LONG READ Are other All Blacks better suited to number six than Tupou Vaa'i?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and Steve Hansen probably still wishes he could take a ‘mulligan’ in the semi-final of the 2019 World Cup. One of the very few mistakes made in the golden era of All Black dominance was the selection of Scott Barrett at six for that game against Eddie Jones’ England.

The double World Cup winning coach had gambled on the big back-row and an assault on the English lineout, but the twin open-sides in the opposition [Tom Curry and Sam Underhill] carried the day. Hansen met the consequences of the misfire head-on in his post-match presser.

“If I turn round and say it backfired, then Scott is going to feel pretty average. So, I’m not going to turn around and say it backfired. I’ll take that one on the chin.

“Scott came out and played as well as he could. Did we want to win some more lineout ball? Yes, we did. But we didn’t. It takes more than one person to do that.

“If we had our time again, we might consider doing something different.”

That is probably as close as you will ever get to hearing an elite coach owning up to error. Since then, other All Blacks coaches have toyed with either the same, or similar ideas. ‘Scooter’ was back on the blindside for the first Test of the three-game series against Ireland in July 2022, with a new supremo, Hansen’s erstwhile assistant Ian Foster, extolling the virtues of starting the hybrid second/back row at six.

“If we look at the positives of it, apart from his set piece acumen – we know how good he is in that space – he’s also bringing a bruising defence and ball-carrying part to his game now.

“He’s probably our most dynamic lock ball-carrier at the moment. We can utilise that at number six.

“Scott finds a lot of the roles [between 4 and 6] very similar now, except for a couple of defensive tweaks that we’ve had to make sure we tidy up.”

Extra set-piece potential, heavier defence, more powerful ball-carrying. Ironically, in the current series against France, it is the Crusaders skipper who has for once been kept in the second row, where you suspect he enjoys life the most. This time around it is his 2024 partner Tupou Vaa’i who has been asked to make the shift to the back-row, with many of the same themes as before.

“The great thing about him is, [Tupou] has great footwork at the line, and you know he can hook it out the back late at the line, and he can tip the ball on to a good running line,” said All Blacks coach Scott Robertson.

“He’s a great defender too, which is a little bit further out and understanding and anticipating the game.

“It’s just reps for him, just a little bit of a change of his number on his back, all the core role stuff stays the same.”

You get the picture now. The All Blacks want to have their cake and eat it, with all the customary set-piece advantages of including an extra second row while hoping to stay on trend with the usual back-row chores. Moving Vaa’i to six also allowed ‘Razor’ to dip a toe in the water, and experiment with the biggest natural second row in New Zealand, 2.04m and 124kg Dutchman Fabian Holland. Holland looks like he could turn out to be a new age version of ‘the Guzzler’ himself, Brodie Retallick.

The set-piece part of the new pact in the back five certainly went to plan in the first two Tests, with the All Blacks winning 39 of their 40 lineout throws in relative comfort. The more interesting and subtle aspect of the comparison was how Holland and Vaa’i interacted with Christian Lio-Willie and Ardie Savea at numbers eight and seven respectively with ball in hand.

The basic idea is to commit Holland and Vaa’i to the cleanout at ruck time, while Savea and Lio-Willie shoulder most of the ball-carrying load. The theory worked well on occasion, especially when the All Black numbers seven and eight could combine with a very strong ball-carrying scrum-half in the shape of Cam Roigard.

It all works like clockwork: first Sava leading Roigard straight up the guts, then back on his feet for another pick-and-go play, followed by Lio-Willie with the option of Roigard for a second time. The cream on the cake was the interaction between seven, eight and nine from a driving lineout launch in Wellington.

The three locks all form part of the lineout ball-winning mechanics, and that leaves Savea, Lio-Willie and Roigard to perform an intricate choreography in the ball-using department. The ‘spray’ pattern works perfectly, with the Crusaders number eight drawing the defence to the open side with a fake, while the two ex- or current Hurricanes go blind virtually unopposed.

There was another magnificent moment at Sky Stadium when it all clicked into place, and the power of Savea set up Holland and Vaa’i for the open-field running to which they are best suited.

There was also a new division of responsibilities from lineout: Savea and Lio-Willie on consecutive carries to the wide side of the field, with Holland staying out of the carrying equation as one of their principal cleanout supports and Vaa’i remaining resolutely short-side for plays coming back to the near touchline.

In the first Test, it was in this facet of the attack that raised one of the questions about the selection of Vaa’i at number six.

New Zealand has always been one the best countries in the world – perhaps the best – at exploiting short side; at running plays into midfield from lineout, then boomeranging back to the near side touch with late movement by a group of reassembled backs. With Savea and Lio-Willie committed to the opposite side of the field, Vaa’i is not powerful enough to convince the French defence of the threat he offers as a runner, which means they can push straight on to the back behind him, Beauden Barrett.

The backs in the second line can only operate effectively in the confined space on a skinny short side if the forward in front of them presents an active threat, on both the carry and the pass.

When Roigard did make a clean break straight up the middle of the field in Dunedin from a tapped penalty, it was Scott Barrett rather than Vaa’i whose reactions more closely resembled those of a back-row forward.

Of the pair, Barrett is the quicker to react to Roigard’s movement and accelerate into close support, with Vaa’i looking relatively one-paced behind him and arriving too late to impact a turnover by France at the ensuing ruck.

If there is a rugby equivalent to famed soccer coach, the Italian ‘Tinker-man’ Claudio Ranieri, he would be having a field day with the selection of the current All Blacks back row, especially in the absence of the multi-dimensional Wallace Sititi at either number eight or six. Robertson is the third national supremo to experiment with a lock on the flank against northern hemisphere opponents in recent times, and with every repetition the jury remains stubbornly out.

The combination of Vaa’i, Holland and Scott Barrett at six, five and four looked suspect in Dunedin, but the addition of Patrick Tuipulotu for Barrett in Wellington clarified roles and helped oiled the wheels. Perhaps the underlying question is this: Barrett and Vaa’i formed probably the best second r0w partnership in the world in 2024, with Vaa’i filling a real hole in national selection. So why move him now? Is this really ‘the All Black way’?

There are plenty of high-quality back-row hybrids chafing at the bit for a chance – Dalton Papali’i, Peter Lakai, Ethan Blackadder and Luke Jacobson foremost among them, not to mention a specialist six in the form of Samipeni Finau. Du Plessis Kirifi is raring to go on the other side. The bell Ranieri used to ring for his players could be tolling now: “Dilly-ding, dilly-dong, wake up, wake up!”