Beauden Barrett puts on a masterclass to stun Australia
BEAUDEN BARRETT confirmed himself as the world’s best rugby player with an extraordinary four tries and a 30 points haul as New Zealand took Australia to the cleaners for the second week on the bounce.
Barrett used all his pace, vision and rugby intelligence to rip Australia apart with two tries either side of half-time and even crossed for a fifth before officialdom spotted a very marginal knock forward by Ardie Savea earlier in the move.
It was the most eye-popping display by a Test fly-half since Dan Carter – the man Barrett understudied for a long while – put the Lions to the sword at Wellington in 2005
Yet remarkably a couple of weeks ago there was speculation in New Zealand that Barrett could be under pressure for his starting spot from Richie Mo’unga. The Crusaders fly-half was outstanding in Super Rugby this season, a campaign which saw Barrett fire only fitfully for the Hurricanes.
“Beauden is a special player,” said coach Steve Hansen afterwards. “We know that. He’s been world player of the year the last two years. We understand everyone getting excited about Richie Mo’unga, because we’re excited about him too.
“But you can’t buy experience and you can’t buy moments in the middle. Beauden has those and we saw what happens when they all click together like they did tonight.”
The All Blacks were also confronted by a better Australia side at Eden Park but how depressing it must be for the Wallabies to improve significantly and still ship 40 points.
For much of the first half it was level pegging, as was the case last week, before the now inevitable All Blacks surge straight after half-time which no team in world rugby currently seems able to combat.
Barrett opened the scoring early on after a massive hole appeared in the Australia midfield following a multi-phase New Zealand attack initiated by Ben Smith. Touching down unchallenged, Barrett quickly popped over a dropkick conversion fearing it would be over-ruled but there was nothing for officialdom to complain about.
Australia replied with a well-taken try by Will Genia and it was all level two minutes from half-time when New Zealand struck again, the ever present Smith counter-attacking down the right and receiving good support from Jack Goodhue to set up a ruck on the Australia line for Barrett to burst over from short range.
Everybody knew the first ten minutes after the break would be crucial and the Kiwis duly ploughed over for a brace of tries.
New Zealand put the game away efficiently by turning up the power up front and it was prop Joe Moody from short range and flanker Liam Squire with an unstoppable 20 yard burst who scored the tries before the All Blacks went into celebratory mode and really turned it on.
Jordie Barrett touched down, but a superb covering tackle from Bernard Foley had dragged his foot into touch so that was disallowed and moments later, in a brave act of defiance, Foley made a sharp break to create a try for Reece Hodge.
Time for Beauden Barrett to take centre stage again. His hat-trick try was his best, a dummy in midfield on the half-way line and a screeching run upfield between two outpaced defenders to dob down under the sticks.
His disallowed try soon after was actually a cracker but the disappointment was short-lived when he touched down in exactly the same spot two minutes later after a lacerating 90 metre breakout in which Damian McKenzie and the outstanding Ben Smith featured prominently.