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Super Rugby PacificBluesHurricanesBeauden BarrettOtere Black

The Blues 'big mover' putting pressure on Beauden Barrett

By Online Editors
(Photo by Carl Fourie/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

By Patrick McKendry, NZ Herald

It appears that gone are the days when Blues players virtually selected themselves providing their form was adequate; Hoskins Sotutu's surprise early takeover of the No 8 jersey is evidence of that and Otere Black's form at first-five has now provided a relatively high benchmark for Beauden Barrett.

Sotutu, only 21, has been the find of the season so far with his explosive running and high work rate, although he will step aside this week to allow Akira Ioane to prove his credentials against the Hurricanes in Wellington.

It will be Ioane's first start of the season, an unusual situation for a man who started every game over the past two seasons.

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He was left at home in Auckland when the Blues went on their successful tour of South Africa where they beat the Bulls and Stormers and part of their recent success must be down to the increased competition for places in the squad.

Coach Leon MacDonald and before him Tana Umaga have long talked about creating that sort of healthy tension and now MacDonald seems to have found the right balance in terms of getting high levels of performance out of his men.

That's not always easy when expectations have to be managed and there will be scrutiny on Ioane's performance against the Hurricanes at Sky Stadium. Ioane was superb last year but the Blues (and All Blacks) coaches felt his performances dropped due to tiredness. That shouldn't be an issue this season.



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For Black, a late starter due to injury, the situation is a little different. The 24-year-old started his first game of the season against the Bulls in Pretoria and marked it by kicking a penalty after the final siren to seal a 23-21 victory.

A week later he kicked all seven shots at goal for a famous 33-14 victory over the Stormers in Cape Town.

He knows, however, that rival Barrett will start training with the Blues on Monday after a post-World Cup sabbatical and that the No 10 jersey may not be readily available for too much longer. All Black Barrett's first game is scheduled to be against his former team the Hurricanes at Eden Park on April 11.

But Black's form, and that of midfielders Joe Marchant, TJ Faiane, wing Mark Telea and loose forwards Sotutu, Tony Lamborn, Dalton Papalii, Blake Gibson and Tom Robinson means there is genuine competition for places at the Blues for probably the first time in a decade.

Assistant coach Tom Coventry will hope Black makes picking the wearer of the No 10 jersey as challenging as possible for selectors once Barrett is back.

"Otere has been a big mover for us," Coventry said. "He's kicking well – he nailed that penalty to win us the game in the last couple of minutes against the Bulls. He's directing us around the field marvellously and his composure at the moment is really high.



"He's going well and it's up for Beauden to come back in there and prove he's a better option than Oats at the moment. We're thrilled with the way Oats is going."

Black, who is also a former Hurricane, is looking forward to a Wellington return with the assistance of another playmaker – fullback Stephen Perofeta, who began the season as the Blues' No 10.

"A lot of teams are using that [dual playmaker] tactic these days and it's a big part of how we want to play. It definitely helps. He's been playing some awesome footy over the last couple of weeks and we want to build that combination.

"It's always tough coming up against Kiwi teams – it's always an exciting brand of rugby. I'm sure people love watching it. It will be an awesome challenge this weekend. The Canes are in pretty good form and we're looking forward to bringing some form back from Africa."

This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and was republished with permission.

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Latest Comments

'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'
J
JW 5 minutes ago

Turn it up. Give me your john A game would ya!

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Let's be real about these All Blacks
J
JW 10 minutes ago

I didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.


What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.


Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.


There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..

Whilst these All Blacks aren’t blowing teams off the park like during the 2010s, they are nuggety and resourceful and don’t wilt. They are prepared to win the hard way, accumulating points by any means necessary.

and..

The other top sides in the world struggled to put them away. France and South Africa both could have well been defeated on home soil.

I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍

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