Fullback gambit
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it was October 25, 2018 when the All Blacks officially unveiled their new strategy of selecting two first-fives in their backline.
“We want two playmakers on the park,” Steve Hansen said following the team announcement for New Zealand’s clash with Australia in Yokohama, with Beauden Barrett named at 10 and Damian McKenzie given fullback duties.
It was almost a throw-away line – just a little bit of ‘coach speak’ to add some flavour to the selection. Yes, McKenzie had spent time wearing the No 10 jersey for the Chiefs, but he was a natural fullback. He’d also lined up at 15 for the All Blacks on 11 previous occasions, so it was a hardly an out-of-the-box selection.
As such, many probably cast aside Hansen’s comments – we weren’t about to see a seismic shift in the way the All Blacks ran their backline.
Damian McKenzie seeks to spark an attack from fullback against the Wallabies in Yokohama in 2018. Photo: Martin Bureau AFP via Getty Images
Of course, hindsight is 20/20.
New Zealand went on to win the match against Australia 37-20, and the Barrett-McKenzie combination was retained for the All Blacks’ three matches on their European tour.
Even against Italy, in the final game of the year, Hansen persevered with the dual-playmaker set-up when it would have been perfectly understandable to hand the fullback role back to Ben Smith or Jordie Barrett.
Instead, Hansen’s comments in the lead-up to the match confirmed that the pairing of Barrett and McKenzie was here to stay.
“We haven’t got too many games left so the more we play them together, the better it will be,” the All Blacks coach said.
“That’s the three guys [alongside Richie Mo’unga] that we see at the moment that would most likely go to the World Cup, so getting those three guys combining, either at the beginning of the game or during the course of the game is important.”
We haven’t got too many games left so the more we play them together, the better it will be.
Steve Hansen on the Barrett/McKenzie dual playmaker set-up in 2018
Come the 2019 season, McKenzie was struck down with injury and having played at flyhalf in 42 of his first 44 starts for the national team, Barrett was shifted to 15 with Mo’unga taking over at 10.
The All Blacks employed the Mo’unga/Barrett combination throughout the 2019 Rugby World Cup, where they eventually fell to England in their semi-final. While the pair certainly weren’t at fault for the loss, their sharing of the playmaking duties hardly seemed natural for either player.
Barrett was subsequently shifted back to 10 for the bronze playoff against Wales but that was perhaps less a tactical decision and more a sentimental one.
Ben Smith, a stalwart of 84 matches, was playing his final game in a black jersey and it made sense to send off the affable Otago man in style.
It was Smith, after all, who was pushed from fullback to the wing to accommodate McKenzie and subsequently Barrett. Come the World Cup, the then-33-year-old wasn’t even able to earn a spot on the wing with new boys George Bridge and Sevu Reece preferred.
Ben Smith on his way to scoring one of his two tries against Wales in the World Cup bronze playoff in Tokyo. Photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images
Perhaps the match with England would have gone differently with a man of Smith’s experience on the park but whatever the case, the fixture with Wales gave Smith an opportunity to sign off his test career in deserving fashion.
McKenzie’s elevation to the starting team in 2018 had nothing to do with Smith’s form – it was simply a tactical adjustment by the All Blacks coaches.
While Smith was an experienced operator in the No 15 jersey, his experience running the cutter from the flyhalf position was almost non-existent – and that’s what Hansen and his fellow selectors wanted from their fullback.
When Ian Foster took over from Hansen as head coach in 2020, there was a possibility that Foster would throw the dual-playmaker set-up out the window and head back to the drawing board – but it wasn’t to be.
Jordie Barrett had been the country’s form fullback throughout the season but was instead selected on the right wing in the All Blacks’ first test of the year. Mo’unga and Beauden Barrett, meanwhile, were again named to start together at 10 and 15, with Foster doubling down on the tactic from the previous two seasons.
“Having two fantastic decision-makers is going to help drive us around the park,” he said.
