the big occasion got the best out him.
His ability to find space and play himself and others into it was impressive. He’s a natural footballing talent — so good at using footwork and offloads, and ensuring halfchances are converted into tries.
He showed that midway through the second half when he paused, looked up, saw the All Blacks had a four- man overlap and crafted a long, looping pass to Julian Savea. New Zealand 78 ( A. Lienert- Brown, B. Barrett 2, A. Savea 2, S. Williams, I. Dagg, J. Savea, C. Taylor, V. Fifita, TJ Perenara, S. Cane tries; B. Barrett 7 cons, L. Sopoaga 3 cons) Samoa 0