‘The Professor’ analyses ABs
for players to work with him before or after training or on off days. You need to understand the idiosyncrasies. It’s like running off Sonny Bill [Williams]. As soon as you understand that Sonny Bill’s right handed - so when he offloads off to his right, it’s out the back and it’s flat; when he offloads to the left hand side it’s still out of his right hand, but he pulls it back.
So you need to be slightly deeper when you support on the inside and flat when you support on the outside. It’s the same with any player. You have to understand their talents and their idiosyncrasies and learn how to create a relationship with them.
MR: Any other options?
WS: One out of the box I reckon they could look at long term is Jordie Barrett as a 12. Particularly if they lower the tackle height which I think they will, it’s going to bring in the offload.
MR: I was going to say Jordie could be like Will Greenwood who had the height and wide span of offload.
WS: Exactly. And when New Zealand won the World Under-20 Championship with Jordie, that’s where he played. Second-five. He starred with Canterbury and that’s where he played, second-five. I’d really like to see him given a go there. He’s nice and tall, he can get the offload away, he’s strong.
MR: I think that’s where he said he wanted to play at one point.
WS: Did he? I also heard him say he wanted to play fullback (laughter). He’s one who could change the game a wee bit. His crossfield kicks are good. And the other thing is that at second-five often the decision is made for you when you get the ball. In some ways it’s an easier position to play.
MR: And who is the 12 going to play outside? The thinking at 10 between Richie Mo’unga and Beauden Barrett seems to be shifting again. There are people who are saying that Mo’unga is struggling to step up to international level. But when New Zealand came back from the autumn tour, Scott Robertson implied that the All Blacks weren’t playing to the strengths of his players.
WS: I think the 10s, Mo’unga and Barrett, are both outstanding. They can do things that very few other 10s can do. They have slightly different strengths. I think in terms of Mo’unga, what I like about him for the Crusaders is that he seems to learn from the plays.
The Crusaders tend to play more on top of teams, so they play closer to the defence with people hitting holes. They tend to try to break the defence like that. So what I mean by Mo’unga learning from his plays is — you watch in the first half and the Crusaders will make a series of plays off set-piece and rucks. They might be up by a small score — and then just after halftime you’ll see them go bang, bang. And they put the game out of touch. I reckon it’s because Mo’unga has noticed frailty. When he’s run the blind side, he’ll pick up if the defence is weak off the side of the scrum and then you’ll see him later in the game run the blindside, and give an inside ball to [Will] Jordan or someone like that, and bang they’ll go through and score.
MR: What is your take on Jordan?
WS: Potential superstar. He’s clearly smart. He has huge physical ability. He’s quick. What he hasn’t got yet (as a wing) is the ability to work around the scrum half. Those little plays when the nine arcs and he’s an option to the outside or he gets off his wing as a wrong-side runner i.e. he’s an option on the other side of the field. I’d like to see him used more in that role, sort of like Christian Cullen. I never thought I’d see another broken field runner like Christian Cullen but this kid could be.
Christian had five gears. He hardly ever used fifth gear, but when he did I’ve never seen a guy accelerate from top speed like he could.
‘‘All Blacks’ coaches are great at getting round Super Rugby, sharing ideas. We’re famous at reinventing ourselves whether it be for law changes or styles of play. So I hope that will happen again.’’ Wayne Smith
MR: New Zealand has the two best 10s in the world, probably
WS: I consider Daniel Carter the best NZ 10 of all time and maybe the best player of all time. I know you’re a Barry John fan, Mark, but sorry — I’d certainly put Beauden and Richie into the category of great 10s in New Zealand history along with Grant Fox and Andrew Mehrtens, two players with special places in my own personal history. So what do you think of Mo’unga? Do you agree with what I said?
MR: Completely. And maybe because of being brought up around people like Carwyn James and Mike Gibson and Barry John, I’ve always admired the cerebral 10 who’s got artistry in his hands and a great ability to see the game in the way in which you were describing.
Whereas with Beauden his genius in a way is more athletic — you think about that hole he went through against Argentina and the ball he threw out the back of his hand. He’ll do things like that to break a game.
But if I were a 12, I’d rather play outside Richie. I think he’d be more sympathetic to what you’re trying to do as a 12. But having said that you’d also be trying to stay on Beauden’s shoulder (laughing) quite a lot
WS: Yeah (laughing). I think what you’re saying is right, but how exciting would that be for Beauden Barrett to know that and to know he can get even better with small parts of his game.
MR: I know you would like to see him get more second touches.
