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No special treatment for Beauden Barrett

(Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

NZ Herald

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When Beauden Barrett makes his return to club rugby for the first time in about a decade, he won’t be given any special treatment.

Barrett will make his return to rugby for Taranaki premier side Coastal in their match against Southern in the small rural town of Rahotu, south of New Plymouth, in early April – with his return to Super Rugby expected to follow soon after.

Speaking to the Radio Sport Breakfast, Coastal coach Kane Barrett – Beauden’s older brother – said he would be making the most of the All Blacks first five-eighth’s availability.

“If he’s coming out there, he’s playing 80; he’s playing the full hog,” Kane said. “If he’s not pulling the line, like any other player he’ll be holding the water bottles.

“Whatever clauses are in there (from the Blues or All Blacks), we’ll just make it work.

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“We’re excited to have Beaudy back. It’s great news. I’d heard whispers and thought it would be great but will it happen? And yep, the news has broken so the locals and myself are chomping at the bit to have him home.

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“It’s something we don’t see a lot now in the professional game. All Blacks and professional guys don’t get to play club rugby so that in itself is going to be huge.

“The population of Rahotu is about 250; well, gee whiz, it might be more like 10,000 I would imagine. It’ll be good, there’s plenty of room down there. We’ll fit everyone in.”

Barrett and the Blues are yet to officially reveal when he will return to action at Super Rugby level, though it is believed his targeted return is for the clash against the Hurricanes on at Eden Park on April 11.

This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and is republished with permission.

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WATCH: Delve deep into the recent McKinsey Review and analyse Super Rugby action from the weekend just gone. Les Elder joins the team and an exclusive interview with Jason Holland ahead of the Blues v Hurricanes match this weekend.

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Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


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