“Beauden still wants to play 10 but we also know how influential he can be at 15. Probably the form 15 in the country has been Jordie. I think you’ll find him in the backfield anyway. We kind of feel we get the best of both worlds.”
Having two fantastic decision-makers is going to help drive us around the park.
Ian Foster
Despite his obvious form, the youngest Barrett brother has rarely been tasked with controlling a game from the pivot position, making just one start there in his professional career – against Namibia last year’s World Cup. Like Ben Smith, Jordie Barrett simply isn’t the type of player that the current All Blacks selectors want wearing 15 – and Foster said as much when naming the first team of his tenure as head coach.
“Can he [fill one of the All Blacks’ playmaker roles]? Yes he can. Is it his strength? No it’s not. But, is he working on it? Yes. So the answer is that’s a requirement of our game, and so he’s working hard in that space.”
The message has been delivered loud and clear from Hansen and now Foster – if you want to wear the No 15 jersey for the All Blacks, you need to be almost as competent a flyhalf as you are a fullback.
Effectively, that means for any up-and-coming fullbacks that either you need to earn some minutes playing at No 10 for your Super Rugby side, or your Super Rugby team already incorporates a similar approach to the national set-up.
The Blues used Beauden Barrett regularly at fullback in his first season with the team in 2020 and will likely run with either Stephen Perofeta or newcomer Zarn Sullivan for the coming season – two men who are just as happy wearing No 10 as they are No 15.
Jordie Barrett shifts the ball against Australia in the Wallabies Bledisloe Cup win in Brisbane last year. Photo: Chris Hyde/Getty Images
The Chiefs have Damian McKenzie on their books while 21-year-old Kaleb Trask, who clocked up a few matches at flyhalf last season and could continue in that role this year, was primarily injected at fullback for Bay of Plenty in the Mitre 10 Cup.
Jordie Barrett has evidently been working on his playmaking abilities with the Hurricanes and has taken on more responsibility since brother Beauden left – but that was still not enough for the 23-year-old to accrue more than one match wearing No 15 for the All Blacks in 2020.
Further south, it gets even more interesting.
David Havili was one of the Crusaders’ stand-out players during their Super Rugby Aotearoa title-winning run and was even asked to fill in at No 10 against the Chiefs. His ability to cover every position across the backline from flyhalf out should put him in good stead for 2021, but it’s his young protégé that will be feeling a little bit of heat.
Will Jordan has long been earmarked for great things. In Jordan’s final year with renowned rugby nursery Christchurch Boys’ High School, he dotted down 19 times in 11 matches to top the Canterbury competition’s try-scoring charts.
And while Jordan has slowly bided his time at the Crusaders behind regular fullback Havili, the 22-year-old will be thirsty for match time as he continues his development. More often than not, Jordan has been deployed on the wing – and that’s where he spent his rare minutes for the All Blacks this season too.
I think, particularly as a fullback, I’m just trying to grow my ability to come and step in as a pivot and play that playmaker role.
Will Jordan
If Jordan wants to push his case to wear 15 for the national side, however, he’s well aware that there are aspects of his game that need improving.
“I think, particularly as a fullback, I’m just trying to grow my ability to come and step in as a pivot and play that playmaker role,” Jordan told The XV. “That’s something that probably hasn’t been a strength of mine over the last couple of years but has become a bit more apparent in a fullback’s game recently, particularly with the All Blacks.
“My catch-pass is something that I’m always working on and just my general physicality around the game as well, whether it’s defensively or on attack, just imposing your presence in that way. That’s probably the two things that I focused on mainly, week-in, week-out, trying to improve on.
“I think it’s important to have an understanding of what the coaches or selectors are wanting in that fullback position and growing your skills in that area. You’re always getting feedback on what you can get better at and it’s important to take that on board but I think at the same time as well, it’s important to understand your strengths and what you’re good and the point of difference you can provide.”
