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Former All Black urges Blues head coach to shift Beauden Barrett to No.10
By Henry Lee
The 2024 Super Rugby Pacific champions finally got over the hump in 2025, winning their first game of the new season in Wellington against the Hurricanes.
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Vern Cotter and the Blues were helped by an impressive cameo at first-five late in the second half by All Blacks playmaker Beauden Barrett.
Former All Black Mils Muliaina has backed the move from fullback to first-five for the Blues, saying that it’s a no-brainer going forward.
“Beauden Barrett should be at No.10, and when he moved to 10 at the weekend, he just showed all his class,” Muliaina said on The Breakdown.
“He was dominant the way he was decisive in his decision-making, even when he counterattacked from the back, the guys were all on the same page.
“He understands the ability to get down the other end, and I tell you what, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything so great in the last couple of years other than Beauden Barrett breaking through the line like that.”
The 33-year-old moved from fullback to first-five when replacement back Cole Forbes was brought into the action for one-Test All Black Harry Plummer.
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Plummer has been preferred to Barrett at first-five so far this season, but when asked whether Muliaina believed they would have won the game without Barrett’s shift to 10, he wasn’t so sure.
“I’m not sure they would have,” Muliaina said in reply to Kirstie Stanway’s question.
Muliaina admits that he originally thought Barrett should stay at fullback in his first year back from a sabbatical in Japan, but after seeing the Blues play a certain way with him running the cutter at first-five, his opinion has changed.
“I said that he should be playing fullback and now when I see him in round one what he’s doing, and also his ability to open the game up.
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“That’s what they’ve got, the Blues have got a different game to them. I know they won one last year keeping the ball in hand.
“But there’s a different element to them as well and I feel that in some of those players, particularly the likes of the outsides, they still want to play that expensive game and this guy here can mix them up and he can ignite it.”
Barrett, who went on one of his signature long, line-breaking runs, provided much-needed impact for the Blues in the last 20 minutes of the round three match in Wellington.
Sky Sports commentator and analyst Taylah Johnson strongly agrees with Muliaina’s thoughts about the Blues playmaking combination, saying that she backs Vern Cotter to make the necessary change this week against the Brumbies.
“Don’t count Vern out, I reckon he might actually put Beauden there because after the game he said to us on the broadcast that he might have to look at that,” Johnson told Sky Sport.
“We also have to remember they’ve got Zarn Sullivan and Stephen Perofeta out injured and I think if they were there, he probably would be at No.10.”
Ex-Highlander Joe Wheeler has stuck with his original take on the playmaking combination of the Blues, backing Cotter to stick with the Plummer and Barrett combination.
“I’ve got my theories, I totally agree with Mils (Muliaina), but do I think Vern will do it? No, I don’t.
“I think he’ll stick with Harry Plummer, because Plummer led this Blues team after 21 years, back to the promised land.
“He’s got a lot of trust in Harry Plummer and what he did last year, and I said this to Jeff Wilson last week and it proved true, he went with Harry Plummer again.
“But I think we can see the quality when Beauden does go to ten, he changes their game.”
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We’ve all seen it before, when BB was AB #10; he simply wasn’t an accurate enough tactical kicker, and even this week nearly all his kicks went straight into the fullback’s hands. He’s a fullback playing in the #10 position. It may work for the Blues, but not at test level.
If Razor keeps using both him and DMac in the #10 spot, it is a sign that he is not the coach the ABs need. He’d be a fool not to look at Godfrey instead.
Beauden is a fine pivot but not as effective at fullback.