All Blacks forward Tupou Vaa'i and head coach Dave Rennie.
Murray Mexted has been impressed by Tupou Vaa’i’s development at blindside and believes that his switch from lock is with a view to next year’s Rugby World Cup.
The 26-year-old has played the majority of his career in the second-row so far but he has started to feature more regularly in the back-row over the past couple of years, firstly under Scott Robertson and now with Dave Rennie in charge.
It is an idea that Mexted has always pushed, believing that Vaa’i is better suited to flanker at Test level, and the former loose forward hopes that he remains there.
“Tupou Vaa’i is a bloody good rugby player, I like watching him, but he’s had more experience at lock than blindside flanker. He is learning the trade at blindside flanker,” he said on the DSPN Rugby podcast with Martin Devlin.
Vaa’i could be All Blacks’ World Cup blindside
When told by Devlin that three of Vaa’i’s previous five starts had come at six, Mexted responded, “That’s great,” before making his World Cup prediction.
“They are growing him as a World Cup blindside flanker,” he said. “This guy’s obviously clever, he calls lineouts, so you’ve got to be a strategic thinker if you’re calling the lineout.
“They’re trying to build him as a blindside flanker and it’s working. The second half performance last weekend against the Aussies was great. It was his best 40 minutes I’ve seen, so he’s only going to get better at that.
“He’s not big enough really when you look at the locking situation so it’s a smart move. We’ve now got some serious locks and they have all got better over the series against South Africa.”
Blindside has been a problem position for the All Blacks over the past decade while there was concern how they would fare in the second-row following the departures of Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock. However, they appear to have found a number of lock options and are starting to produce some effective combinations in the back-row.
All Blacks’ improvement in the back-row
Mexted felt that Ardie Savea was their only world-class loose forward, but he believes that New Zealand are in a much better position now. “That’s one thing it has done and achieved a great deal, as far as building depth in positions that we didn’t have,” he added.
“Take Ardie Savea out of the ball game because he plays seven and eight, but in those positions we didn’t have too much in the way of world-class sevens, eights and sixes.
“Apart from him, who else was world-class in those roles? You couldn’t name one. Now you say Lakai looks like he’s a competitor in that role and Tupou Vaa’i is a competitor for number six.”
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