At the Highlanders, it’s still up in the air who will play fullback. Nehe Milner-Skudder was signed up for last season’s Super Rugby Aotearoa campaign but wasn’t back to full fitness in time to run out for his new side but should feature in 2021, while the southerners have also recruited Solomon Alaimalo from the Chiefs.
Milner-Skudder was used predominantly in the No 15 jersey in his early years with the Hurricanes but played all 13 of his All Blacks tests on the wing, while Alaimalo has admitted that his move south was partially motivated by a desire to play more at fullback – something which McKenzie’s presence at the Chiefs denied.
“You’ve got Big Jim [McKenzie] up here, one of the best fullbacks in New Zealand,” Alaimalo told The XV following the announcement of his transfer. “I’d never count myself out, but I just knew if I did want to push my case for a regular starting spot as a 15, my best chance was to be down at the Highlanders – and I’m excited for the challenge down there.”
Substitute Will Jordan enjoyed a sparkling cameo when scoring two tries in several minutes on the right wing against Argentina at McDonald Jones Stadium last year. Photo: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
Alaimalo, like Jordan, acknowledged that if higher honours are to ever be on the table, then adjustments to his game will be necessary.
“I’ve always known that that’s been a part of my game that I need to work on because I’ve always been a run-first kind of 15,” he said.
“After I’d pretty much confirmed the deal down south, I had a Zoom meeting with Browny [Highlanders coach Tony Brown] and told him where I saw myself and where I felt I needed to work on my game and he was basically thinking exactly the same way. He said my ability to play first receiver and stuff as a 15 is where I needed to get better.
Obviously there’s so much more to playing fullback than just running the ball back.
Solomon Alaimalo
“Obviously there’s so much more to playing fullback than just running the ball back. Once I chip away there, I just feel like I’ll be able to see the game a lot more clearly, so that’s where all my focus will be going towards.”
Rugby, like any sport, operates in cycles. In the early 2000s, big, fast wingers were all the rage. By the end of the decade, the thinking had changed. The All Blacks team that Graham Henry selected for the 2011 World Cup final had Cory Jane and Richard Kahui on the wings – players that perhaps didn’t possess the speed of the likes of Joe Rokocoko and Sitiveni Sivivatu, but were more well-rounded players.
Come 2019, ‘safe’ players made way for men with undeniable X-factor – six-cap Sevu Reece was handed the No 14 jersey in the semi-final loss to England ahead of the supremely experienced Ben Smith.
As such, while a second playmaking option at No 15 has become the modus operandi for the All Blacks of the past few years, there’s no guarantee the tactic will remain beyond the coming seasons.
Until such a time arrives when the All Blacks head coach decides that a playmaking fullback isn’t a necessity, however, New Zealand’s up-and-coming outside backs know the skills, abilities and experience they’ll need to possess and develop to crack the national side.
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Prime target
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There is obviously no guarantee the All Blacks will win the next World Cup with Aaron Smith, but it’s a near certainty they won’t win it without him.
The man whose contract New Zealand Rugby came perilously close to terminating four years ago is now set to become one of the country’s highest paid players if he agrees to commit to an extension that will take him through to 2023.
And NZR need him to agree because the country’s famed conveyor belt of talent has hit a glitch and hasn’t spat out a scrum-half of similar class for several years. But Smith’s value and importance to the All Blacks isn’t built exclusively on the lack of alternatives.
Even if there were good number nines falling out of trees, Smith would still be the highest priority player for NZR to lock into a contract beyond next year for the simple reason he gives the All Blacks the ability to play with the pace and width that can make their attack deadly.
There simply isn’t another scrum-half in the country – the world even – that offers the same skill-sets as Smith and the All Blacks can’t be the team they want to be without him.
There simply isn’t another scrum-half in the country – the world even – that offers the same skill-sets as Smith and the All Blacks can’t be the team they want to be without him.
