Analysis: The one area of Rieko Ioane's game that needs fixing before he can become an international centre
The 20-year-old who turned the rugby world upside down in 2017 as an electric winger has always held the ambition to become a centre, where he played as a schoolboy at Auckland Grammar and in 2014 with New Zealand Schools.
The opportunity beckoned to become an All Black through the left wing, so that was the path that was taken.
Now at 22 years-old, Ioane sits at a crossroads regarding his career in New Zealand and where he will play.
His time at the Blues has seen Ioane drift around the backline, at times out of necessity to help his injury-afflicted team out. They have named him as a midfielder for the 2020 season, and with the departures of Ma’a Nonu and Sonny Bill Williams, time in the 13 jersey remains a possibility. The arrival of Harlequins centre Joe Marchant may harm that, however.
Nevertheless, if Ioane is to become a centre first and winger second, and ultimately the All Blacks‘ first-choice No. 13, the one area of his game he has to improve unequivocally is his defence.
Even as a wide-eyed kid who wowed the world by burning English fullback Elliot Daly down the shortest of corridors in the opening Lions test, Ioane’s defence has always had question marks.
When the big plays with ball-in-hand were coming all throughout 2017, these questions were overlooked as the attacking upside was so great that it didn’t necessarily matter.
When those home run plays failed to materialise over the latter part of 2018 and continued into 2019, Ioane’s overall performance came under greater scrutiny and ultimately led to the All Blacks’ coaching staff moving on to George Bridge at the position.
These defensive deficiencies cannot be overlooked if Ioane is to become a top level No. 13. At outside centre, you cannot afford to have slow reactions, and more importantly, you can never get beat by doing nothing. The great defenders can recover from disadvantaged positions and complete tackles even if it means contorting their bodies in unnatural ways.
A problem area for Ioane in the front line has been defending underneath routes where he has lost sight of his man running ‘unders’ lines by ball-watching for too long.
France exposed Ioane multiple times in the June series at home in 2018 targetting this very weakness.
In the third test, first-five Anthony Belleau bounced out slightly to interest Sonny Bill Williams just enough, while French centre Remi Lamerat straightened his angle to attack ‘under’ Ioane’s eyesight from his blind spot.
Ioane was caught watching Belleau for just a split-second too long, back on his heels and is unable to recover once Lemerat ‘won’ the gap.
France breached the All Black defence, continued the movement with a pop pass off the deck and scored two phases later when halfback Baptiste Serin dived over with New Zealand still scrambling to reset on the goal line.
France found success again, running a similar play where Belleau targeted Wesley Fofana underneath Ioane.
Belleau held the ball up beautifully to allow Fofana to straighten and drift inside Ioane. From the front on angle, we see that Goodhue has Lemirat covered while Ioane’s assignment was Fofana.
Despite marking the inside man, Goodhue was able to slide off and make a last-ditch effort to tackle Fofana on his outside, grabbing his leg. Ioane hesitated to get involved in the tackle, which ended up costing seven points as the inside centre slipped free.
As an outside centre, Ioane will be tested inside and outside all the time, and getting beaten without making a tackle attempt is a cardinal sin. He must be able to recover when he loses alignment to at least make attempts instead of failing to react at all.
When Ryan Crotty was completely beaten by the dynamic Scotland centre Huw Jones to the inside, he was able to stop, recover and bring down Jones from behind with an arms tackle around the waist.
It was not a dominant tackle, but it was an incredibly valuable one that doesn’t require teammates to cover for his miss. It is this kind of execution that is inconsistent with Ioane.
At times, Rieko Ioane switches off and fails to react quickly, or react at all, often caught hesitating for a split second.
At Super Rugby level, this was exposed brutally against the Hurricanes in 2018 when they flooded his channel with a myriad of options and watched as the Blues’ midfield disintegrated under pressure to make reads.
On this halfback run by Perenara, first-five Stephen Perofeta bit on the halfback, opening up the 10-12 channel where the Hurricanes sent two runners, Ngani Laumape and Julian Savea.
Ioane didn’t follow Perofeta inward and was slow to react to Laumape’s angle, failed to then make a tackle attempt and then ran away from Julian Savea instead of staying with him to try and obstruct the final pass that puts him over for the try.
There are a combination of issues, that aren’t all Ioane’s fault, but the lack of effort on the play is concerning. At the international level, once you have been beaten the next step is to try and recover to still influence the play.
The midfield channels require constant communication and teamwork to defend. It’s hard to know if Ioane is a big communicator, but this is definitely going to be required and is a leadership skill to be developed if it is not natural for him.
Ioane as an athlete with size and speed should never be beaten on the outside break. This is one area where if placed at 13, any side should be confident that he can deal with overlaps and play jockey defence well.
Against France, he plays the situation well with hips turned out and playing off the non-committal passing to whittle down the numbers advantage, allowing inside help to come before closing in on Benjamin Fall and forcing the ball loose in the tackle.
In the All Blacks set-piece ‘whip’ defence, where the backline motions like a cracking whip, Ioane showed he can make front-on spot tackles when required shooting up to and close down the play.
He has shown an ability to take interceptions that are almost guaranteed seven points with his speed going the other way. This is another valuable part of his defensive game that can be built around. Henry Slade of England is fast-becoming one of the most dangerous centres in the game with his knack for picking off passes and opening up fast-break opportunities.
His youth is an asset right now with more experience under his belt with than 99% of players his age, which should put Ioane way ahead of the curve. He could lose that advantage though without growing as a player. Mistakes made in the past are only failures if the learnings aren’t taken from them to get better.
If he is prepared to continue to develop, he can reach the potential that he holds.
