An air of mystery despite trouncing Tonga
It’s not easy to reconcile how the All Blacks managed to score 102 points and yet reveal little about their general health and cohesion.
But that’s what happened in their first test of 2021 last night: they ran all over Mt Smart, scored just about every other minute and walked off the field with an air of mystery.
The sad truth is that Tonga were as under-equipped and underprepared as was widely forecast.
It was hardly their fault: gathering their players is a near impossible business as it is — with European clubs able to bully, threaten and financially penalise their Pacific Island players whenever they want to play for their country.
Being in a global pandemic meant Tonga were reduced to hauling blokes out of club rugby competitions around New Zealand, and with 13 new caps in their team, the combination of all these conspiring circumstances led to the predictable mismatch.
A tricky window latch, a poorly oiled gate and perhaps even a French battalion would all have been harder to conquer than Tonga.
They threw heart and soul at the game, but didn’t have the personnel, preparation time or conditioning to be any kind of threat.
The All Blacks are unlikely to ever again, certainly not this year, enjoy the sort of time and space they did at Mt Smart, which means an element of caution has to be applied in assessing everything about their performance and in particular, just how sharp their pass and catch was on a crisp Auckland night.
Coach Ian Foster has put a general tidy up of the team’s micro skills high on the agenda for 2021 and, previous
caveat acknowledged, there was a fingertip zing about ball movement.
That wasn’t a surprise given the speed and accuracy of much of the play in Super Rugby.
But still, it must have been heartening for Foster to see it so easily and readily produced in game one of the test season.
Just as he would have been quietly delighted to have seen the only new starting cap, Quinn Tupaea, produce a calm, consistent and tidy effort at second-five.
There were no hints of nerves or a desire on the part of Tupaea to do anything other than hammer up the middle of the field and offload when he had the chance.
He also managed to produce one delicious flick pass off his toes that suggests his skill set is deeper than he has shown and may not take too long to be coaxed into regular action.
Equally pleasing, but in no way surprising, was the contribution of Will Jordan, who confirmed what has been apparent for almost two years — he is one of those players who knows how to finish.
Jordan makes rugby look easy but that’s because he is deadly quick, reads the game brilliantly, anticipates superbly and has the confidence to back himself.
No one should fool themselves that his five tries were simply the result of him being on the end of a dominant backline — that whoever had worn No 14 would have collected the same swag of fivepointers.
He was fuelled by something more than good fortune and Jordan looks like the sort of player who could find ways to score against the toughest and meanest defences, for he has that uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time.
Which was the story of Damian McKenzie’s night, too: he was never far from the ball and balanced his game cleverly in the way he bounced from the backfield to the frontline.
The jury never quite managed to reach a verdict on the Richie Mo’unga-Beauden Barrett dual playmaking combination, but McKenzie as a heavily used first receiver is something that genuinely interests and looked promising.
The Chiefs maestro spent much of the game in the frontline and having him madly bobbing about close to the ruck is going to trouble much better teams than Tonga.
The only other point to be reinforced was that Luke Jacobson is a No 8 with serious possibilities. He worked his socks off, hit things hard and showed soft touches, too.