Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

The Blues 'big mover' putting pressure on Beauden Barrett

(Photo by Carl Fourie/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

By Patrick McKendry, NZ Herald

It appears that gone are the days when Blues players virtually selected themselves providing their form was adequate; Hoskins Sotutu’s surprise early takeover of the No 8 jersey is evidence of that and Otere Black’s form at first-five has now provided a relatively high benchmark for Beauden Barrett.

Sotutu, only 21, has been the find of the season so far with his explosive running and high work rate, although he will step aside this week to allow Akira Ioane to prove his credentials against the Hurricanes in Wellington.

It will be Ioane’s first start of the season, an unusual situation for a man who started every game over the past two seasons.

Continue reading below…

ADVERTISEMENT
Video Spacer

He was left at home in Auckland when the Blues went on their successful tour of South Africa where they beat the Bulls and Stormers and part of their recent success must be down to the increased competition for places in the squad.

Coach Leon MacDonald and before him Tana Umaga have long talked about creating that sort of healthy tension and now MacDonald seems to have found the right balance in terms of getting high levels of performance out of his men.

That’s not always easy when expectations have to be managed and there will be scrutiny on Ioane’s performance against the Hurricanes at Sky Stadium. Ioane was superb last year but the Blues (and All Blacks) coaches felt his performances dropped due to tiredness. That shouldn’t be an issue this season.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9VqfUIAuk7/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

F
Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

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.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ The joy, spirit and obstacles of the rugby pilgrim The joy, spirit and obstacles of the rugby pilgrim
Search