To some extent All Blacks coach Ian Foster has become a victim of his and former coach Steve Hansen’s bravery in 2012. When they first hooked up as a coaching duo ahead of Super Rugby that year, they kicked around ideas and found that they shared a belief that the All Blacks needed to move away from selecting muscular, physically imposing nines and find an out and out passer with the speed and aerobic capacity to get to every ruck.
The brave part was that they would be looking for an athlete with a totally different body shape to the sorts of players that had previously been picked. In a game increasingly obsessed with size, power and collisions, they were going to go against the tide and pick an 80kg welterweight who could snugly curl up and sleep in one of lock forward Luke Romano’s size 18 boots.
It was high risk, high reward, though. They committed to Smith and he in turn committed himself to dropping 10 skinfold measurements to enable him to play for 70 minutes, 80 if he had to, at full capacity.
Aaron Smith, pictured scoring against the Wallabies at Eden Park in October, has been a key man in unlocking the All Blacks attack since his test debut in 2012. (Photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
The All Blacks haven’t always been the world’s best side during Smith’s eight seasons, but they have been the world’s best attacking side and while the magic produced by the likes of Dan Carter, Beauden Barrett, Ben Smith and Ma’a Nonu has obviously helped, the key to it all has been the little bloke who has worn the No 9 jersey in 97 tests since 2012.
Between 2012 and 2019, the All Blacks scored 496 tries. That was an an average of 4.4 per test. The next most prolific side in that period were England who scored 301 – just 60 per cent of the All Blacks’ total. Australia were the next best attacking team with 296 tries. South Africa scored 291, Ireland 280, Wales 212 and France 180.
In 2016 the All Blacks scored 80 tries – a number it took France the entire 2012-2015 World Cup cycle to reach. The prevailing view is that defences are dominating the game but the All Blacks still managed to score 287 tries in the last World Cup cycle at an average of 5.4 a game.
Even this year, one where rugby has seemingly been plunged further into a defensive and box-kicking mire, the All Blacks scored 21 tries in six tests – the majority of which Smith had a hand in creating or finishing.
He is the All Blacks’ attacking differentiator – the man whose precision passing, split-second decision-making and all round game management enables his side to create space and opportunity against the most rigid defences.
He is the All Blacks’ attacking differentiator – the man whose precision passing, split-second decision-making and all round game management enables his side to create space and opportunity against the most rigid defences.
Put another way – the All Blacks never look the same threat when Smith leaves the field or doesn’t play. TJ Perenara has a range of skills and abilities but they don’t give the All Blacks the same range of attacking possibilities and, probably more obviously than any time since 2012, this year highlighted the gulf in quality between the top ranked halfbacks.
What also became apparent in 2020 is that Smith’s desire to play at the highest level remains undiminished and at 32 he’s a better player than he was at 22. He’s just as quick and just as accurate with his passing and probably even fitter while adding a clever and strong kicking game to his repertoire as well as a leadership element.
That last component was put on full public view after the All Blacks opened their season with a 16-all draw with the Wallabies in October – a game in which Smith held himself culpable for the under performance.
“I just want to always keep pushing myself to another level of my performance and it wasn’t good enough at the weekend,” Smith said a few days later. “If you don’t show up with the right intent mentally, it’s a long day.
Aaron Smith has improved his kicking game significantly and has added a leadership element to his role at the All Blacks. (Photo: Matt King/Getty Images)
“My own standard wasn’t up to it. My passing was erratic, inaccurate and really set us up. It gave them shots at Richie Mo’unga, it didn’t give our forwards opportunities to run on to the ball … things I take pride in I need to sharpen up.”
It was a sign of not only the standards he expects of himself but also his new found maturity and contentment. Since his annus horriblis in 2016, Smith has given up alcohol, attended counselling and become a father – all of which has enabled him to channel his incredible passion and energy into all the right areas.
He’s a different man and indeed a different player to the one he was four years ago and arguably the highest priority signing NZR has to make next year.
Curiously, Smith, captain Sam Cane and veteran hooker Dane Coles are the three most senior All Blacks not contracted beyond 2021 and are also the three players on the shortlist for player of the year.
