He's been dropped from the squad against the Pumas but there seems little doubt Jordie Barrett is the answer to the problems brother Beauden Barrett is causing with his fickle goalkicking.
The concern arising from the All Blacks' narrow loss to the Springboks was not just that they should stillhave won a tight game even after dishing up two of the softest of soft tries. Barrett's kicking, missing several relatively comfortable shots at goal, would also have won the match had it been at the level expected of an international goalkicker.
That's the biggie. The soft tries and the game management can be fixed. Barrett's kicking?
Coach Steve Hansen is fond of quoting Barrett's percentage stats when it comes to goalkicking – and they are usually impressive. The reality is that, every now and then, "Beaudy" has a black day.
The big worry is if one of these shockers occurs when the match is a close affair during the knockout stages of the World Cup.
Watching the All Blacks miss easy points is a fillip for the opposition. So is the realisation that the All Blacks' top team has only one kicker and all that pressure is bolted to his shoulders.
The usual starting XV has only Barrett as kicker until Damian McKenzie comes on later in the match. Even then, as often happens, Barrett stays on the field (McKenzie replaced Jordie Barrett at fullback last time) and continues to take the kicks. Fine when he's on song. Not when he's not.
A potential solution is to shift the still-brilliant Ben Smith to the wing where he has performed so well recently and play Jordie Barrett at fullback. But the latter was yanked from the All Black 23 this week after his ill-judged quick lineout led to one of the Boks' soft tries.
That is doubtless a temporary matter – though if you think back over the bad old years, such mistakes often used to lead to the abrupt end of a career.
The All Blacks need Jordie. He has the same calm manner as brother Beauden plus he can strike from distance; he has about an 80 per cent success record in Super Rugby and Mitre 10 Cup level. McKenzie is also a reliable goalkicker with a similar cool temperament. But he is also not quite the finished article; in that helter-skelter end of the test against the Boks, his hesitation to throw that last-minute pass was one of the many small crimes filling the folder of the All Blacks' post-match analysis.
Jordie Barrett and Beauden Barrett. Photo / Getty
However, leave McKenzie out of the 23 for Richie Mo'unga, for example, and you lose that electric ability of his to make a telling contribution in the last 20 minutes or so. And it doesn't alter the fact the All Blacks have no back-up kicker in their starting XV if Beauden Barrett starts missing the target.
It's a selection conundrum, wrapped in a dilemma and tied up with a quandary. Jordie at fullback and Smith on the wing would be hard to swallow for winger Waisake Naholo, so good on attack and so valuable for key turnovers. But in the white-hot pressure of World Cup knockouts, it could well be the way to go.
The Mo'unga brigade will no doubt clamour for his inclusion and there is no doubt he has better dropped goal credentials than Beauden Barrett, handy in tight finishes in World Cup knockouts.
But most believe firmly Barrett is the man for the job – as long as he has adequate back-up and as long as the All Black coaching staff change their seemingly unshakeable view that Barrett is always the man for the kicking job.
There were times in that Boks test the baton could have been passed to Jordie or McKenzie, but the status quo persisted. You wonder too if the shift of kicking coach "Mick The Kick" (Mick Byrne) to the Wallabies has had more effect than thought. However, the All Blacks can still call on a bloke called Grant Fox who, not all that long ago, was the goalkicker we would all have chosen if someone had to kick a goal to save our lives.
We can take with a teeny tiny pinch of salt the comments of South African kicking guru Vlok Cilliers. His questioning of Barrett's goalkicking technique could be filed under Criticism Designed To Increase Pressure ahead of next year's World Cup.
But here's the bit that rang true: "There had already been stats available to show the danger of New Zealand losing through bad kicking," Cilliers said. "Barrett missed a few sitters, and that's at his Hurricanes home ground where he should be able to kick with his eyes closed.
"…in recent years the All Blacks have been outscoring teams by, say, five or six tries to two, so even if he kicks at somewhere around a modest 60 per cent success rate, the All Blacks won't feel it too much on the scoreboard."
That gets exposed in tight games when conversions and penalties can make the difference; Cilliers called the All Black disinclination to kick penalties in favour of scoring tries "arrogance".
First, we all have to understand that the way the All Blacks are playing now may not be their modus operandi in Japan next year.
But the goalkicking question remains and the only clear answer I can see is to add a Barrett, not subtract one.
