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Julian Savea is in better form than when he last earned an All Blacks call-up

By Tom Vinicombe
CG-Julian-Savea

All season, pundits have been asking what winger Salesi Rayasi has needed to do to earn himself a place in the Hurricanes starting line-up.

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In his first game of the year, against the Blues in Dunedin, Rayasi was the man who scored three expertly-taken tries – including two in the final 10 minutes – to help his side to a come-from-behind 33-32 victory.

“We know what he can do with the ball, we know he’s quick,” Hurricanes head coach Jason Holland said after the match. “It was a good outing for him. We’ll just keep working away and he’ll keep getting better and better at the small parts of the game and [if we can] get him finishing three tries every week [then] everyone’s happy.”

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The following week, Rayasi held his spot on the left wing against the Highlanders and while the action didn’t necessarily flow his way as it had against the Blues, Holland said that Rayasi had actually put in a better performance.

“To be honest, I think he played better tonight than he did last week. Some people might not see that but he had much more intent and he was way better defensively, way better around his breakdown. I thought he was really good tonight even though he didn’t score any tries or get too many opportunities, that’s just the way the game went.

“Sometimes as a winger you’ve got to do the hard yards and you’ve gotta do the breakdown, you’ve gotta do the carry and you’ve gotta do the D so I was really with what he did tonight.”

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It wasn’t until the Hurricanes squared off with Moana Pasifika on Tuesday, however, that Rayasi was given another opportunity in the No 11 jersey, with Wes Goosen and Julian Savea the preferred starters for Holland throughout the season to date.

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Ahead of last weekend’s fixture with the Crusaders, Holland noted that Rayasi had done nothing wrong to miss out on selection but implied that try-scoring rates perhaps weren’t the major focus for the Hurricanes selectors when determining who would run out on the wings.

“Sometimes the media and the public get carried away with who’s scoring tries without looking at some of the smaller detail,” Holland said.

Those smaller details will largely include work done off the ball – an area where Holland has presumably determined the likes of Savea and Goosen excel at compared to the less experienced Rayasi.

Statistics from the current season don’t necessarily back that up. Per game, Rayasi is hitting slightly more rucks than Savea, attempting and completing more tackles, and returning to action quicker following a tackle.

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When it comes to the core duties of a wing, however, it’s hard to not be impressed with how Savea has performed in recent weeks

When Savea left New Zealand’s shores to link up with Toulon following the 2018 Super Rugby season, it was fair to say that the form of the then-26-year-old left much to be desired.

After first making the step up to test rugby in 2012, Savea became an automatic selection on the left wing for the All Blacks but his impact had started to wain following the 2015 World Cup. In 2016, he was dropped from the Hurricanes starting line-up due to fitness issues and despite notching up plenty of tries throughout the test season for NZ, it seemed clear that Savea’s time in the sun was coming to an end.

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The following year, he was called up for the All Blacks’ series with the British and Irish Lions but lost his starting spot to Rieko Ioane and then missed out on selection in the squad for the Rugby Championship – the death knell for his test career.

Now, almost five years on, Savea is in better form than in his final season with the All Blacks and it’s not entirely out of the question that he makes a return to the national fold later this year. He might not necessarily be the best right wing of New Zealand’s Super Rugby sides at present – that honour would have to go to Sevu Reece at the Crusaders – but if Savea was playing in 2017 the way he’s playing for the Hurricanes at present, it’s entirely possible he would have never been dropped from the team in the first place.

Generally speaking, the All Blacks have unsurprisingly always been a hard team to crack. We’ve seen the odd bolter selected in the squad despite limited minutes at the level below – think Josh Lord in recent seasons Tupou Vaa’i  – but in most instances, players have to be bashing down the door for multiple seasons on the trot before they’re given a coveted black jersey.

That’s partially due to the high standards demanded of the New Zealand national side, but also in part down to the fact that it’s also very difficult to lose your place in the set-up.

On Super Rugby form, in particular, world-class performers like Ma’a Nonu probably deserved to be dropped from the All Blacks on more than one occasion but the selectors persisted, knowing they could get the best out of their crop of players.

Savea was probably lucky to make the All Blacks in 2016 based on his form throughout that year’s Super Rugby season but after 18 months of failing to impress – coupled with the arrival of Rieko Ioane – he was eventually cut loose.

Savea had lost his pace, lost his dynamism – even lost the strength that made him such a hard man to bring to ground. Undoubtedly, there was snowballing effect where his less than impressive form hindered his confidence which hampered his play. Now, half a decade later, those key facets of his game appear to have returned. He might not be the fastest winger in New Zealand but he’s still incredibly quick, while his strength was on full display against the Crusaders on Friday when, in one instance, it took five tacklers to eventually bring Savea to ground – and he still managed to free his arms for an offload in contact.

The two-time nominated World Rugby Player of the Year is not the same player he was when he tormented France at the 2015 Rugby World Cup but he’s also performing at a higher level than the following season, when the All Blacks selectors still decided to include ‘The Bus’ in their squad for the Lions series.

With Sevu Reece, Rieko Ioane, Will Jordan nailed on selections for New Zealand’s series with Ireland this year, and George Bridge, Leicester Fainga’anuku and Braydon Ennor all possible call-ups who can play on the wing, it would be hard to find room for Savea in this year’s test squad – but it’s not an impossible suggestion.

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Jon 8 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 10 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

40 Go to comments
A
Adrian 12 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

40 Go to comments
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