Cane will be an easy enough negotiation. He’s not going to walk away from being the All Blacks captain in the middle of a World Cup cycle. Coles, at 34, proved he can still be brilliantly mobile, abrasive and effective at the highest level, and doesn’t seem interested in an overseas stint.
“I just want to always keep pushing myself to another level of my performance… If you don’t show up with the right intent mentally, it’s a long day.
All Blacks scrum-half Aaron Smith
The prospect of playing at a third World Cup and taking on a mentoring role – much like Keven Mealamu did between 2012 and 2015, no doubt carries significant appeal for Coles. At his age, and with three young children, a two-year extension will be hard to turn down.
But Smith will have options. He’ll be in demand around the world and even with Covid having impacted budgets, there will be clubs able and willing to throw huge money at him.
When he re-signed for two years in 2019, he said he’d received offers to leave, but: “I don’t want to look back and go I wish I’d done that in New Zealand or I wish I’d achieve that or I wish I’d stayed and done that. At the moment I see too many things I want to try and do in New Zealand.
“I talk to a lot of people who have signed overseas and they tell you the grass ain’t greener. It’s tough, the rugby’s different, the cultures are not the same, they don’t look after you or your partners as well. It’s a bit of the wild, wild west.”
To lose Smith would be disastrous. The All Blacks can all but forget about winning the next World Cup if they don’t capture his signature and what looms now is a landmark moment – a point in time where history is going to be dramatically shaped one way or the other.
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Boom and bust
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Tew Zealand clearly does boom-bust cycles when it comes to their No 10s. In 2011 they went to a World Cup with just one genuine test first-five, albeit he was arguably the greatest in history. Four years later they were sifting through six options, all of whom probably could have won the All Blacks the World Cup.
This crazy supply line saw Daniel Carter finish his career in 2015 as World Player of the Year – sparking everyone to say the All Blacks would be in trouble having to organise themselves without him, only for Beauden Barrett to slip into the role and finish 2016 as World Player of the Year.
He pulled off the same feat in 2017, a year in which, again, it appeared New Zealand had a cupboard-full of quality play-makers.
There was Barrett and Lima Sopoaga. Richie Mo’unga had just led the Crusaders to the Super Rugby title and Damian McKenzie was poised to blossom with the Chiefs. Stephen Perofeta played against the Lions for the Blues and showed a couple of magical touches that boded well and so no one needed to be too upset that Aaron Cruden, after winning his 50th test cap, was heading off to Montpellier.
As 2021 looms, the landscape looks decidedly barren again. The cycle is bust.
But as 2021 looms, the landscape looks decidedly barren again. The cycle is bust. Barrett will be in Japan during Super Rugby and while the coaching fraternity say this is a golden opportunity for someone else to haul their light out from under the bushel, the prospect of anyone actually doing so looks remote.
New Zealand’s current crop of first-fives does not strike as being vintage. There is the world-class Mo’unga – a man who has steered the Crusaders to four successive Super Rugby titles but who is still, to some degree, finding his feet at test level.
And there is Barrett – the extraordinarily talented visionary who is brave enough to try almost anything on attack.
But other than those two, New Zealand is not blessed. If one or both of Barrett or Mo’unga should slip in the shower one day next year and do themselves some damage, New Zealand would be wound up into quite the state trying to find replacements.
Daniel Carter, perhaps the All Blacks’ best ever No10, kicks the winning drop goal against Ireland in Christchurch in 2012. (Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)
McKenzie has played a test wearing No 10 and while that went well enough, it was two years ago and since then, he’s almost exclusively been used at fullback by the Chiefs and the All Blacks.
He came through schoolboy rugby in Christchurch as a No 10, started life with Waikato as a No 10 but once he hit the full-time professional ranks he was shifted to fullback.
