All Blacks 2nd-five Ryan Crotty on his way to scoring against Australia. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Ryan Crotty might start getting the widespread respect he deserves after delivering another quality, low-error display in Bledisloe I.
The All Blacks second five has lived under the shadow of Ma'a Nonu, Sonny Bill Williams and, to a lesser extent, Charlie Ngatai, but emerged to show his class, which Crusaders
and Canterbury rugby people have never doubted, in his 40 minutes.
Not only did Crotty score the All Blacks' opening try - the second of his 19-test career, but he made the correct decisions defensively and when to pass on attack. One of his slick short passes nearly resulted in a try to wing Waisake Naholo. It was a shame he did not run out for the second spell as Steve Hansen rang the changes. The All Blacks did not quite get it together offensively after they were split, and maybe that was no coincidence.
But even more pleasing was the fluency of Crotty's midfield combination with Malakai Fekitoa. The latter, in particular, has been under some pressure to deliver a more authoritative performance, and former All Blacks coach John Hart, who had a pair of midfielders in tune with each other - Walter Little and Frank Bunce - at his disposal, openly questioned how this All Blacks pairing would go after concerns remained from the Wales series.
The first point to be made is that Fekitoa is a No 13, not a No 12, though he was forced in one for the second stanza. His form has not been poor in 2016, but not at the consistently high level of 2014-15. In Sydney, he invariably made the right decisions on attack and was defensively sound. If he had known Bernard Foley was on him, he would have scored a try himself in the second half.