WS: Yeah I always like to see Beaudy support his passes. If he gets a second touch, the team’s going to score. And Steve Hansen used to always say; ‘You get three touches and you’ll score.’ Beauden is just magical in that area.
MR: When you say a second touch, you mean in the same phase of play.
WS: Yeah. Supporting the ball, getting the ball back. He’s a phenomenal threat in that area. They’ve both got huge strengths and rightly work hard on those strengths. It’s probably 80 per cent work hard at what you’re good at, and 20 per cent work hard at what’s important to the game that you’re not so good at. They’ve both got development in them, which is exciting.
MR: Do you think it’s still possible to play them as a 10 and 15?
WS: That’s beyond my pay grade. You’re asking for half the country to turn against me.
MR: You watch a lot of rugby. What trends are you seeing in the North?
WS: Well, they’ve retained their strength upfront, whilst bringing in a much higher skill level for their tight forwards. So you’ve got tight forwards now who can be a passing option as well as a running option.
MR: When you said that I was thinking of people like
Tadh Furlong and Kyle Sinckler who have both got terrific hands
WS: Yeah, and Ellis Genge, the prop for England, Joe Marler, Cian Healy, Andrew Porter — they’re all able to pass close to the opposition. That means it’s a lot more difficult for the defence, doesn’t it? When you’ve got four options coming at you, who are all genuine options, because they can give an inside ball or they can give a short ball outside or they can go behind the short ball option out to a back and that player has got options running off him, it’s much more difficult for the defence. And they haven’t lost their setpiece effectiveness while doing that. That’s a key difference.
MR: I was just wondering if you think that the New Zealand tight forwards are now a little bit behind the Northern Hemisphere whereas they were always a beat ahead in the past?
WS: Maybe, at times. The tradition with the All Blacks though is that they reinvent themselves bloody quickly. And I think that will happen again. I think you’ll see that over this off season. All Blacks’ coaches are great at getting round Super Rugby, sharing ideas. Ian Foster was strong at that during my last few years coaching. We got around all of the Super teams often. We’re famous at reinventing ourselves whether it be for law changes or styles of play. So I hope that will happen again.
MR: You are known as a terrifically empathetic coach but was that natural as part of your skill as a trainee teacher or was it learned later?
WS: I’m surprised a wee bit that I’m thought of as empathetic. As an ambitious coach you’re always on the edge of being too tough on the players and being non-empathetic. You’ve got to have life-changing conversations with players at times. You’ve got to give brutal honesty.
But if you demonstrate that you truly love them, then you can create the relationship where you can do that. And I truly love the players. I’ve got a few trophies in the garage. They’re all tarnished. They rust away. You come to realise it’s relationships that are the most important thing.
MR: Would Ma’a Nonu be a good example of a player you felt you had to have a tough conversation with and it turned out to be so rewarding, for both of you? WS: At the start we had a difficult few years together. During the 2005 Lions tour, he was in the squad but he wasn’t going to be selected for the tests. So Graham (Henry) asked me to put together the things we wanted Ma’a to work on. I sat down with Ma’a and went through a DVD and said when you get back to Wellington, you can show it to John Plumtree (the coach). ‘Plum’ rang me a few days later and wanted to know why we sent Ma’a back — he hadn’t shown him my DVD!
A few years later Gilbert Enoka (the All Blacks mental skills coach) and I met with Ma’a after he’d had a poor game.
So we’re sitting there and we had this pretty tough conversation. Ma’a was looking down. And I said, ‘So what are you going to do about it Ma’a?’
And he looked up at me and he said, ‘Will you help me Smithy?’
That was a big turn around in our relationship. Of course I was keen to help him.
And he said, ‘Can we work for five minutes after training every day?’
So we did. We worked on getting him off the ground quicker to support the ball, to be involved in the game. Because if Ma’a gets a second touch of the ball, you pity the defence. So for the rest of my career with Ma’a we would do five minutes after one training a week.
I’d start with the ball and I’d pass it to him. And then he’d pass back to me, I’d kick it, he’d have to go and get it. He’d run at me. I’d tackle him, sort of, ha ha. He’d have to get up. He’d have to get outside me, then he’d have to double round me. And we’d go for five minutes. It wasn’t sophisticated, just simple.
First time we did it we had the Wallabies at Eden Park the following week. That was in 2008. Ma’a scored two tries in that test. The second try reflected our training drill. Got tackled, got up, got in support, got the ball back and scored. It was phenomenal. Wow, I thought, five minutes of training. Ma’a had this incredible drive and ability to take what he practised into the game.
We became great mates and he became a great of the game. He’s a beautiful man.
MR: Thank you so much Wayne. I will leave the comparison hanging out there.