It was always sold as temporary and for a brief period in 2018 it looked like he was finally going to be given his chance to play at No 10 for the Chiefs and off the bench for the All Blacks. But it turned out he had come to prefer fullback having spent to much time playing there and that all of his coaches agreed that was his future.
He was once a 10 forced to play fullback, now he’s a fullback who might, at a push, be considered well enough equipped to cover 10. Bottom line is this – strike him off the list as someone who the All Blacks are developing as a genuine play-maker from first receiver.
Richie Mo’unga, a man who has steered the Crusaders to four successive Super Rugby titles, is still, to some degree, finding his feet at test level.
Josh Ioane is the other Super Rugby player to have played at No 10 for the All Blacks – Jordie Barrett has too but that was a one-off at the World Cup and not a serious option to develop.
Ioane is obviously talented – that was impossible to miss in the way he played for the Highlanders in 2019.
But having won a solitary cap last year, he didn’t build on it in 2020 and there are fundamental questions to be answered about whether he has the patience and all round tactical vision to manage the All Blacks through a tight test.
At the moment he seems like a good player, but has only reached the mezzanine floor that sits between Super Rugby and the All Blacks.
Richie Mo’unga, on the run against opposite James O’Connor in the drawn Bledisloe Cup test in Wellington this year, is the All Blacks’ incumbent No10. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
And that’s it in terms of those playing Super Rugby next year who have previous test exposure. Perofeta has been riddled with injury and now seems destined to play more at fullback. His Blues team-mate Otere Black has advanced in the last two years but only to the point where he looks a tidy and organised Super Rugby option.
With no Barrett around, 2021 looms as make or break for Black – the year in which he either lifts his game and proves he can make the next level or the one where he, or more pertinently All Blacks coach Ian Foster, decides it’s simply not going to happen. This will be Black’s seventh Super Rugby season and that is more than enough time to make a definitive assessment.
Kaleb Trask at the Chiefs has spent most of the Mitre 10 Cup at fullback and with Bryn Gatland having shifted to Hamilton, the former may now also be committed to the backfield which seems increasingly to be the case with Mitch Hunt at the Highlanders, too.
And with so many prospects now eager to play at fullback and genuine doubts hanging over those such as Black and Ioane who have committed to playing first-five, the All Blacks will have issues if something happens to either Barrett or Mo’unga.
With so many prospects now eager to play at fullback and genuine doubts hanging over those such as Otere Black and Josh Ioane who have committed to playing first-five, the All Blacks will have issues if something happens to either Beauden Barrett or Mo’unga.
But then the landscape didn’t appear so different in 2021 either. Back then there was daylight between Carter and the chasing pack and little confidence that the lead hopefuls Colin Slade and Cruden would close the gap.
Things changed quickly though that year. They changed throughout that cycle. Cruden relished being reunited with his former Manawatu mentor Dave Rennie at the Chiefs and they combined to win their first Super Rugby title.
Cruden was hesitant and uncertain at times in 2010 and 2011 but in 2012 he clicked into his natural groove and suddenly started slicing defences and booming the ball around the field.
Josh Ioane has played one test – against Tonga last year – but the appointment of head coach Tony Brown at the Highlanders may help him reach the next level. (Photo by Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)
His shift to the Chiefs also opened the door for Barrett to come through at the Hurricanes. He was a name no one knew at the start of 2012, something that changed dramatically as the months ticked by.
At the Crusaders an opportunity arose for Tom Taylor to show what he could do in the absence of Carter, who missed the start of the Super Rugby season. He was remarkably calm, polished and accurate.
Slade rebuilt his confidence in 2013 after a horror run of injuries that saw him break his ankle and jaw twice and the arrival of Tony Brown at the Highlanders coaxed the best out of Lima Sopoaga.
So perhaps a similar story may develop in 2021. Brown, having taken over as head coach of the Highlanders, may be able to give Ioane the finesse and control he needs to nudge himself up that last step.
Clayton McMillan will be at the Chiefs where he might decide to install Trask as his play-maker and give him the tools he needs to establish himself.
