All Blacks team v Ireland: Five takeaways as Dave Rennie’s selection ‘brutality’ puts stars on notice while Beauden Barrett’s snub raises questions
All Blacks fly-half Beauden Barrett and an inset of head coach Dave Rennie.
Following the announcement of Dave Rennie’s All Blacks team to face Ireland, here are our five takeaways from his selection.
The top line
Saturday’s meeting in Auckland will be the new All Blacks boss’ most important home fixture of the year as he defends the 32-year unbeaten streak at the spiritual home of the men in black. Ian Foster and Scott Robertson both had rough patches during their tenures, and Rennie is bound to have the same, but the record is something that New Zealand fans will demand remains in place.
It will be no easy feat though as the venue hosts an Ireland team that will be confident they can get a result, having won two of their three matches on their last trip to Aotearoa and boasting a fantastic record against the All Blacks since 2016.
Recognising this, Rennie has taken no chances with his matchday 23 selection, picking what many would argue is not only the form team right now but not far off the best one possible too.
Damian McKenzie continues at full-back with the record-breaking Will Jordan deployed on the wing, with Josh Moorby rewarded for his remarkable Test debut against the Italians last week. The world-class Jordie Barrett is named at inside centre for the third week in a row and rekindles his partnership with Quinn Tupaea, who was absent in Wellington. Ruben Love and Cam Roigard complete the backline.
Rennie has altered his back-row again, but two top performers remain in captain and number eight Ardie Savea and the workhorse openside Luke Jacobson. The final spot in the loose trio goes to Tupou Vaa’i, who is being trialled in the number six jersey again. Sam Darry is surprisingly absent, which means that Patrick Tuipulotu and Josh Lord combine in the second-row, while Tyrel Lomax, Codie Taylor and Ethan de Groot are the starting front-rowers.
The All Blacks coaching team will only test out a 6-2 bench split in South Africa, so this weekend it’s the traditional 5-3 split with Asafo Aumua, Xavier Numia and Fletcher Newell named as front-row cover, Anton Segner and Peter Lakai providing impact in the loose forwards while Cortez Ratima, Anton Lienert-Brown, and Caleb Clarke are the three backs.
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Springboks Tests top of mind
Now that both Rennie and Rassie Erasmus have named all three of their matchday 23s for the home leg of the Nations Championship, the contrasting stages the two teams are currently in is clear to see.
Erasmus has chopped, changed and heavily rotated his team throughout the month, making at least 10 changes from week to week, providing opportunities for players to stake their claim for a place in the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series while also getting much-needed match minutes into the legs of key players. He has also rewarded rookies for their club form and has been repaid for doing just that, with Paul de Villiers being the perfect example.
While doing that, the Springboks have continued their winning streak with players slotting in and out of the system rather seamlessly, despite the defensive lapses in the latter stages against Scotland. South Africa will have one more hit-out against Argentina before the Test series against the All Blacks, and it’s clear to see there is some player management mixed with experimentation taking place.
Meanwhile, Rennie has also rewarded Super Rugby Pacific form in his selections but is very much searching for consistency in performance and cohesion in the new systems the team is implementing. This is illustrated in selections in key positions with Taylor retained at hooker throughout July, with the same being true for number eight Savea, half-backs Roigard and Love, inside centre Jordie Barrett and full-back McKenzie.
Lock is perhaps the only crucial role that the All Blacks haven’t had consistency right through July, but that is partly down to the injury concerns rather than anything else. As much as Rennie wants to test the waters of the All Blacks depth, he clearly has a good idea of who his game drivers are and wants them to get comfortable in the systems.
Winning at home is a requirement for the All Blacks, and Rennie has delivered so far, with Ireland being his biggest Test to date, but the new head coach will be well aware that the Springboks are the real litmus test and is preparing his squad accordingly.
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The same questions continued to be raised with Rennie that were asked during Foster and Robertson’s tenures. Is Savea a number eight? Is Jordan a wing or a full-back? How do you get McKenzie into the team?
“Yup, predominantly,” Rennie replied when asked the first of those questions after naming his team. Whenever Rennie has been asked about his captain’s position, he has spoken about balancing the loose trio instead of worrying about the number on the player’s back. Frankly, it’s the right way to go about selecting a back-row with the likes of South Africa, France and Argentina all doing similar.
As for the pair of backs, the three squad selections point at Rennie stamping his mark on where Jordan and McKenzie best fit in his systems. The former is particularly important considering his capabilities under the high ball and the ever-growing importance of that facet of play in the modern game.
The pundits and supporters will continue to argue that Savea should wear seven, Jordan 15 and McKenzie 10 or 22, but Rennie is far more decisive than Foster and Robertson, and so far he is reaping the rewards.
Substance over flash
We have got the first sign of Rennie’s brutality as a selector with his axing of Wallace Sititi, and the head coach did not shy away from the reasoning for his omission when it was raised with him.
“He will play a lot of footy for us this year, but he’s got a reasonably clear message around what we need to see out of him, and I’m really happy with the response we’ve got from him so far this week,” he said.
Sititi was a nigh-on automatic selection under Robertson last year when fit, and despite being an incredible talent, Rennie is showing that no one is undroppable. However, he is a head coach that is renowned for rewarding graft, accuracy and overall grunt, favouring those qualities over flash.
Jacobson’s continued presence on the side of the scrum is the ultimate example of just that, with the Chiefs skipper producing a blinder against France, less flashy but no less busy against Italy.
It comes as no surprise then that Vaa’i is a player that Rennie and his assistants value highly as an athlete and key cog in the pack. The head coach wanted to trial him on the flank against France but now does so against Ireland – their trickiest Test this international window.
While Vaa’i is an extroverted character and will rub opposition players and supporters – mainly Kevin Pietersen – up the wrong way with his celebrations and sh*thousery, he does the key requirements of his job and does them well.
Rennie understands that substance at Test level is far more important than the flash and it shows in his selections. New Zealand has so many flash players who have attributes that get the heart racing but it’s the ones that keep the beat and rhythm on the pitch that matter most in the grander scheme of things.
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What now for Beauden Barrett?
Three matchday 23s named, three times that Beauden Barrett’s name has not featured. It’s an unprecedented occurrence to say the least, with the oldest Barrett being a fixture in the All Blacks team for the past 14 years under three head coaches. His absence in the first team raised an eyebrow; the second was more surprising considering the opposition, and the third confirms that he has well and truly fallen down the pecking order.
This was bound to happen at some point, as even the greatest players can’t avoid Father Time forever. But it does raise the question as to how long Barrett will still get selected for the squads? Right now, his presence makes sense with the inexperienced Love running the show at fly-half, and he will add massive value in training, but what happens when Richie Mo’unga has served his ridiculous NPC sentence? Does Barrett become obsolete? Right now, only Rennie and his staff know the answer to that.
The other question is if he has a role to play in the build-up to and during the 2027 Rugby World Cup; when exactly is he going to get his opportunity? Even more pressingly, his next possible shot will be against a likely heavily under-strengthened South African United Rugby Championship outfit. How much will the All Blacks staff really learn from that? As things stand, Barrett won’t be in the Test team for the Springboks in South Africa and beyond that, he isn’t getting much of a chance to stake a claim.
Is this the end of an era? The end of a special international career?
