As Tupou Vaa’i prepares to play his second test in the unfamiliar role of blindside flanker, there is the relief of knowing that at least this time, it’s only the public who have been surprised by the switch.
The first time Vaa’i wore No 6 for the All Blacks he was – literally – blindsided like everyone else.
It was in 2023 and he’d been named on the bench for the opening game of the World Cup – covering his usual position of lock – when just hours before kickoff he was told that he’d been elevated to the starting team.
But on the side of the scrum.
“I remember that day pretty fair,” Vaa’i says with a droll irony. “It was just before our final walk through before we headed to the stadium. Sam Cane had a sore back and I got called up that afternoon.
“I remember having a meeting with Fozzie [former All Blacks coach Ian Foster] and he said, ‘you will be starting at blindside and Brodie [Retallick] will come on to the bench’.
“It was a bit of a surprise – but that is test footy: one man goes down and you have to be ready to step up. I was grateful to be part of the World Cup opener.
“But I wasn’t picturing being at six.”
Promoting Vaa’i ahead of specialist loose forward Luke Jacobson was a sign of the faith the previous All Blacks regime had in the former’s athletic ability and capacity to mentally cope with a late switch, and also a recognition that they liked the idea of loading the pack with “big men”.
Since 2019, when Scott Barrett was surprisingly picked at blindside for the World Cup semifinal, the All Blacks have been interested in seeing which of their contingent of locks can realistically play in the back row.
While Vaa’i didn’t play any other tests at blindside during the 2023 tournament or indeed since, Barrett regularly shifted to the side of the scrum throughout the campaign to pave the way for Sam Whitelock to come off the bench.
All three of the last All Blacks coaches – Steve Hansen, Foster and now Scott Robertson – have been a little like the Spanish Conquistadores, forever encapsulated by this idea that there is gold just waiting to be found.
Some of this is about a generic understanding that test rugby is the domain of power athletes and if the All Blacks can load their pack with their biggest men, still play at an unforgiving pace and produce all the ball-playing tricks that their attack is built on, then it sets them up to succeed against all-comers.
But this continual surprise casting of locks as blindsides is also to do with an enduring sense that no one among the specialist crew of loose forwards has yet to present as the player the coaches want.
Vaa’i finds himself wearing six in Dunedin as much because of the lack of faith in others as there is because of the confidence in him.
He says that he was told almost as soon as the All Blacks assembled that he would be playing blindside in Dunedin and that he was being considered as someone capable of covering two positions.
Wary of the late notice that was given the last time Vaa’i took on the blindside assignment, Robertson obviously wanted to provide all the advanced warning he could this time.
“I guess heading into the game I wasn’t 100% with the role I was playing,” Vaa’i said of the 2023 experience.
“When you are not 100% comfortable with the role you start to second-guess yourself and become passive.
“But I have come a long way, I guess, from playing six at the World Cup. That was two years ago. I got a heads up from Razor about playing six this week and I have had days to prepare myself.
“I only saw myself as a lock coming into this series. If you are thinking through to 2027 in terms of selection through to the World Cup, if you can play more than one position then it is handy.
“I guess it is another position I can put in my toolbox and try to learn my craft and try to put my own little flavour into the No 6 jersey.”
Vaa’i battled bravely in Paris, but it was a tough night for him and the team – the game ultimately drifting away from the All Blacks when they couldn’t deal with the quality of France’s strategic kicking.
It also transpired, although the All Blacks never said anything at the time, that they had been let down by the World Cup organisers, having been put up in a sub-standard hotel where the air conditioning failed in temperatures of 36C.
The team room fridge also broke down meaning there was no cold drinking water. “The air con wasn’t working,” Vaa’i recalls without wanting to be seen to be making excuses for the 27-13 defeat.
“A lot of things went wrong and a lot of things that were out of our control. It was a funny time being in that hotel as there were a lot of distractions. But I don’t blame anything on those things.”
All he knows is that two years on he feels he’s a different player – a different person – and more capable of delivering to a brief.
He was New Zealand’s form lock in 2024 and had another memorably good campaign with the Chiefs in 2025.
If all the talk about Vaa’i a few years ago was about what he offers as an athlete, it is now about what he brings as a rugby player.
The big shift in his game these past two years has been in his ability to run through tackles, make post-contact metres and defend on the gain-line.
And the No 1 requirement of the All Blacks No 6 is to bring physicality as it pertains to ball carrying and defensive crunch.
“It is an art,” he says of learning how to dominate opponents and impose himself.
“They come in different sizes and different heights at this level, and you don’t really get that in Super Rugby.
“The coaches have trust in me. They have seen what I can do with the ball in hand and without it and it is about me bringing me that over to test footy and showing that I can play this role.
“I really back myself that I am a student of the game and that I have a high rugby IQ, and that I can be a step ahead.”
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.
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