Maybe all Black needs is more time in the role – a full, injury-free campaign with the Blues – a rejuvenated and organised Blues, that is.
And what about Jackson Garden-Bachop at the Hurricanes? Could he be the unexpected riser in 2021? He developed in the veritable leaps and bounds in 2020 after seemingly being stuck in a rut.
The picture is relatively bleak but history has shown how quickly that can change.
Miracle man
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There comes a point when good luck starts to seem more like good management. A point when the evidence suggests that the uncanny isn’t that at all, but calculated, deliberate and sustainable.
Will Jordan has reached that very crossroads after effectively securing the All Blacks this year’s Tri-Nations when he scored two tries in two minutes after coming off the bench with 15 minutes left in the second test against the Pumas.
Jordan didn’t turn the game in the sense that he arrived and the momentum suddenly swung in favour of the All Blacks. It wasn’t one of those rags to riches injections at all.
The All Blacks’ domination of the Test had been total. They had held the ball pretty much for the entire 65 minutes before Jordan arrived and had played almost exclusively in Argentina’s territory.
But what had been missing up until Jordan’s arrival was the killer blow: the additional tries the All Blacks needed to grab the bonus point and with it, near certainty they will be crowned champions next week from the comfort of their managed quarantine back in New Zealand.
Will Jordan celebrates with Beauden Barrett and Rieko Ioane after scoring his second test try against Argentina. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
It had become almost painful seeing the All Blacks, with two tries and a 17-0 lead, spend a solid 15 minutes in the middle of the second-half unable to find a way through what was another remarkable scrambling defensive effort from the Pumas.
There were times when it seemed impossible that the All Blacks wouldn’t score and yet that vital try never came – and as each attempt to score was thwarted, the sense deepened that frustration would soon kick in and New Zealand’s big chance would be blown.
And then the dam broke when Jordan, with lightning speed, pounced on a dropped ball from another failed Pumas backs move and within three metres had escaped the clutches of the last defender which enabled him to cruise the other 40 metres to score.
Two minutes later he chose to jam in from his right wing on defence, which was an inspired decision. The timing was perfect as the Pumas didn’t see him move late and he managed to stick his right arm out, bump the intended pass up in the air to catch it himself and then, again, accelerate and swerve to be free from the chasing defenders and score.
But what had been missing up until Jordan’s arrival was the killer blow: the additional tries the All Blacks needed to grab the bonus point and with it, near certainty they will be crowned champions next week from the comfort of their managed quarantine back in New Zealand.
From being 17-0 when Jordan came on, four minutes after his arrival it was 31-0 and the All Blacks had their bonus point. Was he simply lucky? In the right place at the right time?
The answer is yes to the second part but no to the first and what’s become clear about the 22-year-old outside back in 2020 is that he is not living off luck.
It’s highly refined rugby instincts that have enabled him to be in the right place at the right time all season and be not only a spectacular scorer of tries, but a scorer of spectacular tries.
He finished Super Rugby Aotearoa as the competition’s most prolific scorer, but the numbers don’t tell the story of how important many of his tries were: the influence they had on changing the game.
Jordan was the man who delivered the winning tries for the Crusaders against the Blues and Chiefs; he was the man who found a way through the staunch Highlanders defence with 10 minutes left of the final game to win the title.
It was Jordan who rose high above Mitch Hunt in August to grab Richie Mo’unga’s cross-kick and win the South the inter-island fixture three minutes after the final whistle and it was Jordan who provided the All Blacks with the breakthrough moment in their final test of 2020.
Jordan proved his aerial prowess by plucking a cross-field kick out of the air to score the winning try in the 2020 North Island v South Island game. (Photo by Grant Down/AFP via Getty Images)
Captain Sam Cane, clearly as delighted as he was relieved that the losing streak had ended, said after the 38-0 victory: “Will Jordan has an uncanny knack of being able to make things happen when he comes on.”
