The Breakdown team dissect Beauden Barrett's signing to Japanese club Suntory
COMMENT:
I've spent a lifetime being told 'you don't understand rugby'.
So have you.
Rugby's inner circle revels in telling the rank and file they don't know what goes on in scrums and other dark places like the tactics room, and that they don't need to know.
Now this diseaseof disinformation has spread to fullback. It's time to draw a line.
Beauden Barrett, the most brilliant running back in world rugby for many years, is being portrayed as a mysterious master of the marionettes at the Blues.
Well stuff all that string pulling nonsense. The settling in period for the former Hurricane is over.
Or to put it another way, it's time for Barrett to pull his finger out. Or to put it another way, he needs to forget about the Japanese riches and stick his body on the line on Saturday night.
Otherwise, it's hard to give the Blues any chance in Super Rugby Aotearoa's most anticipated clash, against the Crusaders in Christchurch.
Beauden Barrett. Photo / Photosport
Barrett was never the greatest of game organisers anyway. The idea that his main value at the Blues is a rearguard Svengali is quite funny.
The Blues, here's hoping, might have a man who is genuinely past his physical prime on hand to manipulate the game. Dan Carter is 38. He has an excuse. Barrett needs to cut loose.
The Crusaders are SRA's best team by a long way, and the Blues are SRA's best team to watch at a pinch. There's a big difference.
The way the Crusaders kept the hammer down against the Highlanders was simply a reminder of how this mob have operated for about 25 years.
The Crusaders' home record is probably the best in world sport. Their fans sit there politely applauding the destruction of one and all.
It's like a cross between a North Korean political rally and the French Revolution, where organised clapping meets dismemberment.
This very Kiwi version of home ground advantage prepares the Crusaders perfectly for away games, where they play the same way. They are a machine everywhere, as the Highlanders found out yet again in Dunedin last weekend.
It takes something outrageously special to beat them, and the real Barrett is that special character.
Barrett's presence has calmed, focused, directed and inspired the Blues, no doubt. But he wasn't hired to be the Dalai Lama.
Blues fullback Beauden Barrett in action against the Highlanders. Photo / Photosport
The Blues need 'Barrett the Runner' to re-emerge, to go flying into those half gaps which are quickly turning into quarter gaps because individual tackling techniques are so improved in modern rugby.
In an era where a tighthead prop dives at full stretch to slow down a test back – think Jeff Thwaites on Jack Goodhue in Dunedin last weekend – even the magic of Richie Mo'unga is hitting a lot of dead ends.
But Barrett's ability to spot an almost impossible gap from distance, engage the afterburners and get through it with ease was always beyond compare.
He used to be fearless, adventurous. The Blues need that. Rugby needs that.
The cynic in me says that Barrett - perhaps subconsciously - is lowering his chances of getting injured to protect his $1.5m Japanese pay day next year.
There is always the chance that at the age of 29, he is facing physical shackles. But if they are mental ones, he needs to break free of them.
This will also get him in the right mood for the final phase of his All Black career as the game's incredibly fit, pioneering and best 15/10 hybrid.
