Richie Mo'unga and his fellow No 10s are in need of upskilling. Photo / photosport.nz
Richie Mo'unga and his fellow No 10s are in need of upskilling. Photo / photosport.nz
OPINION:
In January this year, the All Blacks gathered in Christchurch for fitness testing and a chat about what the year ahead would entail.
The key priority for 2023, the players were told, would be ensuring they came out of Super Rugby Pacific ready to play test football, but moreimportantly, conscious of the higher and different demands that would be placed on them in the international arena.
Super Rugby Pacific in 2022 didn’t do a great job at readying New Zealand’s elite to thrive in the tougher, more physical, more intense, more tactically oriented cauldron that is international rugby.
This was painfully realised in the first five tests of the year, in which the All Blacks, in three of those fixtures, lacked the clinical precision they needed at the collision area, the cohesion required at the set piece and general awareness in their game management.
They were still largely playing with a Super Rugby mindset of chasing tries, keeping the ball alive and not fearing the consequences of making mistakes.
There was evidence last weekend that the message from January has been received and understood, and certainly in Christchurch where the Crusaders played the Blues, there was a physical intensity at the tackled-ball area and set piece that gave the game the look and feel of a test match.
But there was also a glaring weakness on view, as there was in New Plymouth where the Chiefs hosted the Reds.
The Blues produced a car-crash kicking game that was both overdone and poorly done. It failed on both a tactical and technical basis to put any pressure on the Crusaders.
The Chiefs didn’t necessarily get the volume wrong, but coach Clayton McMillan made specific reference to his side’s technically inferior kicking game - citing a lack of length on defensive clearances as the key weakness.
One bad night wouldn’t set alarm bells ringing - but what we saw on the weekend wasn’t an aberration, but a continuation of a skill-set erosion that began some years ago, and it’s clear that the All Blacks coaches are facing a race against time to rejuvenate a once-magnificent kicking game ahead of the World Cup.
It’s simply not feasible to win a World Cup without a tactically astute kicking strategy - one that can be executed with accuracy and by players who have strong individual skill sets.
The international game is a different beast in so many ways when compared with Super Rugby, but nowhere is the difference more pronounced than in the non-negotiable requirement to be able to turn and twist an opponent with the boot.
When the All Blacks last won the World Cup, at the heart of their game was Daniel Carter’s cultured, clever and technically brilliant kicking.
Carter gave a tactical masterclass in the semifinal against the Springboks, protecting his side’s two-point lead in the last quarter by continually pinning the Boks in their own territory, unable to play the game within kickable distance of the All Blacks’ posts.
But it wasn’t just that one campaign in which the All Blacks kicked well.
Throughout the period 2010 to 2015, the All Blacks kicked more than any other international team and their ability to contest the ball in the air and play in the right areas of the field was often vastly under-appreciated by an audience that was mesmerised by the slickness of their pass and catch.
It’s not just the All Blacks who have built successful World Cup campaigns on the back of their kicking game - England did it in 2003 when Jonny Wilkinson was in his prime and the 2019 champion Springboks team had Faf de Klerk and Handre Pollard booting the ball all over Japan.
Beauden Barrett and the Blues kicked poorly against the Crusaders. Photo / Photosport
The All Blacks of 2023 will have three outstanding No 10s in their midst in Richie Mo’unga, Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie, but all of them are naturally inclined to run or pass as a first option and all three appear in need of technical and tactical upskilling ahead of the World Cup.
None are in Carter’s class when it comes to either understanding or executing a kicking strategy, and now the All Blacks have fixed their well-documented problems at the set piece and found a physical edge, the highest priority when they gather in July will be to get their No 10s into test-match mode.
If the All Blacks kick poorly to the French back three in the opening game of the World Cup, they will find themselves endlessly defending well-orchestrated counter-attacks.
If they meet South Africa in the quarter-finals, they will pay a hefty price if they can’t keep pushing the Boks out of kickable penalty territory.
And if they come across Ireland, Johnny Sexton will entice them into a game of kick tennis from their respective backfields and that’s a game within a game the All Blacks will have to win.
