Schmidt's Suaalii chess piece can swing the Bledisloe in Wallabies favour

If it wasn’t clear and obvious before, it is now: the All Blacks‘ aerial woes are disastrous with no signs of abating.

After the meltdown in Buenos Aires, the All Blacks were equally as poor at Eden Park at defusing opposition kicks despite winning 24-17 against the Springboks.

Both sides struggled under the high ball, the tight win masked over how there was no improvement by Scott Robertson’s side in this area of the game.

Black Ferns captain Kennedy Tukuafu after defeat to Canada

Black Ferns captain Kennedy Tukuafu after defeat to Canada

Will Jordan, Beauden Barrett and Jordie Barrett all struggled to defuse opposition kicks, with Damian McKenzie a rare bright spot. After Wellington, the aerial issues compounded into total backfield mismanagement. The ones they did take were thrown away via bad passes or offered up as turnovers with pinned isolated carries.

As the Bledisloe Cup series looms, the Wallabies have one man who can shape the entire series and target the All Blacks’ Achilles heel in the air, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii.

The 6’5 centre is an aerial weapon that can replicate the tactics that worked so well for the Springboks in Wellington.

Much was made of the Springboks attack in the win at Sky Stadium, but most of their high tempo attacking play actually came in the first half. They demolished the All Blacks in the second half with a more conservative recipe of high balls and continual turnovers, and playing off the back of that momentum. A second half barrage of high balls was the catalyst for the record 33-point loss.

Central to that plan was Canan Moodie, who was playing centre. The Springboks used Moodie as the kick chaser multiple times up the middle to go and fetch Mannie Libbok’s bombs, which he did.

Moodie on McKenzie became a height mismatch that continually won ball for the Boks, while the other catchers also struggled to go one-on-one with Moodie.

Australia has a ready-made player to replicate some of the success of Moodie with Suaalii. In his Test debut at Twickenham, the No.13 was sent to retrieve short kick offs from the restarts and from chip kicks over the back line. We saw a highlight-reel offload from Suaalii while still in the air after climbing high over an England player.

The Wallabies have used Suaalii’s height before and now they have the perfect opponent to utilise them again in search of history at Eden Park.

Oddly, Beauden Barrett and Will Jordan have struggled the most during this Rugby Championship in the catch area, two of the tallest members of the back line. Suaalii has two to three inches on both of them.

Many have suggested promoting Caleb Clarke into the starting side as a solution, but that won’t solve the problem. The left wing will chase high balls but not receive them in the All Blacks’ system. The 10 and 15 are responsible for patrolling the backfield on defence with the wings playing high in the line.

The All Blacks tried swapping Jordie Barrett into the backfield on defence as a solution at times, but this didn’t have any meaningful success.

The only other option the All Blacks have is Ruben Love, who was oddly subbed into the last game against the Springboks on the left wing with 20 minutes to go. Love has not played left wing ever at professional level before that game.

We haven’t yet seen how Love would handle the high ball but he’s a superb athlete with gifted hand-eye co-ordination.

But the odds are that either McKenzie, Barrett and Jordan will be picked again given Robertson’s conservative selection style.

Australia could be seduced into overplaying their running game against the All Blacks, given the success of their high recycle, low offload system under Joe Schmidt.

But the formula that has worked so far in 2025 against the All Blacks is to arrest control of the game through the air first. Suaalii is the piece of the puzzle who can do that for the Wallabies.