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You wonder if Beauden Barrett will ever own the All Blacks at a Rugby World Cup. They should have been his team in 2019. Probably 2023 as well.
As understudy to Daniel Carter from 2012 to 2015, Barrett was outstanding. Once he succeeded Carter as the starting first five-eighth, he was even better.
World Rugby Player of the Year in 2016 and 2017 (and a finalist in 2018), everything suggested Barrett would be the man to lead the All Blacks’ defence of their 2015 title.
Only Barrett got shunted to fullback and has largely been there ever since. It’s to his great credit that he’s done a serviceable – and occasionally excellent – job in the 15 jumper.
Few people would have begrudged Barrett retiring once Richie Mo’unga assumed the role of running the team from first five-eighth.
It was hard watching Barrett at 10, in New Zealand’s 33-13 win over Australia in the second Bledisloe Test and not think several years and two World Cup campaigns haven’t been wasted by playing him out of position.
Saturday at Sky Stadium was the team’s most convincing performance of the season. Was Barrett the catalyst for that? It’s hard to say definitively.
But there was structure and stability and several players, particularly in the backline, became participants rather than spectators.
Barrett didn’t overplay his hand. And, frankly, no first-five should have to, when you’re blessed with talented players outside you.
It’s just that, for all-but this test, the All Blacks’ 2024 season seems to have been built entirely upon maximising the occasional brilliance of Damian McKenzie.
I thought the All Blacks looked like a team on Saturday. They’d played as individuals up to that point in the campaign.
The decision, therefore, about who New Zealand’s primary playmaker will be for the next three years should be obvious.
It should be Barrett. Just as it should’ve been since 2016.
Only, I suspect that’s wishful thinking yet again.
McKenzie is far from done at 10, judging by the optimistic – some might say naive – comments by All Blacks coach Scott Robertson in a television interview this week, that McKenzie is a superb player who’ll suddenly develop the skills to manage a game.
I just don’t think there’s any evidence to support that view.
And then there’s Mo’unga.
It might turn out that we have seen the last of Mo’unga in an All Blacks jersey but, given his relationship and past success with Robertson, I’d be surprised.
Either way, my belief is that not playing Barrett at first five-eighth has hurt this team.
Aaron Cruden, for instance, came on at 10 to finish games in the 2017 British & Irish Lions series without success.
Since then, Mo’unga and McKenzie have often played there in Barrett’s place.
There are a variety of reasons why, since about 2018, the All Blacks have been an inconsistent and often disappointing side. The fact Barrett hasn’t been the designated 10 might be a coincidence, it might not.
Just as it might be a coincidence that the team finally played quite well with him at first-five on Saturday.
In the end, though, I come back to the suspicion that, in Barrett, New Zealand has had the services of one of the great first five-eighths of this generation.
Rather than entrust him to win a world cup, they’ve given that responsibility to other players and appear poised to do so again.
Seems crazy, when you think about it. Not to mention a shame.