Barrett maybe didn’t universally appeal as someone with the charismatic horsepower to become a talismanic figurehead, but he finished 2023 as the best lock in New Zealand and one of the best in the world. Between his unquestionable ability and the strength of his bond with Robertson, the All Blacks appeared to have the requisite connectivity within the apex of their leadership.
But after suffering their seventh defeat under Robertson, there is a growing concern about whether the All Blacks coach and captain are on the same page strategically and, by extension, what lines of in-game communication run between the coaching box and leadership group.
The 33-19 loss to England is not necessarily in and of itself evidence of a discordant relationship between the New Zealand coach and captain.
The defeat adds to the general sense that the All Blacks are being afflicted by a malaise they can neither accurately diagnose nor cure, but the real red flag at Twickenham was the incoherent decision-making that ran contrary to the wider, ingrained belief that New Zealand’s greatest asset on the world stage is the innate ability of their players to operate with a strategic intelligence that has led them to do the right things at the right times.
For decades, the All Blacks have come north and consistently won, not always because they were discernibly better, but because they were undeniably smarter.
But at Twickenham, it was England’s game management that drew knowing nods of appreciation.
All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson and skipper Scott Barrett after the defeat at Twickenham. Photo / Photosport
George Ford gave a masterclass in option-taking – his smartly taken dropped goals gave his side a better foothold and from there, he calmly and cleverly mixed his pass, run, kick to ensure England were doing the right things in the right places of the field.
In contrast, the All Blacks lost the run of themselves, best illustrated by their decision to tap a penalty early in the second half and complete two phases before Beauden Barrett kicked it high, only for England to regather.
It was an episode mired in confusion and cast the All Blacks as befuddled – an entirely new and unwelcome look for a team that has zero history in this sort of decision-making madness.
There is a flow chart that could be created to explain why the All Blacks decided to tap and run, but in the end, it doesn’t deliver much, if anything, in the way of exoneration.
Codie Taylor had been yellow-carded and the All Blacks didn’t have a hooker on the field when they won a penalty just inside England’s half, 5m from the touchline.
Having no hooker ruled out kicking for touch or having a scrum. It was beyond the goalkicking range of Barrett, who was carrying a badly bruised thigh, hence the decision to tap and run.
But why were the All Blacks so reluctant to put Samisoni Taukei’aho on? Doing so required taking off Simon Parker – because Taylor was in the sin bin – and this appeared to be a decision the All Blacks coaching staff were not willing to make.
Having a scrum would have required the same process and so a prime opportunity to kick deeper into English territory was spurned to fulfil what is a hard-to-understand commitment to keeping Parker on the field.
It was a little moment, but one with major significance – not just in the context of the game, but also for what it said about the alignment between the on-field leadership and coaching group.
A coach and captain viewing things through the same lens would surely have intuitively come to the same conclusion that they needed to bring on Taukei’aho so they could kick for touch to try to play out the remainder of their numerical disadvantage deep in English territory.
Commitment to Parker seemed like a strange hill to choose to die on. Perhaps, too, there was an element of inexperience on Barrett’s part that he didn’t tell a teammate to feign an injury to buy additional time to better communicate with the coaching box.
There are other questions that stem from that episode, as the All Blacks – technically – didn’t have a kicker on the field at that stage as Barrett (who has been diagnosed post-game with a deep haematoma) wasn’t comfortable swinging his leg.
The other out-of-hand kicking option was Cam Roigard, who had limped off a few minutes earlier, and so in hindsight, the coaches would likely agree that they erred in keeping Barrett on the field for as long as they did before they subbed him for Damian McKenzie.
Mistakes get made in the heat of the moment, but that’s precisely the concern, when there is a natural and strong alignment between coach and captain, there should be no reason to be operating in the heat of the moment.
There should be an intuitive connection, enhanced by deep and rigorous planning, and that’s how good teams ensure they make strategically smart decisions.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.
