All Blacks selectors still seeking third-choice halfback
Gregor Paul
After seven weeks of Super Rugby, the All Blacks don’t appear any closer to finding their third halfback.
The search, which began more than a year ago when Tawera KerrBarlow revealed he would be heading to France after the last All Blacks test of 2017, has not yet narrowed.
The net is still cast wide because a handful of players have shown promise but none has made a definitive case to be promoted alongside Aaron Smith and TJ Perenara.
New Zealand has one world class halfback in Smith and one excellent halfback in Perenara — the gap to the emerging pack remains sizeable and hasn’t closed in the first two months of Super Rugby.
It’s unlikely the All Blacks coaches are concerned but they’d like to see the picture change in the next seven weeks and for at least one halfback to stake a claim for promotion.
The selectors’ preference will most likely be for their third halfback to be closer to Smith than Perenara in terms of skill-set and style.
The pass-and-run brand of rugby employed by Smith has become critical to the All Blacks — he generates width and tempo with his speed to the breakdown and accuracy and length of passing.
Perenara offers a more muscular, athletic game that has worked best coming off the bench. He’s a supremely good support runner, ball player and tackler, and that makes him a powerful force in the final 10 minutes when games can be fast and loose. It means that should Smith ever be injured, the All Blacks selectors may want to elevate the third halfback into the starting role, hence their hope someone will come through in the next seven weeks.
And what they are after is for the group of emerging halfbacks to get hands on the ball quickly, pass it and then run. By focusing his game on these simple acts, Smith has established himself as the country’s No 1 halfback and a world class operator. He doesn’t dither. He doesn’t stand over the ball orchestrating his troops or feel the need to pick up, crab sideways a few steps and then pass.
Mitchell Drummond of the Crusaders is potentially the favourite to claim the third spot. He won a bench spot to play against the French XV in Lyon last year because his game is loosely similar to Smith’s.
But he partly owed his call-up to the fact Brad Weber was making his way back from injury. The Chiefs halfback earned a test cap in 2015 but saw his 2017 season disappear when he broke his leg.
Weber is much the same size as Smith, is quick over the ground and, now he’s put the injury behind him, is showing, in patches, the form that earned him his solitary cap.
Chiefs teammate Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi is also being closely watched as he’s another who has built his game on speed and simplicity. He started against the Sunwolves a few weeks ago and, despite making the odd mistake, stuck to the basic script of moving the ball quickly.
Those three may be ahead, but all have plenty to do to convince the selectors they are ready and it may even be that the All Blacks opt to select only two halfbacks for the June series against France, with a view to seeing what happens in the knockout rounds of Super Rugby before committing to a third No 9.