Dazzling duo have more left in the tank
Beauden Barrett, fresh from catching an accidental boot from Springboks No 8 Duane Vermeulen in the nose and helping lead his team to an at times exhilarating victory to get his side’s World Cup defence under way, believes the All Blacks have plenty more room for improvement yet.
That goes for his increasingly promising partnership with first-five Richie Mo’unga, too. The pair pulled the strings superbly at Yokohama Stadium during the 23-13 victory in front of a supportive crowd and it’s worth remembering the first time they played together was during the 16-16 draw in Wellington four tests ago.
They varied the All Blacks’ attack with composure and creativity and now all rugby followers know that stopping this team from winning three World Cups in a row will take some serious work and probably a bit of luck.
“It’s only going to get better,” said Barrett of his partnership with Mo’unga. “I love playing with Rich, he’s a super talent, and hopefully for this team, we can figure out how we get the best out of each other and do what’s best for this team. We’ve got a lot more potential in us. It’s exciting.”
The All Blacks expected a rush defence from the Boks and weren’t disappointed. What they had this time was a strategy to break it down; in fact, they had several, and it involved an intelligent and wellexecuted kicking game with in-form wings George Bridge and Sevu Reece capable of making the most of nearly every opportunity.
Bridge’s opening try, with Barrett a key man in the build-up, allowed the All Blacks to finally respond to the pressure the Boks put them under in the opening quarter. The left wing also led his side’s kick-chase threat. Reece, meanwhile, was a jack-in-the-box on the right.
“It’s great to see him being so confident,” Barrett said of Reece. “If it’s a 50-50 for himself, he’ll call for it, which is great. We can feed off that confidence; a new, young, exciting player. Obviously he’s exciting when he gets the ball in hand and he showed moments of brilliance [against the Springboks]. Hopefully we can get him some more ball.”
The All Blacks’ vastly improved kicking game also owed much to the input of halfbacks Aaron Smith and TJ Perenara. Kicking from the back of the ruck hasn’t always been a strength of this pair but it clicked to the extent they overshadowed Faf de Klerk, the halfback who put them under so much pressure at the Cake Tin in August.
“It’s not something we’ve used too much this year but we understand the importance of kicking from No 9 at times,” Barrett said. “You see it a lot from all the top teams in the world. When it comes down to tense games, rush defences and big forward packs who like to go from set piece to set piece and keep it slow, sometimes it’s easy to say ‘here you go, deal with this high ball and see how you want to start your attack again’. I don’t know if they expected that so much from us, but it’s great we have it up our sleeve, too.”
Barrett finished the game looking fresh, which bodes well for the All Blacks; for the 19 other nations here, perhaps not so much.
The All Blacks have a 10-day break before their game against Canada in Oita, in Kyushu.