Murray Mexted spots ‘one weakness’ in All Blacks squad as he predicts Dave Rennie curveball to solve problem
All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie and former Test back-rower Murray Mexted.
Ex-All Blacks loose forward Murray Mexted has claimed that Dave Rennie has not named Tupou Vaa’i as a lock as initially stated and will instead pick him at blindside flanker.
The 26-year-old does have experience of featuring in the back-row but he has only started eight times during his career in the six jersey.
Four of those came last year under Scott Robertson, but that plan was ditched following the away Argentina defeat in the Rugby Championship.
Vaa’i has since played the entirety of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific campaign at lock for the Chiefs, but Mexted is confident that Rennie will pick him at flanker.
Good at breakdown, not in the air
“When I look at that All Black team, there are too many guys that are really, really good at the breakdown at turning over ball and not enough guys at winning the bloody thing from set-piece, particularly lineouts and kick-offs,” he said on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin.
“That’s the only weakness we’ve got so when I looked at that team I thought, ‘I bet Dave is going to play Vaa’i as a blindside flanker’.
“He’s named as a lock but I reckon he will be playing him as a blindside flanker because that’s one thing Dave knows – if you don’t have the ball, you don’t win.”
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Mexted’s concern around Vaa’i centres around his height, believing that he is too short to be an effective enough lock at the highest level.
With the likes of Josh Lord, Sam Darry and the injured Fabian Holland all over two metres tall, the 72-year-old would prefer to see them in the second-row.
‘World-class size’
“When you look at Lord and Darry and Holland, these guys are genuinely world-class size. They’re all 6ft 6in, 6ft 7in, it’s fantastic,” Mexted said.
“If you’ve got a lock that is 1.97m and then you look at guys like Holland who’s 2.04m, there’s a world of difference.
“He’s going to be playing two locks that are big at international level and big at international level doesn’t mean 6ft 4in or 6ft 5in.
“This is why I’m saying this guy should be playing blindside flanker. He’s got sufficient height for blindside and he’s got really good lineout skills and really good on opposition ball.
“If we don’t have the ball, we’ve got to play three [Du’Plessis] Kirifis and they’ve got to get it back at second phase, so I say there are too many guys that are only about 6ft 2in.”
