LONG READ Old mate Pablo Matera showed the back-row remains at the heart of Razor's All Blacks riddle

If the true test of love is time, then the ‘bromance’ between All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson and Argentina back-rower Pablo Matera has been a long time in the making. It began when Razor signed the feisty Puma for the Crusaders back in April 2021. There was an immediate attraction on both sides when Matera instructed his management team to make contact, after the demise of the Jaguares from Super Rugby.

“I have known the Crusaders since I was a young kid watching them on TV. I was really lucky to be able to play against them – something in Argentina we always thought was impossible.

“It was a dream come true being able to play against them, I never thought I was going to actually be able to play for them. I thought that the dream had already come true, but now there is something more to do.”

The feeling was entirely reciprocal, with Robertson repaying the Argentine’s admiration in full.

“Remember that grubber, the little kick down the sideline? It was beautiful. That was when I thought, ‘Jeez, he can really play’. There were a few nods in the coaching box, there was just full respect to him.

“What I really loved when Pablo mentioned one of the reasons he was coming over, was that he wanted to learn to be a better player. When I talked to a few of [our] leaders about the opportunity of him coming over, it was ‘Yes’, straight away. They didn’t hesitate.”

Even though they are now fighting their battles on opposite sides of the international divide, the flame that flickers between red and black and sky blue and white has not dimmed. If anything, it is burning more brightly than ever. Before the first game between the Silver Ferns and Los Pumas in the Estadio Mario Alberto Kempes in Córdoba, Robertson again referenced Matera’s talismanic value to his team.

“When Pablo turns up, Argentina turn up. He’s a hell of a player.

“[For us] Tupou Vaa’i has transitioned beautifully into six, and [DuPlessis] Kirifi is just starting his career [at seven], and these are the nights that you want to see someone like him go head-to-head.”

The truth is, over the past two games Matera remains a litmus test for the rugby judgements Robertson is making about the complexion of the All Blacks back-row. An Argentine is still central to the national planning in New Zealand.

Razor’s first experiment in Córdoba was to pair twin sevens together, in the shape of Kirifi and his hardy perennial Ardie Savea at number eight. At the José Amalfitani stadium in Buenos Aires one week later, Razor went big, with 6ft 6ins, 117kg rookie Simon Parker replacing Kirifi in the starting line-up and Savea shifting to the open-side flank.

There was little debate about how the two experiments turned out. The first was a success and the second was a failure and the review summary would have said ‘small is better’. The following three statistical categories are all related, directly or indirectly, to the back-row.

The general conclusion is Los Pumas were able to keep possession far better in the second game than the first, and that is Felipe Contepomi’s preferred method of achieving victory. Twenty-eight more rucks and a 10% rise in active possession time is a huge difference-maker in the kind of game Contepomi wants to play.

We can tie the general to the particular by referencing the ball-carrying performance of the two starting back-rows Argentina put on the field.

The figures may look roughly equivalent but the rise in tackle busts is important. In the first game number eight Joaquín Oviedo was the main man, accounting for 43m from 14 carries and making all three breaks and busts. In the second match Oviedo was ineffective on the carry and Matera’s shift to eight sparked Argentina’s best back-row period of the series, with Juan Martín González and Marcos Kremer bookending him for the last 34 minutes. Matera finished with 18 carries for 46m and no fewer than five tackle busts.

New Zealand’s back-row performance on defence deteriorated as the attacking execution of their opponents improved.

As New Zealand skipper Scott Barrett acknowledged after the event, “They [Argentina] showed more passion and intensity tonight. They got over the gain line, and we gave away too many penalties to feed their game; we were outclassed tonight.” His head coach added: “We fought our way back into the game, but we weren’t holding the ball for long periods of time.”

Where Argentina unearthed their best back-row in the course of the series, Robertson’s best combination at six, seven and eight is still very much up in the air, and a topic for tinkering with the sails of the world champions heaving into view.

Saturday’s game suggests the source of Razor’s uncertainty can be traced back to the presence of Vaa’i at six. While the emergence of young Fabian Holland in 2025 has been an unqualified success, it has also marginalised one of the super-strengths of Vaa’i’s game, the lineout. Over the two games against the Pumas, Holland had 15 takes on own-ball throw compared to Vaai’s four, and all of those came in the first game with Kirifi and Savea alongside him in the starting back-row.

If the big Chief is not going to be a key contributor at lineout time from six, what is the rationale for moving him there in the first place? The game in Buenos Aires raised some questions about his defence, most especially when Matera shifted to eight in the 46^th minute, but the early hints were already there.

In the first clip, the high reach tackle on Santiago Chocobares allows the Pumas to set up an ideal exit position well outside their own 22; in the second, Vaa’i looks nervous when he is isolated in short-side defence close to the goal line. The big man was subsequently sin-binned for slapping down a pass in the first part of the sequence, before being rolled back over the line by the combination of Pedro Delgado and Gonzalez for the try in the second. However great his talents as a rugby athlete and lineout forward, a truly hard-shouldered six he is not.

That picture came into even sharper focus when Robertson’s favourite Pablo moved into eight just after half-time.

In both instances, Vaa’i passes off Matera to the inside defender instead of jamming in and stopping him in his tracks as one part of a damaging double hit. The longer the second half went on, the more dominant Matera became on the carry, and the climax duly arrived in 59^th minute.

In the first clip, Vaa’i is once again left floundering, chasing shadows across field on another exit run by the Pumas six, but the ex-Crusaders favourite really has no business getting so close to a score himself from that midfield scrum. He is running off to the strong side of the New Zealand defence, with four backs and their biggest back-rower committed to the right side of the Argentine attack. In the event scrum-half Finlay Christie finally makes contact with Matera at the same time as Vaa’i, even though he has had to come the long way around from the opposite side of the set-piece to do it.

The relationship between Razor and Pablo started a long time ago. No matter how many back-rowers have passed through the system, no matter the countless number Robertson has played alongside and coached, there is a sense Pablo still holds a special place in his rugby lover’s heart. With his versatility and capacity to fill in at all three spots, Razor may secretly wish he has him available for duty in all black. Maybe.

As it is, Matera has done his old pal a favour, by showing up some hidden fault lines in Robertson’s selection policy over the past fortnight. With two natural sevens alongside him in the first Test at Cordoba, Vaa’i was able to play more of the game that comes naturally to such a gifted athlete; as part of the big back-row theory in Buenos Aires, not so much. With the sails of the world champions rolling across the horizon towards the shaky isles, will he stick at six, or move back to lock? Robertson should send Matera a postcard across the ocean, for giving him so many pointers towards the answer.