With a new All Blacks’ head coach, a fresh environment could see the best of Ioane. Whether he transitions to the midfield and becomes a world-class centre by 2023 is another question altogether and will require a professional approach of continual improvement. His longevity in New Zealand will depend on it with most wingers moving on before 27.
Everyone is aware of what Rieko Ioane can do in attack when firing, but he needs to fully develop his game to not only become a centre, but to push his way back into the All Blacks’ starting line-up. And then he can show the world what he can do the next time around.
The Season with Hamilton Boys High School 1st XV – Episode 2:
Comments on RugbyPass
I knew who wrote this article from the first few words in the headline…lol. The red card actually did the ABs a favour. It galvanized them, only then did they step up a gear. Before that there was zero momentum.
103 Go to commentsFirstly the foul on Bongi was a planned move just like the NZ master plan with Bryce Lawrence you kiwis are filthy fux perhaps try to play a cleaner game next time I doubt that’s possible tho but don’t worry world rugby is on yr side they trying to take away all the BOKS strengths to help all you weakling as Jeremy Clarkson would say LA OO ZA ERR..🤣
103 Go to commentsAbsolutely spot on Ben. I certainly wouldn't gloat over a win like that. Frustrating as it is it's done and dusted and history will forever show the result.
103 Go to commentsHo hum.
103 Go to commentsNo question they were the better team. But that is the beauty of sport isn’t it!
103 Go to commentsEveryone is into Hurling in Ireland according to Porter, but only 11 of Ireland's 32 counties enter a team into the national competition. Same old blarney.
1 Go to commentsLet’s be honest. The draw and scheduling in the World Cup was a joke but South Africa found a way after having to go the hard (nearly impossible) way to the Cup Final via France and England. NZ had a hard game against France (lost) and had 5 weeks to prepare for the Quarter, 3 weeks knowing it was Ireland. NZ theerfore had to win one big game against an Irish team who played SA and then Scotland 7 days before. They won and it was de facto a semi final because they were playing a relatively weak Argentina team and it was a walk over. In the final a very rested NZ team was playing a very tired SA team and still lost. They couldn’t score more than 11 points. Put another way SA had to find a way to win while tired and they achieved that. NZ should thank their lucky stars that they fixed the scheduling in 2015 otherwise they would be dealing with a Bok treble.
103 Go to commentsPerhaps if Bongi wasn’t targeted and removed from the game in the first 3 minutes it would have been quite a different game. Maybe if NZ also faced the same competition the Boks faced to their win NZ would have looked quite different. The final score shows who outplayed who.
103 Go to commentsRubbish article! Abuladze played most of Exeters matches when fit. He got injured against Glasgow a while ago and is out for the rest of the season, thats why he hasnt played for Exeter and Georgia recently. Do some proper research next time!
1 Go to commentsGotta love it when kids throw their toys out the pram and can’t hack it with the grown ups debate. Here’s looking at you turlough! 😉🤣
148 Go to commentsThey lost the game period move on
103 Go to commentsSpringboks won! Stop winging. You can change the game however much you and your rugby colonizing IRB want to and the Springboks will win you at that too. Your mind is colonized my friend get a life
103 Go to commentsBen, nobody gets fooled anymore by selective and biased data to support an hypothesis. Games are decided on such small margins these days that you win some and lose some, and dominance is a thing of the rugby past. Look at the RWC circle of fortune…. Ireland beats SA who beat France who beat NZ who beat Ireland. And so it goes on. Match officials help to eliminate real indiscretions. If they had been with us years before, no doubt results would have been different. Remember Andy Haden’s dive from a lineout in 1978 for which a match-wining penalty was awarded? Wales should have beaten the ABs that day. They took the loss like the gentlemen they were.
103 Go to commentsWith all the analysis and how good the all blacks were.The fundamental mistake with the ABs is that this is a test match and not an exhibition.There is no better team(country) in world rugby than the Boks that knows how to win a test match(we are post masters at this).We know our rules, we have the discipline, we tackle like beasts, we take our points and we never give up.I now have educated the ABs supporters(at least say thank you).Please stop “bitching” , accept what the outcome is and move along swiftly.
103 Go to commentsAnd they came from behind to win two big games before the final. No one can say what would have happened. Had the boks gone behind the game plan changes and the result may changes. Ifs and ands are irrelevant. The boks won. Neutral critics enjoyed the games they played. Its not a popularity contest. Get over it and move on.
103 Go to commentsI'm happy for the people of SA to get a second WC. And I mean that. I was very disappointed with this man's “stand on the hand” incident with Josh Van Der Flyer (Ireland). Ireland's downfall in the last WC was they did not rotate their first 15 as the head coach probably should have. That said, I'm happy for SA and genuinely hope it lifts the mood in their country. Ireland did beat them in the first match of the tournament. And before the trolls start trolling ….. please don't bother. Etzbeth said recently that the Irish players said after the match “see you in the final”…..this was actually wishing the SA team the best of luck in the rest, the Irish team were not dismissing the AB’s. This is what Etzbeth was implying. But he was wrong. I no longer live in Ireland. But I hope to see them lift that cup before I pass. Anyway, congratulations SA. 👍
12 Go to commentsMore bloody click bait. Dan Carter has said absolutely nothing. As he should do. Poor journalism again from a site that should know better
9 Go to commentsOh god please help these loosers get over it!!!! You lost. Doesn't matter how many times you dummies are gonna analyse the game, you still lost and we are still Rygby World Champions….get over it, you lost.
103 Go to commentsThe next Willie le Roux. SA are made not to use him.
3 Go to commentsDan has always been as controversial as tea with milk so we were never going to get any definitive answer. So DMac for the win.
9 Go to comments