It was eerily reminiscent of former captain Richie McCaw, who spent many a post-match interview between 2012 and 2015 making reference to the contribution of another uncanny youngster called Beauden Barrett.
There was no one quite like Barrett in that period for making an impact off the bench. He was the All Blacks’ game-changer back then – supremely quick, agile and alert, his fresh legs and natural rugby instincts would take him to curious places where he would score tries that required imagination and a depth of class.
It was eerily reminiscent of former captain Richie McCaw, who spent many a post-match interview between 2012 and 2015 making reference to the contribution of another uncanny youngster called Beauden Barrett.
Jordan is now shaping as much the same player. Maybe he doesn’t have the breadth of skill as Barrett but he’s as quick, he’s as instinctive and he’s similarly equipped to roam in areas where defences don’t quite know what he’s doing until it’s too late.
There have been a few missing pieces in the All Blacks jigsaw for some time, and the lack of a game-changing, bench impact player has been one which has hurt them for almost five years now.
Once they lost Barrett to the starting team in 2016, they were never able to find a similar, rip-them-apart at the death sort of player to replace him on the bench.
They thought Damian McKenzie was going to be that late impact player – his blinding pace and acceleration potentially lethal from the backfield against a tiring defence. But injury has derailed him and maybe too his confidence has declined.
In some respects, Barrett’s shift to fullback in 2019 was partly about giving the All Blacks the best of both world’s – the dual-playmaking they felt they needed and the destructive back-field runner who could cause carnage in the last 20 minutes.
Beauden Barrett was once one of the best finishers in world rugby. A permanent starting role has somewhat subdued his impact for the All Blacks. (Photo by Ashley Western/MB Media/Getty Images)
But it never really worked -not the late impact part – because it’s hard for a player who has been on the field for 60 minutes to suddenly make a dramatic difference in the last 20. The dynamic has to change – the defence has to be asked a new question and that only happens when they have to face a new player.
Jordan seems like he’s the one and while that may be a revelation to the rest of the world, it’s certainly not to the All Blacks coaching staff.
Former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen had put Jordan on the national team’s radar as far back as 2016. Jordan was at Christchurch Boys’ High School – the South Island’s famed producer of prodigious talent – often playing against Hansen’s son. Every now and again Hansen, in his parental capacity, would see Jordan from a muddy sideline on a Saturday morning and get a glimpse of a future star.
The former coach wasn’t one to get too excited about schoolboy talent, believing the journey was too long and treacherous from there to the test arena to see it as inevitable. But he felt Jordan had incredible pace and instincts – two things that can’t be coached and which gave him a basis to be something extraordinary if he could supplement his natural gifts with hard work and application.
Jordan seems like he’s the one and while that may be a revelation to the rest of the world, it’s certainly not to the All Blacks coaching staff.
Jordan has delivered on the hard work front and he’s also shown a depth of resilience in the way he has battled against constant injury disruption: the youngster barely played in 2018 due to concussion and then missed half of 2019 with a knee injury.
That he’s made it through those additional obstacles has only heightened the belief that Jordan could now be the man who takes occupancy of the All Blacks number 23 jersey in this World Cup cycle and produces endless magical moments at the tail end of big games.
Finally, it looks like the All Blacks have their impact player – their game-changer, their point of difference to conjure something impossible, almost unimaginable, in the final quarter. They have their miracle man and Jordan isn’t living off good luck, he’s operating on well honed, highly attuned skills that make him the sort of player defences – even the most crushing which are all so common at the moment – can’t quite close down.
“Isn’t he [Jordan] great at picking up plums – he does it brilliantly well,” beamed an ecstatic All Blacks coach Foster from Newcastle. “It was the end result of a lot of defensive pressure. We had scoreboard pressure on them and I thought our defensive line came up a lot better today, and we took advantage of that.”
This post has been edited by xDavid_S on 13 Jan 2021, 09:10 
NEW ZEALAND "ALL BLACKS" part 2, მსოფლიო თასის მოქმედი გამარჯვებული
