Former Wallabies were left in awe of Jordie Barrett’s latest performance for the Bledisloe Cup-retaining All Blacks.
Dave Rennie’s side thrashed Australia 50-19 in Auckland last Saturday, bringing an end to the five-match unbeaten start that Les Kiss had enjoyed since succeeding Joe Schmidt as head coach.
After Schmidt signed off with a win over Italy, Kiss had engineered wins over Japan (two), Argentina (one win and a draw) and South Africa to create an incredible level of hype heading into the Bledisloe Cup opener in New Zealand.
Despite the Wallabies not having defeated the All Blacks at Eden Park since 1986 and not having won the Bledisloe Cup since 2002, there was plenty of giddy optimism about them in the lead-up, especially as the hosts had recently been beaten 3-1 by the Springboks in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.
Australia, though, were served a lethal dose of humble pie with their seven tries to three hammering and the loss had former internationals Nick Phipps and Morgan Turinui singing the All Blacks’ praises on the latest edition of the Between Two Posts show.
“World-class form…”
Singling out midfielder Barrett for a “sublime” performance that included his catch of a box kick in the creation of the opening try for Peter Lakai, show host Sean Maloney asked Phipps: “How do you stop Jordie Barrett? You’ve been up against him like he’s just a monster, right?”
The retired scrum-half replied: “He [Barrett] is in world-class form at the moment. He’s one of the best players in that space and everything is sort of starting to be directed through him.
“It’s interesting that box kick, and the one that we saw earlier in the game, 30 seconds in, (Joseph) Suaalii and Tommy Wright there, the positioning is just a little bit weird. Suaalii is sitting in that half space so when he’s going to (try and) catch the ball, he’s also chasing the ball over his shoulder.
“When you’re receiving a box kick, your biggest strength is attacking the ball, getting your knee up, and the person who has to go over his shoulder has to open up his vitals to try and take that ball.
“So just seems like a really weird positioning thing. I’d prefer to see either Suaalii (further) back so he can attack that or Tommy Wright attacking that instead of just like the reverse over the shoulder.”
Sticking with the aerial battle dominated by the All Blacks, Turinui added: “That’s worth looking at again because it is a tactic that the All Blacks themselves tried a few times in South Africa.
“We’re seeing a little bit from the big teams around the world that now, because of the obligation to clear the space and not block to protect a catcher, more teams are wanting the Suaalii role to be running back and catching there. They want that to catch, so that Wright is in the slot to cover.
“It’s such a hard take. You can see, especially with Joseph there, he’s coming sort of in towards it, and then after that you know it’s just really poor defensive decision-making from the Wallabies.
“But it’s a genuine tactic now to have the player going back with the ball, with Jordie Barrett, because you have equal right to the ball. There’s no chance of blocking. It is, however, a much harder take and New Zealand, that was probably one of their big work-ons from South Africa and they definitely won that all-important aerial battle.”
Away from the aerial game, Phipps was impressed by the number of post-contact metres clocked up by the All Blacks compared to the Wallabies, 391 to 280. It made a huge difference.
“You look at the All Blacks, they get a real hard inside chop and then the second guy has the ability to just wrestle up top and finish him off. That’s the brutality you’re just speaking about,” he reckoned.
“The Wallabies are trying to get that physicality and that double punch up high, but with their leg drive and their ability to then latch on early and punch through that hole, we’re just losing that advantage line.
“Then when you have got the two up high as well, you’re both falling backwards, you’re on your back, there’s no slowing the ball down. We didn’t slow the ball down to the best of our ability on the weekend, and then they could just play tempo, tempo, tempo.
“I was talking to a couple of the boys at the club this morning; they were just saying we didn’t really get a chance to get on the ball. We weren’t able to attack the ball and slow that down because they were so good at that breakdown, that clean, just getting over the ball that we know Dave (Rennie) loves so much.
“That’s the sort of difference at the moment. The stats around the leg drive post-contact metres were astronomical. The All Blacks were just constantly moving forward, even after contact, whereas the Wallabies weren’t able to do that because they’re getting their legs just chopped out under them.”
On the upside, Phipps had kudos for how Ben Donaldson performed as the Wallaby No.10, given it has been a position of much discussion with only a year to go before the start of Rugby World Cup 2027 in Australia.
“I thought Ben Donaldson had a great game,” he enthused. “Two try assists, he was in and around the ball, a couple of kicks out on the full, a couple of mistakes, but he demanded the ball a lot.
“He was very chatty in attack. He was always communicating to that pod in front of him. And I thought in a period where everyone’s asking who the 10’s going to be, he’s sort of stepped up in that space and he is playing really well.”
Turinui was just as enthusiastic about scrum-half Ryan Lonergan, Donaldson’s half-back partner. “He showed his work rate off the ball. I thought in a really challenging night at the breakdown, he managed that well in terms of his service to both his forwards and to Ben Donaldson. He’s just a consistent performer at Test level.”
Both ex-Wallabies were effusive in their praise for skipper Harry Wilson. “The stats are there: tackles, carries, he just put in a captain’s knock, he put in a real shift and in times of the game when it was ebbing and flowing, he was the one leading that charge,” reckoned Phipps.
“That try that he scored before half-time, if we didn’t score that, it would have been a pretty tough start to the second half as well. But leading from the front, he’s well and truly answered the small amount of critics through the season about his spot in the team and he’s playing some really good footy.”
Turinui added: “A lot of the chat is the fear about taking Rob Valetini out of his preferred position as much as it is anyone worrying about the way Harry plays. That’s a tough match for a captain.
“You go to Eden Park, you’re playing the All Blacks, it’s not going well. And it wasn’t words, it wasn’t arguing with the referee – he put his head down, worked for 80 minutes and that’s leadership.”
Show host Maloney chipped in: “28 tackles made, zero missed from the red head gear. Just watching the way he moves around the field at the moment… he looks sharper. He just looks that couple of percentage points sharper with everything he does, the way he carries himself. He’s in such good form.”
Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust.
“You’re right,” Turinui agreed. “There’s Cox Plate horses and there’s Melbourne Cup horses. Harry’s a Cup horse. You’ve got to put miles in his legs. He’s a guy that loves playing, so you just train and train and train him through; he plays 80 every week and he backs up.
“The more he plays, the better he gets and he is just a natural; he’s still a footballer too, with a great skill set.”