How the ABs are
Wayne Smith called Ruahei Demant the best player in the country, because that’s what you do. Any rugby coach worth their salt will massage the ego of their No 10.
That’s why Scott Robertson called Richie Mo’unga the Crusaders’ ‘Steph Curry’. Your playmaker is the most important person in the team and he or she needs to feel good about themself.
Sadly it is the failure of the All Blacks to make their No 10 feel good about himself that is the biggest oversight of the control freaks in their coaching staff and playing group. Time and time again the most talented player in the country has been hung out to dry by people who don’t know how to get the best out of him.
It happened yet again at the weekend, this time in the draw against England, and we should no longer be surprised. In his brief time as the All Blacks firstfive, Mo’unga has played with at least nine different No 12s. That is an astonishing lack of continuity in a position which thrives off familiarity with the player inside and outside.
When Mo’unga first came on the scene he was dissed by thenAll Blacks coach Steve Hansen as playing behind a Rolls Royce pack. Mo’unga then had to look over his shoulder at Beauden Barrett all game as the former first-five was picked at 15 and given license to wander into the 10 position.
Dan Carter, the greatest of the All
Blacks 10s, was critical of this undermining of Mo’unga on Sunday as he and Warren Gatland explored the liberation of England’s Marcus Smith. The young Harlequins No 10 is a freakish talent, but both Gatland and Carter felt he had also been stifled internationally, in his case by having Owen Farrell alongside, just as Mo’unga had been stifled by Beaudy.
Carter called Smith ‘‘the star player in the English side’’ and Gatland went on to point out how Farrell’s injury against New Zealand, while not removing him from the pitch, had the benefit of diminishing his authority. He noted that Smith had taken over the goalkicking and this was a help to Smith because, ‘‘as a 10
you want to control the game’’.
‘‘It’s a really good point,’’ said Carter before repeating that the All Blacks had suffered the same problem in their early undermining of Mo’unga. That problem has not gone away because the All Blacks’ brains trust continue to do unfathomably daft things like taking the goalkicking away from Mo’unga.
Far worse than that came about after Mo’unga and Jordie Barrett had hinted that they were a combination worth developing at the end of the Rugby Championship. Next up Foster decides to pick Mo’unga with Tuivasa-Sheck against Italy. OK, so Jordie wasn’t available, but